The psychology of how brands influence you

Companies spend billions of dollars every year to manipulate your psychology so you feel desire, loyalty, and urgency. All in an effort to get you to buy more stuff. This isn't a conspiracy. It's not even a secret. These are strategies shared in boardrooms, bragged about in tech offices, and liked on LinkedIn. Brands hide their true intentions from you through a sleight of hand. They seamlessly blend into culture, track your every move, and hit you with relentless messaging. Every word, every image, and every offer is tested and optimized to get you to buy more. And the more I looked into it, the more I realized how sophisticated it's gotten. This video is sponsored by Surfshark. I'll share more about how they can help to keep your data private later. If there's one thing I want to get across from the very beginning, it's this. Don't be fooled by what companies say they value. It's all about the money. They'll claim their mission is to make the world a better place, to empower creativity, or to build a community. We're a company that focuses on connecting people. Let's be real. That's just the message they want you to hear. The truth is much simpler and far less romantic. They don't want to empower creativity. They want more people to make free content for them. They don't want to build a community. They want loyal customers that keep coming back. They don't want to make the world a better place. They want you to buy more, more often, and without thinking too hard about it. The business model is simple. Capture your attention, shape your perception, and turn it into profit. This doesn't mean that every company is inherently bad or that every advertising strategy is evil. It's just the nature of capitalism. Maximizing profit is the goal. And it's the same story we've seen played out for decades. Except now, companies are getting smarter, using more sophisticated tools, and making it so much harder for you to resist. One of the oldest tricks in the books is for brands to get you to like them, to build genuine affinity and trust. And it all starts with branding. Most people today are savvy enough to know that branding isn't just a logo colors or style guide It's carefully engineered storytelling because advertising doesn't just sell products It sells values Martin Lindstrom marketing insider and author of the New York Times best-selling book biology says brands that create an emotional connection to consumers are much stronger than those that don't it's as simple and complicated as that Luxury car commercials don't talk about gas mileage or safety ratings. They show you freedom, success, power. Even everyday products like deodorant or shampoo are pitched as the key to being a better, more authentic, or morally ethical version of yourself. And you know what? It really works. Brands invest millions into crafting their image, refining their message, and building an identity that speaks to you because they know it's going to help bypass rational evaluation. You don't buy a new car because you compared every spec. You buy it because you want it to say something about who you are. Think about it. If you remove the logos from three popular running sneakers, most people, aside from sneaker heads, would struggle to tell them apart. When so many sneakers use the same materials, shapes, and manufacturing processes, it's the brand that makes the difference. This was made very clear in a 2018 stunt by the budget footwear company Payless. Amid dropping sales and on the verge of bankruptcy, Payless took a big swing. They secretly took over the lease of an old Armani store in Santa Monica and turned it into a fake luxury boutique called Paylessy. The pop-up shop was extravagant and next to some of the most expensive retailers here on Third Street Promenade. They had the same $20 to $40 shoes on the shelves, but with fancy lighting, minimalist displays, and high-end tags that went up to $600. They invited fashion influencers to the launch party, and it worked. People raved about the quality, the design, and how premium it all felt. Within hours, Payless sold thousands of dollars worth of inventory, beautifully demonstrating the power of branding and how emotional storytelling can shift your perception of a product. And no, the irony doesn't fail me that this itself was a clever marketing stunt by a company looking to sell more shoes. Brands have smartened up a lot over the years. They know it's much easier to tap into your current emotions and behaviors than to fundamentally change your beliefs. This is one of Ram's most recent commercials. Americans, we can do anything we want. Except one thing. We just can't stop being American. If you were to reverse engineer this ad back to its origins, you'd probably end up in a room with a handful of brand and marketing experts. This is where it all begins. It's their job to figure out how to make people want a Ram truck. And they don't just come up with this stuff out of nowhere. It's not based on their own intuition or feelings. They look at their competitors, analyze the cultural climate, and study their target audience. Learning, among other things, that conservative Americans see the U.S. as the greatest country in the world. Even though among high-income nations it ranks 30th in infant mortality, 20th in education, 40th in life expectancy, and has one of the worst healthcare systems in the world. But facts don't sell trucks. Feelings do. So these brand experts decide that they want to harness the feeling of America is number one. After months of research, meetings, script revisions, production schedules, and expensive shoots, this is what you get. Americans, we can do anything we want, except one thing. Lower the rates of infant mortality. If you're anything like me, you watch this commercial and see it as completely absurd, out of touch, and embarrassing. Like one YouTube comment put it, the ad feels like a Grand Theft Auto parody commercial. But if that's the case, if that's how you feel, it's just because you aren't the target audience. They're not talking to you. They're talking directly to the person who wants to believe America is number one, who wants to see themselves as tough, rebellious, free, and proudly patriotic. They're saying, if you want to feel like a real American, then buy a Ram. It's not telling you what to value, it's figuring out how you think, feel, and behave, and selling your values back to you. This commercial is just one very small example of how brands show up in the world. 