Book review: SOLD ON LANGUAGE
How advertisers talk to you & what this says about you
Genres:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Linguistics
- Marketing
Review posted on:
17.01.2019
The number of pages:
336 pages
Book rating:
3/5
Year the book was published:
First edition published 2011
Who should read this book:
- Marketers, Copywriters, People in sales, and people in leadership roles.
Why did I pick up this book and what did I expect to get out of it:
The language we use influences our lives more than you or I are aware of. The language that we use shapes our culture, as also our culture shapes how the language evolves. It’s a never-ending loop, but how each part evolves can be influenced. In Sold on Language I expect that the authors Julie Sedivy and Greg Carlson will share their findings on how language affects our everyday lives, how it is being used to influence us, and also I hope they provide some case studies or at least some simple examples of when specifics words or set of words were used to influence people to achieve a wanted outcome.
My thoughts about the book:
In Sold on Language Julie Sedivy and Greg Carlson didn’t have an easy job weaving together a broad range of research and case studies to point out how much of our behavior is influenced unconsciously by the words used in different media. The authors slowly unpack many tricks, traps, and tips marketers use to influence you and me. This book is in no way an easy read as it is filled with much research based on linguistics, and that is great as it provides credibility that the authors actually researched the subject matter and that the content in the book is not just their guesses and beliefs. So if you don’t mind a bit of academic-style written content then this is definitely a gem, but if you are looking for an easy-to-read book, you will find yourself struggling and powering through some sections of the book to get to the juicy parts.
Let me share with you just one example of what kind of case studies the authors share in the book:
In 1928 the American Tobacco Company was doing roaring business selling cigarettes to men, but women could not be induced to smoke under any circumstances. The First World War, of course, changed all notions of traditional gender roles. The 1920s were a time of intense movements demanding equality for women- be it the right to vote or, as it would turn out, the right to smoke. There were several challenges to getting women to embrace the cigarette as a symbol of their freedom, the foremost being the social stigma attached to it. Only sly, devious, and ‘characterless’ women were shown to be smoking on screen. So Eddie Bernays found out from a psychoanalyst that for some women cigarettes could be seen as “torches of freedom”. So Bernays decided to get a list of 30 debutantes from a friend at Vogue magazine and send each of them a telegram, signed by his secretary telling them that in the interest of equality of the sexes and to fight another sex taboo women should “light another torch of freedom” by smoking cigarettes while strolling on a certain alley at a certain time. The recruitment effort picked up 10 willing debutantes. Bernay alerted the papers of what is going to happen and so the story ended up on the front pages of the newspapers the next day. Sales for the cigarette company doubled from 1923 to 1929.
If you pick up this book please let me know what you think of it in the comment section.
My notes from the book:
- Layering associations onto your product not only helps you sell it but actually seems to add perceived value to it – you can get away with charging more in exchange for the symbolism you’ve created. The value is not just in the product but in what the product’s brand name represents.
- If you compare two products with the same function, but in very different price ranges (Cadillac, Ford), you’ll tend to find that the more expensive the product is, the more likely it is to be sold in a way that emphasizes how it makes you feel.
- Priming studies reliably show that it’s easier to recognize a word when it comes on the heels of a related one.
- Words are deeply entangled in complex networks of memories and associations.
- Words seem to prime more than just their associated words, they also prime their associated actions and cognitive processes.
- Negative emotions are easier to manipulate through subliminal priming. This may be related to the fact that in many cases people tune in more strongly to negative information than positive information.
- Humans are equipped with an instinctive orienting response to sudden movements, unexpected events, and loud noises. This kind of orienting response can be cleverly explored as a way to forcibly attract your attention.
- Flashing lights and sudden movements, unexpected or incongruent images can trigger an orienting response even before you are aware of what they are.
- When people push ad messages into the realm of peripheral thinking, they can be swayed by incredibly superficial “reasons”. The better the justification, the better the odds that the request will be granted. But when the requestee is thinking peripherally, what counts as justification is pretty minimal, and almost any reason decorated by the word “because” will do.
- Peripheral thinking rewards persuasive messages that use superficial cues, many of which we are not consciously aware of. Look for situations where people use peripheral thinking. Messages that focus on building a decent argument and presenting solid evidence are at a competitive disadvantage in this environment.
- If you are creating a campaign for a mediocre product, and can’t make a strong case for it, get the consumer to think peripherally the easiest way to do this is by distracting them.
- Most of the things that create fun in an ad and that actually draw our attention to it in the first place also keeps us from thinking too deeply about it.
- The metaphor of memory as a storehouse is fairly accurate. Thinking of memories as photographs or video recordings of events that you have experienced and they start to fade with time. But only some of the details of the actual events make it in – sometimes “things” get in that weren’t part of the event at all, and some “things” get lost. The memory movies we experience aren’t actual recordings of the events – they are more like shows recreated with what we lost or put in.
- When people are not certain about what they remember they alter their memory if they read or hear presupposition and take “fact” from them as “taken for granted”.
- When altering memories first tell true facts, so it is more familiar to your subject and then follow with what you want to alter.
- A presupposition is powerful in part because it communicates that certain information is presumed to be shared and generally agreed upon. Sticking “people know this” tag on an idea makes it very hard for someone to reject it.
- What people think others are doing – whether or not they ever see them doing it – shapes their behavior.
- When trying to influence people's behavior keep in mind that pointing out bad behavior actually invites people to do bad things and pointing out good behavior invites people to behave well.
- Conformity levels are higher in countries that tend to emphasize the importance of groups and communities and lower in countries that put great value on individual choice and achievements.
- Keep in mind that “the message is in what the listener hears, and not what the speaker says.”
- People are willing to accept greater responsibility for their understanding of implied meanings than literal ones.
- There are stable relationships between people’s goals and identities and the products they buy.
- When a place becomes linked with identity, people often choose to live among those who are similar to them, leading to the paradoxical outcome that the more freedom people exercise over where they live, the more segregated the landscape becomes.
- Traits might get transmitted socially through people’s interactions with each other. Personality affects not just how people think and feel, but also what they do. People's actions are often socially contagious.
- Interacting with like-minded people doesn’t just reinforce your point of view – it actually shifts it to a more extreme position.
- In most situations, then, it seems that the more surrounded we are by like-minded people, the less we act as individuals.
- Audience targeting is not just about where advertisers talk to you, but also how they talk to you.
- Laying your best facts on the table would never win you a persuasion contest. What matters is making the right imprints on people’s minds.
- It’s not about what you say, it’s what people hear that counts.
- The right choice of words can throw a spotlight on some facts, and sweep others into the dim corners of the stage. When different words for the same facts are used, pulling these words from our memories pulls out different sets of memories and different links to other words and ideas.
- Because metaphors turn on memories of experiences, they can also play a role in triggering not just a specific set of thoughts but also a specific set of feelings.
- “Push polls” – tactic masqueraded as polls, but their real function is to influence voters, not gather information from them.
