Fourteen Lectures on Consumer Psychology

Chapter 4 From what aspects attract consumers' attention (1)
All successful sales start with attracting the attention of customers.Consumers' psychological activities are like a flowing stream, complex and constantly changing. How can we attract consumers' attention?Using stimulating objects, bulky objects, moving objects, and brightly colored objects will help you achieve your goals better.

The previous lecture compared the psychological activities of consumers to a flowing stream with complex content.This lecture will describe and explain the flowing stream.To better achieve this, we divided the creek in cross-section into several stages, and examined the contents of each stage carefully under a psychological microscope.

The first stage of mental activity creek is how to get attention.Attracting the attention of consumers can be said to be the top priority of salesmen.Usually, this step is very difficult to complete.Because consumers are often immersed in their own world, thinking about issues that are closely related to their lives, in this case their mental activity stream is slow and calm.Therefore, it is very difficult for a salesman to try to deliver a new thing, even the image and concept of a foreign product, into the minds of consumers and interrupt the natural flow of his mental activities.The salesman must insert the concept or image of that product accurately into the stream of consumer mental activity, instead of leaving it stranded on the bank, otherwise the consumer will not notice the product at all.

How easy it is for a salesman to achieve the above goals depends to a large extent on the degree of investment in the consumer's thinking at the time and the content of his thinking.For example, when they sit idly on the bus, looking from one commercial to another, the stream of their mental activity flows slowly.In this case, the salesman can easily attract their attention.

It is also the case that when consumers are preparing a trade in the stock market or watching an intense football game, the stream of mental activity is surging.In these cases, it is difficult for consumers to be attracted by other things.What is more difficult to attract consumers' attention than the above situation is that the products are full of strangeness to consumers.At this time, the salesman needs to make necessary explanations before selling, so that consumers can recognize and accept this product.This will be discussed in detail in later chapters.

However, no matter how difficult it may be, successful sales must start with attracting attention.Therefore, we have to learn some tips to attract consumers' attention.

There is no one way to deal with all the different velocities of the mental streams, or to apply to all merchandising and advertising.However, the use of certain factors has proven to be very effective in attracting consumers' attention.

Strong stimulation
The first effective factor is a strong stimulus.In general, humans are sensitive to objects with strong stimuli, such as bright lights, loud sounds, strong smells, great pressure, extreme problems, and sharp pains.

Before we can ascertain the mechanism and source of this factor's action, we must clearly know why objects with strong stimulating properties attract our attention.From a historical perspective, we can assume that individual human beings have inherited some commonalities of human beings from generation to generation, that is, the ability or action tendency of human ancestors to adapt to specific environmental conditions.

Human beings have always been concerned about factors that affect their standard of living or health, for example, strong light can make them unable to open their eyes, and loud noises may tear their eardrums.Individuals unresponsive to these factors are bound to be injured or killed, so vigilance against highly irritating objects means extended life.Thus, this habit of maintaining attention to objects with strong stimuli is deeply rooted in everyone's bone marrow and passed down from generation to generation.

Many habits of consumers can also be said to arise from genetic traits.In the next stage, we will devote a lecture to discussing this issue.So put that question aside for now.This lecture only discusses why some specific objects are very easy to attract consumers' attention.

This law tells us a trick to enter the river of consumers' psychological activities: put a product in front of consumers that can bring them a strong sense of stimulation.In ancient times, towns often used bells to notify residents to assemble, and fishmongers used horns to attract customers' attention.Now, advertisers are using screaming billboards instead.

Presumably because highly stimulating objects tend to come across as vulgar, salesmen who like to use personal touches to sell rarely use these objects to attract their potential customers.But if a salesman can use stimuli gracefully without being intrusive, the odds of grabbing a potential customer's attention are greatly increased.

Breadth
The second factor that attracts consumers' attention is breadth, which is often referred to as volume, size and weight.Consumers' attention is easily attracted by huge objects.When people are lost in their own thoughts, it is easy to ignore small objects dangling around, but it is different with large objects.It is difficult for a car driving on a country road to ignore the huge billboards erected on the side of the road.It is also difficult for pedestrians to ignore the huge billboards standing on the side of the road and pointing to the sky.

In addition to its role of attracting attention by stimulating the senses, the sheer size of an object has another role.It is very easy for consumers to equate the quality of a product with its size, and believe that there is an inevitable connection between the huge size and good quality. When they see a person driving a big car and wearing a big diamond ring, they will judge that he is rich. people.Americans are like this, often confused by a sense of enormity.They equate greatness with greatness and think America is the greatest country in the world.Typical American cities boast of their size, their long avenues, and sometimes even the huge debts they have incurred to improve the lives of the public.

There is another psychological motivation involved in the pursuit of enormity.When looking at a relatively large object, people tend to think it is bigger than it actually is.People tend to exaggerate the size, volume and weight of objects. For example, when describing a diamond, someone will say "it is as big as a pigeon's egg".

This human habit may not be very practical, but it is indeed part of human nature.People who want to influence the minds of others need to take this human nature into account.The idea of ​​why humans are attracted to highly stimulating objects can be used to explain why humans tend to pay attention to large objects.In fact, this human nature is a rational choice (perhaps instinct) to maintain survival.In order to ensure that they can escape before a fatal attack, ancient humans must always pay attention to whether objects larger than themselves suddenly appear around them.

Wherever this habit of being attracted to large objects comes from, it has great lessons for salesmen.This tendency of human beings tells the salesman that he can increase the success rate of sales by enlarging the area or volume.The following example of successful sales has set a good example for us. "There is no one in the world who understands the power of 'big' advertising better than William Wrigley Jr. As early as the 20s, he spent $20 million to launch a worldwide campaign in eight languages. His 'ad campaign'."

"Under his astronomical contract, 6200 streets, subways, and running tram cars across the United States have hung his billboards. Even his dazzling billboards are hung over Times Square in New York. Only this one advertisement, Wrigley pays $10.4 a year."

"He collected telephone directories across the country and mailed 150 samples of chewing gum to each of the 4 million users listed there. A few years later, he did the same marketing again, and this time he mailed the gum to as many households as Seven million households. This year, he spent more than $700 million on advertising."

The example of his successful sales with the "big advertisement" gave a lot of inspiration to later advertisers.Since then, the rapid development of the advertising industry has generally demonstrated the strategy of using large advertisements to attract consumers, and the number of such advertisements has increased rapidly.

Variety
The third factor that grabs attention is change.Change is often surprisingly successful in attracting attention.Changes can be in any form of content, such as: intensity changes, size changes, or stimulus source changes.This can be illustrated by something in everyday life: only when the clock stops do we notice that it has ever passed.

(End of this chapter)