Fourteen Lectures on Consumer Psychology

Chapter 6 The Role of Repetition

A flash of something is hard to impress, but a direct, monotonous, simple, rude repetition can have a surprising effect on attracting attention.Repetition can deepen memory, stimulate consumers' subconsciousness, and form a psychological tendency at the subconscious level, prompting consumers to buy "familiar" products.

repetition attracts attention

Whether it's because of the inherent shortcomings of those methods or because consumers are too focused on their own world, if none of the methods mentioned above can help us grab consumers' attention, we need to resort to another method: repetition. .Direct, monotonous, simple, rude repetition can also have a surprising effect on attracting attention.This phenomenon is described by an idiom, that is, "dripping water wears away the stone".

Phenomena in life all illustrate the role of repetition.When we are deeply asleep, one or two sounds cannot wake us up, but if this sound continues to appear, it will eventually penetrate our deep unconsciousness and wake us up.But when we think about all this, the content of the sound that appears in our minds is very unclear (like floating on the edge of a mental stream, unable to see clearly), but its repeated form impresses us profound.

To explain why repetition is so powerful, it is necessary to understand the structure of the brain and nervous system and figure out what factors affect the brain.We know that information needs to enter the brain through some fixed pathways. These pathways sometimes do not allow new information to pass through, but when the information is repeated many times, they will naturally open the way to allow information to enter the brain.

Regarding the role of repetition, psychologists have another explanation: the gullible nature of human beings makes it very easy for him to believe anything he hears.To counteract this instinct, the adult develops an instinct to suppress and avoid new information, which ensures that he is less easily deceived.To break through this natural line of defense, a salesman needs to keep repeating.In the use of repeated methods to promote sales, Unida Biscuits set an example.Consumers may ignore the name of the biscuit once or twice, but under the influence of repeated advertisements, after a period of time, he will remember the name of the biscuit and feel that he needs a box of biscuits, and then he will purchase it.

It is this compulsive force of repetition that ensures the important position of poster advertisements in the modern publishing industry.Many companies choose to advertise on street billboards, movie theaters and other places that seem unlikely to immediately influence consumers to buy products, just hoping to keep the product name and image constantly appearing in front of the public, creating a cumulative effect. And then at some appropriate time to promote consumers to buy the product.During the World Wars, although many companies had sold all their products to the government, they were not slack in their advertising campaigns. They hoped that their continuous and repeated appearances in front of the public would ensure their place in the hearts of consumers.This behavior seems wasteful, but it is very useful from the perspective of consumer psychology.

repetition strengthens memory
Repetition not only has the function of attracting consumers' attention, but also imprints product information in consumers' minds.As we all know, salesmen not only hope to convey product information to consumers, but also hope to engrave the information in consumers' minds, so that those information will continue to encourage consumers to buy their products.The forgetting of consumers will wash product information from the center of the creek of mental activity to the edge of the creek, and non-stop repetition can allow consumers to overcome forgetting.

repeat interval

Repetitions with different intervals have different effects on memory.By constantly repeating information, consumers' memory of advertisements can be extended.

The hypothetical situation in which an advertisement is placed in a monthly magazine facilitates our principle.If you want to publish eight advertisements in the same periodical, in order to produce the best marketing effect, which eight magazines should you choose to publish the advertisements?Our options are as follows: be published in the last eight consecutive issues at the end of the year, in the first eight consecutive issues at the beginning of the year, or choose four issues each at the beginning of the year and four at the end of the year.Although it is impossible to determine which of the above three situations is the best, we can make a reasonable inference based on some conclusions obtained from psychological experiments.

Through the study of the law of memory, psychologists have found that once things form memories in the mind, the speed of forgetting is different-the speed of forgetting is very fast at first, then gradually slows down, and after a certain period of time, it is almost no longer forgotten .A large part of human learning content is almost instantly forgotten, but the remaining small part will remain permanently (as shown by the line segment AB).

It's hard to imagine how this abstract memory curve could help us pinpoint when to post an ad.We designed a schedule of recurring ads by memory.Forgetting happens very quickly initially, so the time between initial advertisements is relatively short.After the speed of forgetting stabilizes in the later stage, the frequency of publishing advertisements will be less intensive, but they will continue to be released according to the regular time interval.The general principle is that the number and cycle of advertisement repetitions are adapted to the quantity and frequency of memory materials acquired by the human brain.so as to achieve our goal.

