Just by reading the title of this blog, you’ve probably made some connection to the famous Shakespearean play, Hamlet. This association is an example of a psychology principle known as priming. It’s the principle we’re going to explore this week to learn a bit more about one of the ways marketers influence us and get all in our head!

According to Psychology Today, priming is “a phenomenon in which exposure to one stimulus influences how a person responds to a subsequent, related stimulus” (Priming, n.d.) For example, lets say two groups of people read the word “yellow”. The first group is then given the following word “banana”, and the second group is given the word “sky”. Because people have a semantic association between the fruit and its color, the “yellow-banana” group will recognize the word “banana” faster than the “yellow-sky” group recognizes “sky.” But how is the principle of priming used in marketing? Let’s look at 3 ways they use it for marketing psychology!

Direct Attribute Priming

Direct attribute Priming is a way to create associations and heighten the importance of a products strengths. One way to achieve direct attribute priming is by asking a direct  question. For example, researchers approached customers in the Apple store, who entered to buy a new phone. Half of the customers were asked what their memory needs were, and the other half were asked what their processor needs were. This was a straightforward question, which had a massive impact on the customers.

The group that was asked about memory bought phones with higher memory, and the group that was asked about processor speed bought phones with higher processor speeds. The customers put more weight on these features, just by being asked a simple question which affected their purchases when it came to a buying decision. (Schoen, 2021)

Indirect Attribute Priming

Indirect attribute priming is another method that marketers use to help nudge us towards a particular purchase. With indirect attribute priming, instead of making a target client focus on particular attributes of a product, marketers work to create an atmosphere that encourages a certain type of experience, behavior, or purchase. (Maksimova, 2022)

An example of this is a restaurant wanting to increase its sales of French wine. A way the restaurant could indirectly prime its customers towards ordering French wine is by playing French music in the background. Indirect attribute priming can be as simple as playing particular types of music or using words to stir subconscious associations.

Brand Priming

Finally, brand priming, is when the name or logo of a brand influences a person’s immediate thoughts or actions. (Lu, 2020) A few examples of brand priming are:

Red Bull primes for energy and speed.
A Boston College study looked at the impact of logos on a video racing game. Evey racecar has a brand with a different company logo. Red Bull’s logo had already primed players to have more energy and be faster if they chose that particular brand. The study showed consumers felt the Red Bull logo could actually “give them wings” in the race and make them faster.

Nike primes for feelings of achievement and exercise.
Nike uses elite athletes in their promotions and employs taglines such as “Just Do It” to show the athletes’ strength and perseverance. When someone starts a new sport or wants to get fit, they think of Nike products as something that helps them achieve their goals. (Gabriel, 2021)

Even colors can be used for brand priming. Colors have different meanings and psychological associations. The image below shows the meaning different colors have and some brands that use specific colors for specific reasons.

So whether you hear French music at a restaurant and order French wine or buy a pair of Nike shoes for motivation to exercise, marketers have used priming in some way to help get you to that purchase. Now that you know a bit more about priming, which type of priming do you think was used for the title of this blog?

 

 

References:

Priming. (n.d.). Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/priming

Gabriel. (2021, February 25). The Power Of Priming In Marketing – A Great Tool For Advertising. Digital Marketing Agency – ALLDGT. Retrieved January 23, 2023, from https://alldgt.com/priming-in-marketing/

Schoen, K. (2021, July 5). Priming vs. Framing in Marketing. HALCON Marketing. https://www.halconmarketing.com/post/priming-vs-framing-in-marketing

Maksimova, T. (2022, January 22). Priming: Where Psychology Meets Marketing – Better Marketing. Medium. https://bettermarketing.pub/priming-where-psychology-meets-marketing-71663c2637ca

Lu, L. (2020, August 21). Brand Priming – BMB. BMB: Brand Marketing Blog. https://brandmarketingblog.com/articles/branding-definitions/brand-priming/