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Success in brand building depends on creating, nourishing, and continuously reinterpreting a unique and compelling identity or “meaning. That meaning has to be commonly held. 

Individual preference is deeper when it is enforced by social acceptance. This is an almost magical contradiction. The credit for this discovery and decoding it goes to the eminent Social psychologist Solomon Asch. He challenged our idea of ourselves as autonomous beings. He developed an experiment to establish our urge to conform. His work revealed that when people are confronted with a majority opinion, they just tend to conform. 

It is trite to say that a brand is a repository, not merely of functional characteristics, but of meaning and value. In increasingly crowded and highly competitive categories, brand differentiation based on discernible product differences is quickly imitated and duplicated by competitors. So, what makes one brand take a lead and stand out?

Brands become phenomenally valuable because their existence has been translated into powerful meanings which society acknowledges. They are worth billions or trillions of dollars because they had gained a kind of meaning that was universal, larger than life, iconic.

The commonly accepted meaning of a brand is its most priceless and unique asset. 

Whether you’re selling a soft drink, a service or a truck, what your brand means to people will be every bit as important as its function, if not more so. This is because our derived meaning tells us “this one feels right” or “this one’s for me.” 

Meaning creates feeling in the collective conscious and unconscious. Such meaning cannot be developed via short lived advertising campaigns, but only because of consistent and enduring expression in all forms and facets. And the more it is acknowledged by many, the more this meaning will get strengthened.

An understanding of Social Psychology helps marketers understand how they are perceived or not. This, when converted to consequential actions may create enduring brand identities that deliver meaning to customers, drive up perceived value and inspire customer loyalty. 

All Powerful brands can create social norms for their acceptance and inject themselves into cultural codes that enhance their centrality. The reason some brands become synonymous with categories, cultures and even national identities is because they have acquired acceptance via social consensus. Their ability to be at the high table and still be the mass choice does not conflict with their aura. You fly in a Boeing on a budget airline as does the President of the United States on Air Force One. Warren Buffet drinks the same Coca-Cola that the poorest person would. 

Group conformance can lift above commitment to what individuals hold true. Solomon Asch pioneered this work in impression formation, prestige associations and conformity. In his paper ‘Opinions and Social Pressure’, published in 1955, he elaborated on the social influences that shape a person’s beliefs, judgments, and practices. This revealed the effects of group pressure on individual decision-making. It was the first time we deciphered how, and to what extent, people’s attitudes were influenced by social forces around them. My point is not to view this negatively but to appreciate, as marketers, how this dynamic plays out. Positive conformance done for the right reasons can build mammoth brand advantage.

Asch’s work was preceded by that of the Turkish psychologist Muzafer Sherif who, in 1935, set out to answer similar questions. He used a visual illusion called the autokinetic effect, wherein a stationary spot of light seen in a dark room appears to move. The subjects of his study were told that the light was going to move and asked how far they thought it had shifted. Tested in groups, the participants’ estimates converged into a group norm, revealing that they used others’ estimates as a frame of reference in an ambiguous situation. 

Asch took this forward in a different way. To him, conformity was measured in terms of an individual’s tendency to agree with group members who unanimously give the wrong answer on a task that has an unmistakable solution. 

The simple perceptual task he designed was named the Asch Paradigm. 

The experiment was conducted with male subjects, each of whom was put individually into a group of five to seven “confederates” – these were people who were aware of the real aims of the experiment but were introduced as fellow participants – and each group was shown one card with a line on it, followed by another card with three lines labelled A, B, and C, and asked which one of those three lines was the same length as the line on the first card.

The experiment was organized such that the subject would give either the last or the last but one answer. Over the course of 18 trials, confederates were instructed to provide the correct answers for the first six, but then to give identical but incorrect answers for another 12. This was to test whether the subject would answer correctly or whether he would match his response to that of the confederates when all gave the same but incorrect answer.

