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  • Let's play a little game ofname that tune.”

  • I'm going to start singing a tune, and I want you see if you can finish it without me.

  • Ok here it goes:

  • Ba da ba ba ba…”

  • What about, “I am stuck on Band Aid Brand....”

  • Did you hear that in the little kids' voice? That's a cute one.

  • OK last one: “Gimme a break, gimme a break.”

  • C'mon you had to know that one.

  • If you didn't finish at least one of those on your own, I'd be shocked.

  • These little songs advertisers use in commercials are called jingles, and you know these popular ones because they were written specifically to get stuck in your head.

  • Catchy tunes are just one technique advertisers use to get you to remember them and, hopefully, buy their stuff.

  • For years psychologists and sociologists have studied why humans buy things, and brands use that research to hack our brains and open our wallets.

  • By applying the skills we've learned so far, we can protect ourselves from buying yet another fancy frappuccino off the not-so-secret secret menu.

  • Today we're going to un-hack your brain on advertising.

  • [Theme Music]

  • First things first: let's define advertising and its close cousins, public relations and propaganda.

  • An advertisement is a public notice promoting a product, event, or service.

  • Advertising is the art of creating those.

  • Sometimes brands create ads themselves, and sometimes they hire companies to do it for them.

  • Yes, just like the people from Mad Men.

  • Public relations, or PR, is something different.

  • PR is the management of the relationship between the public (that's you) and a brand.

  • PR tells the public what the brand is up to and tries to make the brand look as good as possible.

  • They're the people who write the apology when someone makes a mistake or build the hype around the latest iPhone release.

  • Finally, propaganda is information distributed with the direct purpose of promoting a certain point of view.

  • This info is often misleading or biased, and propaganda is usually used to promote specific political viewpoints.

  • These definitions may seem tidy, but the differences between these fields can be really hard to distinguish out in the real world, especially online.

  • Don't worry, we'll talk a lot more about propaganda later in the course.

  • Last time on Crash Course Media Literacy, we learned that all media is constructed.

  • Creators make choices each step of the way, from their work's purpose and focus to the point of view they use to tell their story.

  • Advertisements work the same way, from the split-second ad you swipe through before watching your friends' stories

  • to elaborate movie trailers that get as much hype as the movie itself.

  • On top of that, ads are created using a century's worth of market research: experiments carried out to discover what makes us want to buy things.

  • Advertisers use that knowledge to tap into our desires, often exploiting our most basic needs

  • not only the food and shelter kind, but the love and belonging kind, too.

  • One of the pioneers of this somewhat sinister art was Edward Bernays.

  • Working in the 1920s and '30s, he wrote:

  • The human beingmale or femaleis a herd animal.

  • Man is fearful of solitude...He is more sensitive to the voice of the herd than to any other influence.”

  • That's from his 1923 book Crystallizing Public Opinion, which became a classic in the public relations field.

  • It detailed how humans can be persuaded to change their habits if it will help them to follow the crowd.

  • Think back to middle school.

  • What was that one trend that everyone had to follow, or you totally felt left out?

  • Friendship bracelets, the latest pair of Jordans, a fidget spinner, one of those little electronic keychain petsseriously what was the deal with those things?

  • Chances are you or your friends bought them because everyone else had oneyou wanted to fit in.

  • Advertisements love to play on this need, and that's how trends and fads happen in the first place.

  • In the 1940's, psychologist Abraham Maslow added another piece to this puzzle.

  • He identified a hierarchy of needs he said all humans had.

  • It's set up like a pyramid.

  • At the base, the foundation, all humans need food and water, shelter, and sleep.

  • Just above that, they need to feel safe, too.

  • Then comes the need for love and feeling like you belong somewhere.

  • After that, we need to feel accomplished, like we matter.

  • At the tippy top of the pyramid is the need to fulfill our destiny, to be our best selves.

  • Now all of these needs, combined with our natural desire to follow the crowd, are like little buttons on our hearts and brains.

  • Advertisements press different combinations of buttons in hopes that we'll respond the right way.

  • Usually that means buying their product.

  • The sales pitch of most modern ads is that product X will satisfy your need for Y.

  • For example, security systems promise one of our most basic instincts: safety.

  • We want to be safe, so we buy alarms to keep out the bad guys.

  • And Slim Jims? They promise foodof a sort.

  • Down at the bottom of the pyramid.

  • But some products claim to satisfy multiple needs higher up on that pyramid.

  • Let's head into the Thought Bubble to take a closer look.

  • Check out this vintage ad for hair dye.

  • It features L'Oreal's iconic sloganBecause you're worth it.”

  • They've used this slogan more or less since 1971.

  • In this ad, it's used with the claim that this dye is the most expensive in the country.

  • Usually, that's not a great way to sell a lot of anything.

  • But the sloganbecause you're worth itpresses a lot of our human need buttons.