15 to 30 second commercials, or TVCs as the industry calls them, are starting to take a backseat to even more subtle and effective messaging in the form of organic content, email marketing campaigns, user generated content, and my favorite, Comment marketing. Microsoft, Burger King, Gatorade, and others use the comment section as another touch point in their marketing strategy. With speed, wit, and originality, they drop into conversations to show the world, hey, I'm a multinational corporation just like you. I mean person. I'm a person just like you. Every component a brand is sending, every signal is sending, any interaction you have with a brand is a brand. The most effective brands in the world are masters at storytelling across every medium. Wendy's reinvented itself from just another fast food chain into the internet's snarky friend. Liquid Death is literally just water in a can, but its content makes you feel rebellious and irreverent. And if you feel the urge to jump to the defense of any of your favorite brands, that's most likely because their marketing worked on you. Look, it would be pretty one-dimensional to just sit here and say, brands bad, marketing bad. Plenty of companies out there offer products and services that genuinely add value. We need razors to shave and jackets to stay warm. And even beyond the basics, there's nothing wrong with wanting a new pair of sunglasses or noise-canceling headphones. But if you're someone who's trying to make more intentional decisions about how you spend your time and your money, if you don't like being deceived into wanting things you don't need, or if you've felt buyer's remorse more times than you'd like to admit. The problem isn't you. At the end of the day, people know that they're being sold to all the time. But what most people don't realize is just how calculated and manipulative it's become. And at its worst, it crosses a line to being completely unethical. Out of all the advancements in marketing, the sophistication of tracking and targeting has arguably made the biggest impact on what you buy and why you buy it. And Facebook propelled this to an entirely new level. people started sharing personal information in a way they never had before. Suddenly, advertisers didn't have to guess who you were or what you cared about. They had it all in a neat little profile volunteered by you. Today, data-driven advertising has gotten so good, it often knows what you want before you do. As far back as 2015, advertisers were implementing haptic targeting, picking up on your phone sensors and physical cues to understand what you're doing, and then using that data to sell things to you. So if your phone detects that you're running, You might start seeing ads for a sports drink. Or perhaps you just dropped your phone. What a perfect time to send you an ad for a rugged phone case. One of the most common forms of advanced targeting is called micro-targeting, and it's used by virtually every big brand today. Instead of blasting everyone with the same generic ad, micro-targeting allows brands to send specific messages to different audience segments, like new parents. Anxious college students or luxury shoppers. These narrow groups are defined by shared behaviors, interests, demographics, and even emotional triggers. Exactly how messed up does this kind of targeting get? In April 2016, a leaked internal document revealed that Facebook was offering advertisers the ability to target 13 to 17 year olds on its platforms, including Instagram, specifically during moments of psychological vulnerability. That meant serving ads when teenagers felt, quote unquote, worthless. insecure, anxious, or stupid. They even identified moments when teens were worried about body confidence, making them prime targets for products promising a fix. Sarah Wynne-Williams spent years inside Facebook as the director of global public policy and revealed in her book, Careless People, how manipulative and destructive this kind of targeting got. The company is always trying to push further and further in the tools it develops to meet what advertisers want. In one example, she describes how Facebook would retarget teenagers who had just deleted a selfie, serving them beauty product ads at that exact moment. In her book, she says, there's a reason why you erase something from existence, why a teen girl feels that it can't be shared. And surely Facebook shouldn't then be using that moment to bombard them with extreme weight loss ads or beauty industry ads. or whatever else they push on teens feeling vulnerable. The weird thing is that the rest of our Facebook coworkers seemed unbothered about this. It's very, very hard to wrap your mind around the amount of data that this company has on each person who logs on to its service. Don't let Mark Zuckerberg's rebrand fool you. Changing his wardrobe doesn't change their business model. According to