The results of the study were revealing. When surrounded by a group of people all giving the same incorrect answer, subjects gave incorrect answers on almost a third of the questions; 75 percent of them provided an incorrect response for at least one question. These figures indicate a high degree of compliance by the subjects. On the other hand, not a single participant conformed on all critical trials, and 13 of the 50 participants never conformed at all. 

The results proved that the subjects themselves were highly consistent. Those who broke away from the group opinion and provided an independent answer did not accede to the majority even over many trials, while those who chose to comply with the majority seemed unable to break this pattern.

When later investigated in one to one meetings, the compliant respondents acknowledged that they knew their answers were incorrect, adding that they did not want to stand out or appear different and foolish. They just wanted to fit in. 

Asch performed variations on the experiment to test what difference the size of the majority group made to levels of conformity. He found that just one confederate had virtually no influence on the subject’s conformity, two had only a small influence, but three or more encouraged a relatively stable tendency to conform. This is a cruel manifestation of ‘more the merrier’. 

Unanimity mattered a great deal in the apparent steam rolling. Even if only one confederate offered an alternative answer, the subjects were much more likely to provide an independent, correct response. This finding highlighted the power of even a very small dissenting minority. 

Asch discovered that if he allowed the participants to give their answers privately, by writing them down on a piece of paper, conformity visibly decreased. It has a bearing on modern day Direct to Consumer models and of groupthink impacting choices made online. Asch found the tendency to conform was strong irrespective of educational backgrounds and this is noteworthy. 

Asch’s conclusions noted the power of social influence to shape a person’s beliefs and behaviours. If something becomes normal for a group, social pressure will ensure greater conformity. Inspired by Asch’s theory, Stanley Milgram’s experiment on obedience showed that ordinary people are capable of cruelty when under pressure to conform.

From a marketing standpoint, it reinforces the first mover advantage as well as the adoption of majority share brands. It explains that a group exerts profound social effects on its members and conformity serves important social functions. 

Solomon Elliott Asch was a pioneer in the field of social psychology. He was born into a Jewish family in Warsaw in 1907. At the age of 13 he emigrated to the US and studied psychology. He received a PhD in 1932 from Columbia University, where he was influenced by Max Wertheimer.

Asch taught at Swarthmore College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard, where he supervised Stanley Milgram’s doctorate, before moving to the University of Pennsylvania. His many awards include the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the American Psychological Association. He died aged 88 in 1996.

Key works

1951 Effects of Group Pressure Upon the Modification and Distortion of Judgment
1952 Social Psychology
1955 Opinions and Social Pressure
1956 Studies of Independence and Conformity

Shubhranshu Singh is vice president, marketing - domestic & IB, CVBU, Tata Motors. He writes Simply Speaking, a weekly column on Storyboard18. Views expressed are personal.

Simply Speaking: Social identity, conformance and acceptance

"The form of experience that we came to call “feeling” accompanies all cognitions." -Robert Zajonc

This is the first in a set of 4 articles where I shall present fundamentals of psychology that are evidently manifest in the work of marketing but little known. One reason is that the celebrity status that Sigmund Freud and to a lesser degree, Carl Jung acquired in their lifetimes eclipsed the work of many other contributors. The standard MBA curriculum may walk through some references to Ivan Pavlov or Abraham Maslow but a deeper understanding of the work of psychologists is merited. I will introduce the work of a few such stalwarts as best as I can. 

Let me begin with the critical area of familiarity and awareness. The marrow of brand building is familiarity. Today, we consider it a universal truth that repeated exposure to a stimulus breeds familiarity with it. Familiarity brings about an attitude change toward the stimulus taking the form of preference, or affection. This preference is emotional and forms at a subconscious level before a person is even aware of it. The more you see it, the more you like it. Any marketer who doubts this, will learn a lesson after much money is wasted with scanty results. 

But this was not always seen as an axiomatic truth. In fact, it was not even understood. In 1876 German experimental psychologist Gustav Fechner suggested that familiarity increased positive feeling toward art objects, but that “supersaturation” leads to aversion. By 1910, Edward B. Titchener was describing familiarity as a “glow of warmth” that people experience in the presence of familiar things. Their work was soon forgotten. Instead, the rise of mass media advertising placed a lot of premium on novelty and creative freshness. 

