How Habits Hold Us
online.wsj.com
online.wsj.com
This part accurately reflects the kind of thinking process the strategists went through:
> What's most interesting is that instead of focusing on removing bad smells, the ads set up Febreze ... satisfying the desire to make things smell nice, not just look good.
The rest of it is totally ridiculous:
> The ads taught consumers a new habit, training them to associate the rewarding positive cue—a spotless space—with the use of Febreze.
I would believe the ads were effective at setting cultural expectations that a clean space also needs a clean smell, and that Febreze helps make that possible. But the "rewarding positive cue" of cleaning? A "reward for a bout of cleaning"? That's overstating the power of advertisers and understating the common sense of consumers, and awkwardly smashing this example into a story that isn't related to it.
Madison Avenue "manipulates" you, but it's done by setting your expectation for The Way Things Should Be. It isn't with a subliminal cue and a Pavlovian reward. The carousel scene from Mad Men [1] is really what the meeting where they sold this idea was like. Trust me, I've been in many of them.
Having been in similar meetings it almost hurts how close to home this hits. All the way down to the charismatic narrator and his carefully crafted speech.
Truth is, advertising agencies work with 0,1% psychology and 99,9% bullshit. And most of the psychology is focussed on squeezing the maximum campaign budget out of the customer...