The Power of Priming

We’ve all fallen victim to it.  A McDonald’s commercial comes on and the juicy cheeseburger and crispy golden fries that appear on the screen before us has us in a trance.  We make a late night run to go get that Big Mac we’re now craving.

An experiment conducted in 2009 at Yale University was performed in order to see if exposure to food advertising during television viewing might contribute to automatic snacking of food.  This was done specifically on elementary-school-aged children.  The children watched a cartoon that contained either food advertising or advertising for other products and received a snack while watching, and the results were staggering.  Children consumed 45% more when exposed to food advertising.  It’s no wonder that American scientists have found that obesity in children increases the more hours they watch television.  In 2012, $4.6 billion was spent to advertise fast food. This speaks volumes on how influential priming in marketing can be.  

Priming is when exposure to one stimulus can affect how you respond to another stimulus. Priming can be used in all sorts of ways.  It can range from a type of music played in a clothing store to the type of font on a sign.  With the power of priming, markers can influence your subconscious and change your perception without you even knowing it.