Until the middle of the 20th century, social scientists tended to base their explanations of human behaviour on environmental factors. It was fundamentally the work of Polish-born psychologist Robert Zajonc that allowed us a more complete understanding and considered the functions of the mind as well. Zajonc’s main interest was in the relationship between feeling and thought.

He devoted much of his career toward exploring the intersection of emotion and cognition and discovering which of these factors has a stronger influence on behaviour. To this end, he performed a seminal experiment in 1968 that led to his discovery of the “mere exposure effect”, which is arguably his best-known contribution to the field of social psychology.

Familiarity experiments

Mere exposure, Zajonc explained, simply refers to a condition in which the given stimulus is accessible to the subject’s perception, either consciously or subconsciously. 

Zajonc’s interest in the effect was aroused by a newspaper article that described a curious experiment that took place at Oregon State University in 1967. A “mysterious student” had been attending class for two months, enveloped in a black bag. The professor, Charles Goetzinger, knew the identity of the person inside, but no one else had any idea. Goetzinger observed the class to gauge their reactions over time. Initially, the black bag was treated with suspicion and hostility. This changed in time, and members of the class softened and were eventually friendly, even protective toward the person in the bag. Goetzinger noted that attitudes “changed from hostility toward the black bag to curiosity and finally to friendship.”

Robert Zajonc’s groundbreaking paper, Attitudinal Effects of Mere Exposure, was published in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 1968. Zajonc’s paper describes a series of experiments in which preference was proven to be beyond cognition. Participants were exposed to a sequence of random images—geometric shapes, Chinese symbols, paintings, and pictures of faces—flashed to them so rapidly such that they were cognitively indiscernible. The participants could not figure out which images were shown more repeatedly. When subjects were quizzed about their preferences, they consistently chose the ones to which they had been most frequently exposed, even though they are not consciously aware of this fact. 

This evidenced that familiarity brings about an attitude change, breeding affection or some form of preference for the familiar stimulus. The greater the number of exposures to something, the more affection you will feel toward it. To put it simply, “the more you see it, the more you like it.”

The startling revelation in Zajonc’s findings is that such preference is based purely on the history of exposure to it, unaffected by a person’s cognition, personal beliefs or attitudes. This is manifest because the experiment was impacting respondents only at the subliminal level. It worked even when subjects are completely unaware that they are being presented with a stimulus. This discovery led to Zajonc’s claim that “preferences need no inferences” implying that attraction is not based on reasoned judgement. 

This led to a furore of disputations and challenges because it is contrary to what most of us might imagine to be the case. In a paper called ‘Feeling and Thinking’, written in 1980, Zajonc argued that feelings and thoughts are very independent of one another. Feelings not only precede thoughts during a person’s complex response to a stimulus but are actually the most powerful determinants of a person’s attitudes and decisions. This paper was also widely debated but pulled the study of emotion back to the forefront of Western psychology. It transformed the study of decision-making processes. 

It suggests that contrary to what we may believe, it is not reason and logic that guide our decisions; in fact, we make fast, instinctive, emotion-based decisions before we have even had a chance to consider the choice cognitively—we make judgments without information. If this is true, it follows that our logical reasoning merely justifies and rationalizes the decisions we have already made, rather than serving to inform the choice in the first place.

We can never think about something without a feeling attached; Zajonc concluded. We do not just see “a house,” we see “a handsome house” or “a pretentious house.” Every perception we have contains some affect or feeling. 

In interpersonal attraction, Zajonc termed it as the “propinquity effect”. The way we tend to form friendships or romantic relationships is determined by regularity of exposure. The world was aghast that ‘love at first sight’ was being experimentally rubbished. Zajonc discovered that people form very negative attitudes toward unfamiliar people, attributing unpleasant qualities to them for no apparent reason other than the fact that they are complete strangers. However, as with shapes and symbols, repeated exposure is shown to increase trust and affection. Therefore, we have a strong positive attraction to celebrities simply because of their exposure values and not because we know anything substantive about them.