This schedule cannot be considered an experimentally proven solution for all situations.At present, its effectiveness has only been verified in the laboratory. Whether it can be used in commercial activities, such as advertising, sales or personal relationship building, has yet to be tested in long-term experiments.Until experiments give definitive results, the above design can only be considered as a reasonable hypothesis.

unconscious memory

When we look at the relationship between repetition and memory, it is important to note the role that "unconscious memory" plays in sales.While a salesman cannot guarantee that his product will always be at the center of consumers' attention, there is no need to despair of selling.

Psychologists have discovered that a mysterious awareness at the edge of a creek of mental activity can have surprising effects on mental activity. "The mind is always changing, and sometimes humans are not aware of this change until the final result of the change is clearly presented in consciousness. At this time, people will notice this new idea or many new ideas."

Coleridge wrote a vivid passage about the subconscious mind:

I came across a similar example before the topic was so popular.That was a year or two ago in Göttingen—a small, deeply Roman Catholic town in Germany.An illiterate girl about 24 or [-] years old was tormented by nervous fever. According to local priests and monks, she was possessed by a devil, and she was also a very learned devil.

She spoke articulate Latin, Greek, and Hebrew incessantly in an exaggerated intonation.This condition of being possessed by a demon is often considered a punishment for heretics.Had Voltaire been present, he would have slyly suggested that the apparition of the possessed girl communicate with the doctors.Later, a young doctor was attracted by this situation, and he invited many well-known psychologists and doctors to the town to jointly diagnose the disease.

The girl's crazy words were recorded, and people were surprised to find that these "crazy words" were complete sentences, and these sentences had a complete structure, and each sentence had a separate meaning, but there was no relationship between the sentences.Except for a small part of those Hebrew sentences from the Bible, the rest are in Hebrew dialects.The chances of a girl pretending to be sick are almost non-existent.Because as a maid, she has been switching between the two families all year round, and she is not familiar with these languages.Moreover, judging from her painful appearance, she was indeed severely tormented by nervous fever.

The girl was too febrile and confused to give a full account of her early life, so the young doctor decided to investigate on his own.He managed to discover the place where the girl's parents used to live, and went there himself, only to find that the girl's parents were dead long ago, but she still had an uncle alive.From her uncle, the doctor knew that the girl had been adopted by a Protestant priest when she was nine years old.She lived with the pastor until the pastor's death.

The girl's uncle knew nothing except that the priest was a good man.After going through untold hardships, the doctor finally found the niece of the pastor. She used to be the pastor's housekeeper and was deeply influenced by the pastor.She remembered the girl, when his uncle doted on the child so much that he couldn't bear to let her cough.She would have liked to take care of the girl all the time, but after the pastor died, the girl left anyway.The doctor asked the pastor about his personal situation and living habits, and then he understood the reason for the girl's strange illness.

The reason may have been this: the pastor had the habit of walking up and down the passage facing the kitchen door every evening.He often reads his favorite books aloud while walking.His niece, who still has some of them, said that the old pastor was a man of great learning, especially in Hebrew.

In the pile of books left by the pastor, the doctor found a pile of manuscripts written in Hebrew and many books in Greek and Latin.In addition, he also found that many of the sick girl's "crazy words" were passages from those books.At this point, the reason why the girl suffered from the strange disease became clear.

This example describes the situation when the power of the unconscious mind is developed to an extreme.A consumer may not be interested in an advertisement at first, but after the advertisement is repeated many times, it will leave an impression in his mind and influence him to buy this product at a certain point in the future.You can recall whether something similar happened to you based on the following passage:

When you see oil spreads, chewing gum, cough syrup, cameras, watches, stockings, roof paint, and talcum powder, what's the first brand name that pops into your mind?You're bound to think of those names that appear most often on car body ads, roadside billboards, newspaper and magazine ads.If a consumer buys a certain brand of goods for the first time, he will tend to buy the same brand of goods every time in the future.Although in daily life, he may not have noticed that he recognized the exaggerated brand names in the advertisements, but his subconscious mind remembered those contents.It is the subconscious that guides him to choose "familiar" products without hesitation when he wants to buy goods.This is why many brands advertise anywhere, anytime.

In addition to attracting consumers' attention and impressing them, repetition can affect sales in other ways.It will affect the later stages of building confidence and making decisions, but before analyzing the following stages, let us first discuss the issue of interest in sales.

(End of this chapter)