Williams, nothing at the company changed after these allegations were brought forth. They simply put out a PR statement to help repair their brand image and proceeded on business as usual. So adding a brand sponsorship into this video is a bold move. Let's see how it plays out. So one of the main ways that I make an income and invest back into my videos is through sponsorships. And since I started over 10 years ago, I've been very selective about the brands that I partner with. I only recommend products and services that I actually use myself and that I can vouch for. That's why over the years, I've only worked with about a dozen or two brands. And I say no to 99% of opportunities I get. But Surfshark is one of those rare companies that was an easy yes for me. After years of being lazy and giving away my data, I've started to get more serious about it. protecting it. Surfshark is a VPN that encrypts your internet traffic and hides your IP address, making it much harder for companies, trackers, and even internet providers to watch what you're doing. When everyone wants a piece of your data, this is a very simple way to put more control in your hands. Using Surfshark can help reduce the amount of targeted ads you see and push back against some of the psychological tricks brands use. Additionally, Surfshark offers practical benefits that go beyond basic privacy. It can help you avoid price discrimination, a shady practice where companies show higher prices based upon your location, and it can also protect you on public Wi-Fi by encrypting your data, making it much harder for hackers to intercept. Go to surfshark.com slash Matt D'Avella or use code Matt D'Avella at checkout to get an extra four months of Surfshark V- And remember, when you use my link, you're not only getting access to a great service, but you're also helping to support this channel. So thanks for considering. Here's the thing. It's not just about finding you at one vulnerable moment. Sure, it helps. But to really shape how you think about a brand or product, they have to hit you again and again and again and again and again. So marketers have long known that one impression isn't enough. The classic rule of thumb in advertising is seven touch points. That's seven times to get into your head and eventually into your wallet. This number goes up or down depending on a lot of factors. But what brands know for certain is this. They need to show up a lot to get you primed to buy. After all, you're a respectable consumer. You're not going to let Apple f*** you on the first date. The most effective companies in the world have content creation engines, both paid and organic, that continue to target you with brand messages. Through their sales funnels, they are trying to drive you from awareness, hearing about the product for the first time, to conversion, making the purchase. This is what it might look like. You learn about a new energy drink in a viral stunt, then hear about it from an influencer, spot it in a paid Instagram ad, catch it on a billboard, and finally you get a special offer in an email that's not so special at all. In fact, it's an offer that they run 24-7 that really doesn't make it much of a discount at all and more of a strategy to change your perception of value and make you feel like you're getting a deal. You click, add to cart, and get a sudden hit of dopamine. You solved a problem. You're trying something new. You're a consumer. What a rush. The future of all these marketing strategies is getting scary. Instead of generic messaging or even micro-targeted messaging based on personality types, brands are going to talk to you directly at an individual level with dynamic targeting. Today, this marketing is still in its early stages and its applications are most often used with text and photo-based ads. An online retailer can reserve the exact sweater that you added to your cart but didn't buy. Or a travel site can show you flights to a city you just googled. With AI, the future of dynamic targeting is going to go even further. Imagine hyper-personalized advertising for every person connected to the internet. Five billion different personality profiles. Five billion different ad campaigns. Five billion different messages. Brands will shift their messages subtly to speak directly to you. Your desires, your hopes, your fears, and your dreams. Instead of just changing a headline or showing you a product you looked at once, AI is going to be able to generate completely custom content for you in real time. Hey Matt, as an American man with a smaller than average penis, you deserve more respect. That's why you need a new Ram truck. I mean, listen, I'm not a great marketer, but you can imagine how they'd use it. Just because these tactics are widely used and highly effective does not mean they are easy to implement. Even the biggest brands in the world make mistakes or go bust. But the ones that succeed have the deepest pockets and the most experienced marketers asking three main questions. How can we turn this product or offering into a feeling? How can we get as much data about our audience as possible? And what's the precise message our audience needs to hear in what order to get a sale with the least amount of money possible? The winners answer these questions, break through to cult-like affection, and create affinity with millions of people around the world. And you're left with a bill.

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New here? I'm Matt 👋 I made an award-winning documentary called Minimalism a few years ago and now I make YouTube videos. Please subscribe so my mother-in-law thinks this is a better career than being a doctor.

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