It's actually kind of funny how quick our society is to jump on the bandwagon, and to conform to what everyone else is doing. I wish people would just go with their gut instinct and make the right decision based upon their own beliefs and knowledge, but the truth is, no one wants to be the odd man out. This slightly rational but also slightly irrational human behavior can be of favor to different brands. For example, if a particular company has a ton of positive reviews or Facebook friends or Twitter followers, they will most likely get more business than a competing company that has way less followers/friends/reviews. Many companies and brands buy these friends, followers, and reviews, just so that it appears as though they're very popular and successful from the outside. It's lying! And it makes us as the consumers look like fools. I actually find it quite humorous. Brands will do whatever it takes to get more business/awareness, and yeah I guess this is a good strategy. All this generation wants is 1,000 likes on an Instagram picture, and as shallow as it seems, it's a good way to lour in customers. I'm taking a class this semester called Persuasion and Attitude Change, and we talk about similar things. We're reading a book about how to go about change, and just the other day we read about how people are more likely to do a particular action if they know that other people are doing it as well. For example, in class we watched a video of a study done where a class of elementary students are shown a few lines, and they're supposed to say which lines are the same size. Everyone in the class, except one clueless student, is in on it and gives an extremely untrue response, but they all give the wrong answer. In almost every single case, the student that isn't in on it will go along with what everyone else is saying, even though it is so obviously wrong and they know it. They just don't want to be that one person that is going against the flow with no other followers. This week, so many brands jumped on the Back to the Future bandwagon because of the amount of publicity it was receiving. Nike released the notorious self-tying shoes, for example, which they probably could have came out with long ago if they pleased. But suddenly, this is such a cool, huge thing because of Back to the Future Day. They strategically planned it so that they would get the most publicity and attention possible, since so many people were paying attention to Back to the Future Day. Funny and smart. I guess what I'm saying is I don't really have a problem with bandwagon brands because they're just trying to go along with the way our society acts. We're weird and don't like going against the crowd. It makes sense that brands would want to appear more popular than they really are to draw in business. It works because that's the way we're wired. While it is somewhat deceitful, it's getting these brands business, so in that way they're successful. Here are the cool self-tying, Back to the Future-esque, Nike shoes:
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Bailee KussrowI have many thoughts. I have many passions. Archives
June 2017
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