If you like Robin Hood, then I don’t
Posted on | June 21, 2010 | 1 Comment
Author:
Jason Voiovich
Ecra Creative Group
Key Points:
1. When we like something, we tend to think others will too.
2. But when others like that same thing, we tend not to like it ourselves.
3. Recent research on Projection and Introspection helps marketers understand what might be going on, and what it means for message creation.
Last week, my friend and I had a talk about two of this year’s big summer movie movies: Robin Hood and The Last Airbender.
We started with the latest M.Night Shyamalan flick. I am really excited to see it. When they were smaller, my kids watched Avatar: The Last Airbender (not the silly 9-foot cat people, but rather the little boy with a curious arrow tattoo on his head). It was a cartoon about the last survivor of a genocide against his race of people (the “airbenders”) at the hands of another (the “firebenders”). He must travel the world to learn the skills necessary to face down the leader of the firebender race and bring peace to the world.
Deep stuff for a cartoon, I know, but we all loved it.
Most kids’ programming is trash – mind candy – with little staying power. Not this one. Needless to say, I was stoked.
But my friend was not. I had a dozen reasons why I thought he should like it. I knew he would want to see it. Instead, I got a dismissive “yawn.”
Fair enough. We don’t need to agree on everything. No big deal.
It wasn’t long before we found ourselves discussing the latest Russell Crowe-Robin Hood. I thought it was a pile of unmitigated, non-sensical, unnecessarily violent, Magna Carta revisionist history, bad accent trash. It was two and a half hours of my life I will never have back.
That’s not how he saw it. He thought it was pretty entertaining. In fact, he was surprised I didn’t like it.
Odd.
Of course, this could be a case of a friendly disagreement, or different tastes in movies, but an article I picked up in Science Daily seems to point to something a bit deeper going on.
The article presented two fancy words to describe what was going on: Projection and Introspection.
As it turns out, to understand a consumer’s opinion about said object (a movie, in my case), it matters greatly how you ask the question. In other words, the research wanted to answer two seemingly-separate questions: “Why do you like what I like?”, and “Why don’t I like what you like?”
It turns out, if you ask the question two different ways, you get two very different answers, driven by two very different thought processes.
The simply chart below should help visualize what the researchers were looking for. Remember, in both cases, we are simply asking an opinion regarding an “object”, but asking about it from two different perspectives.
Let’s start with the first scenario: You first are asked to form an opinion regarding an object. Then you are asked what another person’s opinion would be regarding the same object. In this case, you are likely to use Projection. In other words, you will tend to think the other person will share your opinion – projecting your preferences onto that person. That feeling of “other people like what I like” boosts self-confidence and camaraderie and helps explain this tendency.
Let’s move on to the second scenario: This time, you are first asked to think about what you think the other person’s opinion of the object would be. Then you are asked your opinion of said object. Remember, same object, different starting point. Funny thing, the tendency is precisely the opposite. We are more likely in this scenario to reject what others like or dislike. The researchers surmised the subjects felt their individuality and uniqueness were threatened by simply accepting the opinion of another.
Interesting.
When I read this, it seemed to fly in the face of the tried and true “bandwagon” theory of advertising and the whole appeal of pop culture. We like what others like in order to belong.
But I think both things could be going on. This study seems like a useful way to think about marketing preferences based on consumer psychographic profiles. It would seem to me highly self-identifying people will be less likely to be swayed by “everyone is doing it” messages.
We can see that play out in the marketing strategies for Apple’s latest little jewel. iPads marketed to 30-something gadget hounds simply need to remind them how cool it is. That same product marketed as a business productivity tool to the small business owner community (a more self-assured / self-confident group overall) highlights business applications and productivity savings in specific situations. In other words, is it “everyone’s decision” or “your decision”? As it turns out, that makes all the difference.
No one said consumer psychology was supposed to be easy…
Related Links:
Consumers: Why Do You Like What I Like, but I Don’t Like What You Like?
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About
Jason Voiovich
Ecra Creative Group
Phone: 651.209.2778
Principal and co-founder of Ecra Creative Group, a Minneapolis, MN based creative services firm specializing in brand development, reputation process management, naming/trademark, and product launches to drive measurable business results.
June 28th, 2010 @ 9:29 am
business schools, and political science schools, need departments of ego studies …
with some input from traditions which have studied this ego dance for centuries …
because it is ego, as conceptualized in the “east” which is at play here ..
enjoy, gregory lent