‘5 problems, 1 solution’ and boom, you’ve bought that product without even realising if you had any of those 5 problems in the first place. But that’s what ‘the science of marketing’ does. The economic development of a nation, however, is greatly driven by marketing. Marketing drives a consumer economy, promoting goods and services and targeting consumers most likely to become buyers. Higher sales for a business that employs successful marketing strategies translate into expansion, job creation, higher tax revenue for governments and eventually overall economic growth. The essence of marketing is to attract consumers but a lot of advertisement campaigns do so by tapping into the irrationality of consumers. The profit-making manipulative marketing techniques of the businesses focus on catalyzing the irrational decisions of the consumers.
It can be said that behavioural economics and irrationality biases may be some of the favourite subjects of marketers. Marketers use psychological biases to drive the decision of the consumers, tricking them into buying their products. Some of the psychological games played by the marketers with the consumers are:-
Decoy Effect
When a firm sets the price of one good deliberately high or introduces a fairly low quality product in the same price range in order to make other goods appear of good value and attractive, it is called decoy effect.
e.g.: In 2017, Apple Incorporation launched iPhone 8, iPhone 8 plus and iPhone X. iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus were not much different from iPhone 7, making customers less excited for it, and iPhone X was available at a fairly high price. So, it is believed that in order to boost up the sale of iPhone X, iPhone 8 Plus was used as a ‘Decoy’ which was inferior in quality to iPhone X.
Anchoring
Human mind has a tendency to get unduly affected by the first piece of information received not considering the value of an option based on its intrinsic value. We tend to compare the different options available against one another but fail to introspect that we have our thoughts anchored already on the first bit of misleading information provided.
e.g.: Businesses use the option of sale as an anchoring effect as our mind compares the sale price against the original and thinking it to be a bargain, we purchase the product.
Sense of Urgency
Marketers force the customers to make an early purchase by creating a falsified situation of urgency for the product.
e.g.: ABC Co. offers a course on Financial Modelling and the sales executives communicate to the potential buyers that a discount of 50% is available for 12 hours from now and creates situation where the customer has to take a prompt decision.
Playing with numbers
Marketers try to use ways to make the customer’s spending less painful for them by playing around with numbers.
e.g.: Many brands use pricing of rupees 999 or 499, etc. rather than figures like rupees 1,000 or 500 to manipulate the customers by making it seem not so expensive.
Loss Aversion
People have the tendency to believe that avoiding losses is more significant than acquiring gains. Marketers use this psychology to boost up their sales.
e.g.: When people see taglines like ‘Buy one, Get one free’, they are very much affected by the word ‘Free’ as when something comes at a price of zero, our normal cost/benefit analysis is sabotaged.
It is often difficult for consumers to always take rational decisions but by knowing some of these techniques and more, one can atleast try to alert themselves into conscious consumerism rather than falling prey to such marketing gimmicks. On the part of marketers as well, it is very necessary to opt for ethical and conscious marketing techniques to have a loyal customer base. Ethical marketing refers to the use of such marketing techniques which are non-misleading, beneficial for social causes and ethical in every form. In a world driven by so many stereotypes and discriminations, marketing can be used to press a lasting and profound impact to curb socially harmful mindset. But to our dismay, businesses do not understand this need entirely and thus advertisements normalizing issues like inequality, racism, unhealthy life practices, etc. are still being shown. Advertisers often utilize already existing deep-seated ideologies in society and base their commercials on them.
The recent incident of Hindustan Unilever changing the name of its beauty cream from ‘Fair and Lovely’ to ‘Glow and Lovely’ in response to a global backlash against racial prejudice, met with a lot of critical opinions. Critics characterized the decision as merely a cosmetic change for a product that promotes harmful beauty standards. It is the same brand which once used taglines like “kaale ko gora bana de” ; “banda bano, kandha nahi” and many more justifying its belief of success reserved only for fair skinned people.
Similarly, in 2011, Apple Inc. for its iPhone advertisements used the tagline – “If you don’t have an iPhone, well, you don’t have an iPhone”. The line clearly challenges the social status of consumers, supporting the discriminatory outlook.
Consumers today are getting more and more aware against the unethical ways of marketing. In order to create a customer base which is happy and loyal, now days marketers are (and should be) resorting to the ethical methods by following conscious marketing.
A very attractive tagline was used by ‘Lifebuoy’, a leading soap brand, which said that “corona virus ko harane ke liye 20 second tak haath dhoye kisi bhi sabun se”. By doing so, the brand depicted their social values along with advertising. For a good market name and standing, deceptive description of product is not at all necessary. Being true and loyal to the consumers can serve as the best techniques of marketing. Along with providing a better quality product, they need to provide the correct information of the product without over-exaggerating or doing any foreplay. Societal factors should be given prominence in the decisions of marketing strategies. Thus, a happy customer is a loyal customer and a loyal customer is a means to more customers; should become the mantra of flourishing businesses.
-Khushboo Pareek
(Second year,B.com Honours, Indraprastha College for Women, University of Delhi)
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