{"id":262,"date":"2015-03-29T14:04:04","date_gmt":"2015-03-29T21:04:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/colinschimmelfing.com\/blog\/?p=262"},"modified":"2015-03-29T14:04:04","modified_gmt":"2015-03-29T21:04:04","slug":"proving-cultural-signaling-sometimes-ads-can-be-laughable-and-still-be-effective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/colinschimmelfing.com\/blog\/proving-cultural-signaling-sometimes-ads-can-be-laughable-and-still-be-effective\/","title":{"rendered":"Proving cultural signaling &#8211; sometimes ads can be laughable and still be effective"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A few weeks ago I was in a bar and this ad came on:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ae_3AZQiKcU\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a totally ridiculous ad, almost a parody of itself. How could it ever convince someone to buy the truck? Must the people who own that truck be total idiots if they fell for this advertising? How nakedly obvious is it? At first, this is what I thought, as we laughed at the ad. However, I now think I was wrong.<\/p>\n<p>All of those things are what you think upon first watching the ad spot, but a friend of mine also recently linked to this post: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.meltingasphalt.com\/ads-dont-work-that-way\/\" target=\"_blank\">Ads Don&#8217;t Work That Way<\/a>, a fascinating read. Maybe it\u2019s because I used to work at an advertising company, but I love seeing the cultural implications and messages that ads provide. It\u2019s like a mini lesson in psychology, sociology, economics, and anthropology for free in 30 seconds!<\/p>\n<p>In any case, that post suggests that many brand ads aren\u2019t directly trying to convince you of the brand\u2019s qualities. For the uninitiated,brand ads that aren\u2019t trying to tell you about a deal or inform you of the existence of a product, but instead are trying to get you to associate positive qualities with a brand such as \u201ccoke is fun and social\u201d or \u201cdisney is family-friendly\u201d or \u201ccorona is relaxing, like a vacation\u201d. The post suggests that truly these ads are not trying to convince you of the brand\u2019s qualities itself, but instead trying to convince you that others will associate those qualities with you when they see your purchase.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Cultural imprinting<\/strong> is the mechanism whereby an ad, rather than trying to change our minds individually, instead changes the <em>landscape of cultural meanings<\/em> \u2014 which in turn changes <em>how we are perceived by others<\/em> when we use a product. Whether you drink Corona or Heineken or Budweiser &#8220;says&#8221; something about you. But you aren&#8217;t in control of that message; it just sits there, out in the world, having been imprinted on the broader culture by an ad campaign. It&#8217;s then up to you to decide whether you want to align yourself with it. Do you want to be seen as a &#8220;chill&#8221; person? Then bring Corona to a party.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Later on:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In this way, cultural imprinting relies on the principle of <strong>common knowledge<\/strong>. For a fact to be common knowledge among a group, it&#8217;s not enough for everyone to know it. Everyone must also know <em>that everyone else knows it<\/em> \u2014 and know that they know that they know it&#8230; and so on.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So now we can take another look at the car ad through this \u201cCultural imprinting\u201d lens. Our ad now makes a lot more sense &#8211; it\u2019s not trying to give you feelings about the truck or promise performance or anything like that. <em>Instead the ad is <b>proving<\/b> that Chevy&#8217;s previous campaigns have been successful in imparting common knowledge that \u201creal men drive trucks like this\u201d<\/em>. If <em>actual schoolchildren<\/em> understand this association, it means that everyone must understand this association, and so if you show up in a Prius to a party you will be perceived as a total pansy, as someone who \u201cprobably owns a bird\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>In this way it\u2019s genius &#8211; who needs to spend millions of dollars filming pickup trucks driving through the Mojave desert when you can just get 20 children into a room and ask them basic questions? Of course, Chevy still needs to make those kinds of ads as well to keep the common knowledge going! This one ad is just so efficient at what it\u2019s trying to do I have to tip my hat to it, before I ride off into the sunset in my Prius with my pet bird.<\/p>\n<div class=\"sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled\"><div class=\"robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-icon-text sd-sharing\"><h3 class=\"sd-title\">Share this, if you like it:<\/h3><div class=\"sd-content\"><ul><li class=\"share-facebook\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-facebook-262\" class=\"share-facebook sd-button share-icon\" href=\"http:\/\/colinschimmelfing.com\/blog\/proving-cultural-signaling-sometimes-ads-can-be-laughable-and-still-be-effective\/?share=facebook\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Facebook\"><span>Facebook<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-twitter\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-twitter-262\" class=\"share-twitter sd-button