You are a winner! You are the end-product of thousands of years of bio-engineering and evolution. You have systems built-in, that your ancestors used to hunt and warn them for danger.
We're quite extraordinary creatures, you and me. Thanks to our high intellect we're on top of the food chain. Able to defeat much stronger opponents as the Neanderthal, and responsible for the extinction of man-predators such as the sabertooth tiger. By the power of imagination driven by our brain, the homo sapiens fought it's way to the top. But did you know our 'mighty' brain is also very easily tricked? And systems that protect us can work against us? Read on and find out how.
For example, I want you to picture a living thing; a dog. Then imagine a hammer. You just activated two different areas of your visual cortex in your brains. This means, without seeing, you can see the dog and hammer in your imagination. You can clearly see the details, such as colour, size, and in the case of the hammer, the material it is made of.
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This is one of our biggest strengths, the power to imagine things and make them a real possibility. Yet herein lies also our biggest weakness; confirmation bias.
Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favour, and recall information in a way the confirms one's preexisting beliefs or hypotheses.
Simply put, most people will look for information that confirms their own beliefs. A very good example, that everyone has at least experienced once, is when suddenly you start to see seeing a certain number everywhere. What really happens is; when you give something extra attention like a certain number, your brain will suddenly start registering the number whenever that number pops up. In reality, you will meet that number the same amount of times as before. The only difference is that your brain starts registering the number as important, whereas before it was filtered as non-important information. So your thoughts define the reality around you. If you're negatively focused, your life will be a lot harder because a lot of positive things will be regarded in your brain as not important. Chances are, you won't even remember what you did the weekend 2 weeks ago.
How does this affect marketing? When we write to an audience, we need to know who we are writing too, their background, their beliefs,... When I started out in marketing, I got disappointed over and over again. I thought I made brilliant ads, original content with excellent copy (which I liked a lot), all by the rules of design that I've learned, and still it failed to deliver miserably. This was because I wrote from my own preexisting beliefs and hypotheses.
A mind is like a parachute, it does not work when it is not open. Not only as a marketeer but as a human, it is of utmost importance that you become a collector of different perspectives, ideas, concepts. It is only then, that you will be able to deliver whatever message you want to tell your audience. And in bonus, once your message starts connecting with them, your audience will give it more value since it will reinforce their ideas and preexisting beliefs. And so the cycle is round, they will be more accessible from future messages by you, your company or your brand making you a more efficient communicator.
What are your thoughts about this topic? I'm curious to find out. Leave a comment below (btw. was your dog brown and hammer handle yellow?)
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