  • For starters, any advertisement for hair dye implies that natural hair color is boring.

  • So, for other people to like us, to stick with the herd, our hair has to be a different, better color.

  • But still a pretty normal, human-y color, so we don't stick out from the herd.

  • That's the button for feeling loved and like we belong.

  • But there's also that need for accomplishment, like we matter. We're worth it.

  • The ad is saying, you're hot. You're the best. You deserve this product.

  • You deserve the most expensive dye, even though it's luxury. Nay, BECAUSE it's luxury.

  • Not only is this ad an appeal to stick with the herd, to blend in with beauty norms, but it's also an appeal to individualism.

  • It's an appeal to that middle of the pyramid and the tippy top, the desire to become our best selves and rise above the rest of the herd.

  • It's genius, really.

  • If you've ever screamed TREAT YOSELF while splurging on a pair of designer shoes after a long day, you've fallen into this ad trap.

  • Thanks for the help, Thought Bubble.

  • Once an advertiser knows whichneed buttonto press, they need to persuade you that it will work.

  • Turns out that there are a few things that really persuade us.

  • The first is authority: if we think the person talking is an expert, we're likely to believe them.

  • Like in those “5 out of 5 dentists recommendtoothpaste commercials.

  • Dentists know teeth, right?

  • The next is likeability: if we like them, are friends with them, or trust them, we're also likely to listen.

  • That's why brands use extremely popular and respected celebrities, like, say, Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, to sell watches or perfume.

  • Same with consistency: if what's being said vibes with what we already believe, we'll probably go along with it.

  • If everything you've ever heard about this new true crime podcast says its great and thrilling and awesome,

  • you probably wouldn't believe your coworker's negative review of it.

  • If there's a consensus around something, if it's popular, we are easily swayed to think it's good, too.

  • And if we think it's a scarce resource and we could have a piece of it, it's even more attractive.

  • So, if everyone else had an iPhone and you didn't, you'd probably really want one.

  • And if a limited edition version came out that was signed by Beyonce you'd want that one even more.

  • Advertisers often use these persuasive qualities in benign ways to get us to buy one brand of chocolate over another or something.

  • But they can also be used against us by being baked into false claims.

  • They're not lying, exactly, but making claims based on poor or misleading logic.

  • One popular type of fallacy in advertising is an appeal to emotions.

  • This is when an ad convinces you to take action by tugging at your heartstrings.

  • Those sad sick dog commercials with the Sarah McLachlan song?

  • That's an appeal to emotions.

  • Just because sick dogs make you sad doesn't automatically mean an organization deserves a donation; it just makes you link the two together.

  • (I mean, please still save the sick dogs, this is just an example folks.)

  • Then there's the false dilemma, where an ad shows you a limited number of choices so you won't consider all of the options.

  • Laundry detergent ads for example, seem to always gohead to headwith another brand

  • but only one other brand, even though there are dozens.

  • Another popular one is the red herring, the presentation of something totally irrelevant to distract you from the issue at hand.

  • This happens in politics all the time.

  • Ever seen a TV campaign ad during a local election that shouted something totally unrelated at you?

  • Like, “Don't elect Dan, his daughter eats CEREAL!”

  • And suddenly you're wondering what's wrong with cereal until you forget that cereal has nothing to do with politics.

  • Then there's traditional wisdom, the idea that you should pick something because that's how your grandmom or your old man used to do it.

  • But your old man used a record player because there wasn't any other option, not because he wanted to lug around a crate full of vinyl to every single party.

  • All of these fallacies and persuasive techniques can be used for good and for evil and in between.

  • Public service campaigns can get kids to stop smoking or invest in local journalism.

  • But on the other hand, cosmetics ads can harm teens' body images, causing eating disorders and depression.

  • The better psychologists and sociologists get at persuading the human brain

  • even if their intentions are goodthe better bad actors get at it, too.

  • All the more reason to stretch your media literacy muscles.

  • Today we talked about how advertisements can make you change your mind.

  • Next time on Crash Course Media Literacy we're going to tell you when and where they're doing it.

  • We're going to talk all about those creepy targeted ads that follow you around the internet and much, much more.

  • See you next time. Until then, I'm Jay Smooth.

  • Crash Course Media Literacy is filmed in the Dr. Cheryl C. Kinney Studio in Missoula, MT.

  • It's made with the help of all of these nice people, and our animation team is Thought Cafe.

  • Crash Course is a Complexly production.

  • If you want to imagining the world complexly with us, check out some of our other channels like Eons, Animal Wonders, and SciShow Psych.

  • If you'd like to keep Crash Course free for everyone, forever, you can support the series at Patreon, a crowdfunding platform that allows you to support the content you love.

  • Thank you to all of our patrons for making Crash Course possible with their continued support.

Let's play a little game ofname that tune.”

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