share-icon\" href=\"http:\/\/colinschimmelfing.com\/blog\/proving-cultural-signaling-sometimes-ads-can-be-laughable-and-still-be-effective\/?share=twitter\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Twitter\"><span>Twitter<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-tumblr\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"\" class=\"share-tumblr sd-button share-icon\" href=\"http:\/\/colinschimmelfing.com\/blog\/proving-cultural-signaling-sometimes-ads-can-be-laughable-and-still-be-effective\/?share=tumblr\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Tumblr\"><span>Tumblr<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-reddit\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"\" class=\"share-reddit sd-button share-icon\" href=\"http:\/\/colinschimmelfing.com\/blog\/proving-cultural-signaling-sometimes-ads-can-be-laughable-and-still-be-effective\/?share=reddit\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Reddit\"><span>Reddit<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-linkedin\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-linkedin-262\" class=\"share-linkedin sd-button share-icon\" href=\"http:\/\/colinschimmelfing.com\/blog\/proving-cultural-signaling-sometimes-ads-can-be-laughable-and-still-be-effective\/?share=linkedin\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on LinkedIn\"><span>LinkedIn<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-email\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"\" class=\"share-email sd-button share-icon\" href=\"http:\/\/colinschimmelfing.com\/blog\/proving-cultural-signaling-sometimes-ads-can-be-laughable-and-still-be-effective\/?share=email\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to email this to a friend\"><span>Email<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-end\"><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A few weeks ago I was in a bar and this ad came on: It\u2019s a totally ridiculous ad, almost a parody of itself. How could it ever convince someone to buy the truck? Must the people who own that truck be total idiots if they fell for this advertising? How nakedly obvious is it? At first, this is what I thought, as we laughed at the ad. However, I now think I was wrong. All of those things are&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"http:\/\/colinschimmelfing.com\/blog\/proving-cultural-signaling-sometimes-ads-can-be-laughable-and-still-be-effective\/\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled\"><div class=\"robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-icon-text sd-sharing\"><h3 class=\"sd-title\">Share this, if you like it:<\/h3><div class=\"sd-content\"><ul><li class=\"share-facebook\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-facebook-262\" class=\"share-facebook sd-button share-icon\" href=\"http:\/\/colinschimmelfing.com\/blog\/proving-cultural-signaling-sometimes-ads-can-be-laughable-and-still-be-effective\/?share=facebook\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Facebook\"><span>Facebook<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-twitter\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-twitter-262\" class=\"share-twitter sd-button share-icon\" href=\"http:\/\/colinschimmelfing.com\/blog\/proving-cultural-signaling-sometimes-ads-can-be-laughable-and-still-be-effective\/?share=twitter\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Twitter\"><span>Twitter<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-tumblr\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"\" class=\"share-tumblr sd-button share-icon\" href=\"http:\/\/colinschimmelfing.com\/blog\/proving-cultural-signaling-sometimes-ads-can-be-laughable-and-still-be-effective\/?share=tumblr\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Tumblr\"><span>Tumblr<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-reddit\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"\" class=\"share-reddit sd-button share-icon\" href=\"http:\/\/colinschimmelfing.com\/blog\/proving-cultural-signaling-sometimes-ads-can-be-laughable-and-still-be-effective\/?share=reddit\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Reddit\"><span>Reddit<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-linkedin\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-linkedin-262\" class=\"share-linkedin sd-button share-icon\" href=\"http:\/\/colinschimmelfing.com\/blog\/proving-cultural-signaling-sometimes-ads-can-be-laughable-and-still-be-effective\/?share=linkedin\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on LinkedIn\"><span>LinkedIn<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-email\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"\" class=\"share-email sd-button share-icon\" href=\"http:\/\/colinschimmelfing.com\/blog\/proving-cultural-signaling-sometimes-ads-can-be-laughable-and-still-be-effective\/?share=email\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to email this to a friend\"><span>Email<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-end\"><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v18.4.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Proving cultural signaling - sometimes ads can be laughable and still be effective - Schimmy&#039;s Thoughts<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/colinschimmelfing.com\/blog\/proving-cultural-signaling-sometimes-ads-can-be-laughable-and-still-be-effective\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Proving cultural signaling - sometimes ads can be laughable and still be effective - Schimmy&#039;s Thoughts\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A few weeks ago I was in a bar and this ad came on: It\u2019s a totally ridiculous ad, almost a parody of itself. 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