Our copywriter sent me this essay on the topic of “Cultural Imprinting” this week. Published by social psychology writer Kevin Simler back in 2014, it argues that ads don’t work through individual manipulation but through changing culture, mainly using mass media and OOH advertising to drive peer pressure.
For example, when I walk through Piccadilly Circus and see a giant billboard, I’m conscious of the fact that millions of other passers-by have also looked at it. When I watched Squarespace’s Super Bowl ad, I knew that millions of others were watching it too.
As Simler puts it, “Cultural imprinting is the mechanism whereby an ad, rather than trying to change our minds individually, instead changes the landscape of cultural meanings—which in turn changes how we are perceived by others when we use a product. Whether you drink Corona, Heineken, or Budweiser ‘says’ something about you…
“In this way, cultural imprinting relies on the principle of common knowledge. For a fact to be common knowledge among a group, it’s not enough for everyone to know it. Everyone must also know that everyone else knows it—and know that they know that they know it… and so on.
“So for an ad to work by cultural imprinting, it’s not enough for it to be seen by a single person, or even by many people individually. It has to be broadcast publicly, in front of a large audience. I have to see the ad, but I also have to know (or suspect) that most of my friends have seen the ad too.”
Worth a read.
