The objective of advertising is to entice consumers to develop a preference for a brand over others to increase sales for the company. This is just the truth in plain, but, brutal words. You may think that as a consumer you are immune to these advertising tactics and that, you buy what you think is value for your money and suits your tastes. So, let me burst that bubble for you and dish out some dirt on advertising, called the ‘mere exposure effect’. Apart from creating brand awareness, advertising gets you so familiar with a brand that you naturally start preferring it. It mostly has a positive effect on prospective consumers because nobody really looks at an advertisement and thinks, “Hey, I am not going to buy this brand because its advertisements just keep popping up everywhere!”. What you may perhaps think is, “It looks good, maybe, it is worth a shot”. We perceive absolutely no harm in trying out a new brand once, and judge for ourselves if the product or service is really what it promises to be in its advertisements. Advertising at least becomes successful in alluring you to make the first-time purchase. Today, we are a consumer-centric global economy and consumerism is our new religion. Let’s try to have a deeper understanding of how the mere exposure effect in advertising works. Read the rest of this entry »