Triggered To Shop – Neuromarketing Used In The Wrong Way

How much do you need? That is the question.

Humans have desires and we are allowed to do whatever we want to the extend where we finally achieve ‘happiness’.

The point is, is the ‘happiness’ a genuine experience or an illusion that you are trying to convince yourself you bought into? Why are there so many people faking their ways through lives by buying the things they don’t necessarily need just to impress the others?

As a matter of fact, consumer behaviors can be crafted by design. If you want a child to start drinking your artificial orange juice on a daily basis, just show their parents some visuals of some fresh oranges, some happy people with smiles all over the entire ad and slap on a statement that says, ‘Happy Family, Happy Moments’.

Rest assured, parents will start buying those ‘fresh orange juice’ to ensure their children stay ‘healthy and happy’. Little did they know, that the artificial juices will one day cause their children their health, an irony to the first intention they had for them.

1) Businesses Earn Profit From Your Behavior

All you need is a business owner who just wants to profit from their business and a designer who is creative but is bound to the company by the monthly income she needs to feed her family. Ignoring the health, integrity and the responsibility from creating such ads, such business will start enjoying the benefits of producing such ads.

Businesses and ideas don’t thrive without the right resources, and some of the most important ones are no doubt the things your audience can see. Majority of the audience will believe the messages you craft out for them, and a minority, the skeptics. However, it is also the skeptics that might one day be the ones to tell you the truth that your favorite brand owner is trying to hide from you. 

As a consumer, there are a few questions we would try to avoid answering:
1) Why do you need to buy the item?
2) How much do you actually need?
3) Why do you buy from this company?
4) What does the item do for you?
5) How are you affected by the item?
6) Why, why, and why?

It is crucial to be able to understand why we do things we do but with our busy lifestyles, do we need to justify our acts for every single decision we make? The answer is YES.

2) What Is Valuable To You?

Whatever decisions we make will make an impact to our lives. If you are earning a monthly income of USD$500 and all you are thinking is to spend that money on the next branded handbag you think you need to impress the people you think will like to see you using it, what does that REALLY mean? Fake-rich are all over the place now.

If your value is based on the external goods that you carry, the expensive mode of transportation that you use, doesn’t that make you just the worth of that particular value alone? If you are worth more than the goods, why then do you need those goods to prove yourself? What stories are you crafting for people to know?

Say for example, the branded clothing, some brands are so expensive, they make the consumers wear the names on the surface of the clothing, just to let everyone SEE that they are indeed wearing the brand. Has anyone even asked you to show them the brand tag that scratches your neck behind the collar and judged you immediately saying, ‘OMG, you are wearing X brand. What bad taste.’ If that person do so, ask yourself again, is that person really worth your time? That expensive eyeliner you wore that day, have you shown your girls that it was the XX brand so that you can get some envious looks on your social media? If you didn’t tell them, would they have noticed that you even wore that particular XX brand eyeliner at all?

Back in the old days, the goods are expensive either because it was hard to get, it was very good quality or it belonged to a certain social status to enjoy only. Therefore, some things are built expensive to begin with. However, in the modern times like this, with the industrial revolution, we are no longer bound by restrictions of logistics and we get to enjoy all the productions even if we are at the corner of the world just by a click. Oh, you forgot to buy your milk? Just buy it online and get it air flown from the other side of the world! How easy and convenient!

3) How Much Does Your Happiness Cost?

What you don’t know is how much carbon emissions it has caused to the environment just to get your milk in because you don’t want the milk from your nearest neighborhood which was freshly squeezed this morning.

I guess there are two important points to take away from this article:

1) How do you value yourself based on external factors?
2) You are responsible for every decision that you make.

Without the expensive handbag buyers, we wouldn’t have enjoyed the economic value of it. Perhaps with the money earned from this person would be put into good use, OR it could just mean that it is going to someone else’s third yacht to enjoy his or her life.

Before purchasing that item, ask yourself, ‘Is this good for me?’. If not, maybe just skip that and use the money for a memorable night at the beach. After all, when you look back in an old photo, you won’t be saying, ‘Look, in 2000, we went to that dinner and I was carrying that XX brand handbag! How memorable is that.’ Instead, strive for conversations like, ‘I’m glad we made a trip to Maldives and enjoyed the wonderful time together swimming in that beautiful ocean.’

Love yourself, and love the environment. 

Teng’s Scribbles

(17 Mac 2021)