Known for the breadth of his work on the basic processes of social behavior, Zajonc helped to create the modern field of social psychology. He used his work on thought and feeling to explore issues such as racism, genocide, and terrorism, hoping that research could ultimately help to prevent war and human suffering. 

About Robert Zajonc 

Robert Zajonc was born in Lodz, Poland. When he was 16 his family fled to Warsaw during the Nazi invasion of Poland. Both his parents were killed. He was arrested by the Nazis and sent to a German labour camp. He escaped with two other prisoners and walked 320 kilometres to France only to be recaptured and imprisoned again. He broke out for a final time and made his way to the UK.

After World War II, Zajonc moved to the US, where he established himself as an eminent psychologist, earning his PhD at the University of Michigan where he worked until his retirement in 1994, when he became an emeritus professor at Stanford University. 

Zajonc died of pancreatic cancer at the age of Eighty Five, in 2008. 

Key Works 

1968 - Attitudinal Effects of Mere Exposure

1975 - Birth Order and Intellectual Development 

1980 - Feeling and Thinking

Shubhranshu Singh is vice president, marketing - domestic & IB, CVBU, Tata Motors. He writes Simply Speaking, a weekly column on Storyboard18. Views expressed are personal.

References 

Thinking, Fast and Slow -Daniel Kahneman
Sweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of Expectation -David Huron

The Psychology Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained

Theories in Social Psychology - Derek Chadee 
Rationality and the Reflective Mind – Keith Stanovich

Simply Speaking: Familiarity does not breed contempt. It builds preference

"I am not the editor of a newspaper and shall always try to do right and be good so that God will not make me one.” - Mark Twain

We can only wonder what Mark Twain would have said about ‘editorial responsibility for a brand’ but irrespective he would have to concede it’s an idea which has fully arrived. The designations commonly used may not fully cue this, but brands and businesses are publishers, and they need editors.

Brands as Stories

When marketing storytelling is done well, it clearly establishes what your brand is all about – its purpose, core values, and mission and offers the consumer more than just a product or service, but rather an idea and a connect. Marketing has remained the same, but the tools and approaches have transformed. Building an editorial mindset is the first step to inclusive authenticity.

A well-defined story strategy proves to be an invaluable tool. Brands built on clearly expressed core values have, in a sense ,declared the truth they plan to live. The process involves inviting the agents of authenticity to be your allies. Open your doors and let them say to your face what they'll be tweeting and blogging about anyway.

Embody each of your core brand values in their purest form. If you have built a story strategy around uniqueness—the expression of personal gifts; creativity, and nonconformity—you may identify someone who is unwavering in his commitment to uniqueness and extremely articulate about his belief in that value.

We can no longer treat our audiences as passive consumers of marketing messages. They must be our partners. And we cannot create those partnerships by simply intruding into their lives and manipulating their actions. Superficially dressing up old tactics in terms of engagement rarely delivers any result from bored audiences.

People who believe and tell the same stories hold the same values. This is what constitutes a world view. This is what builds a society. In fact a social norm is just a collection of stories about the who ,what and why of things as they are.  Therefore, stories serve as fundamental ingredients in allowing people to create a shared sense of being. Shared stories lead to shared values which in turn leads to a shared world view. This calls for attention to the goings on in the world as an Editor would give it.

The Editorial Craft

But before we get to brand managers as Editors let us first note what the great Editors do? What is the essence of their craft?

Editors create fine stories. They have judgement, instinct and assertion. Like film a director’s medium, a good editor sees a larger picture, its scope and impact. The best editor is the person who can take a modest story and make it big, broad and powerful. Most of us, for a variety of reasons, take big stories and shrink them. A great brand editor will be like a great river in the plains, not a rushing mountain stream.

Brand stories activate emotions and communicate values. Your brand story is a complete picture of various elements from website copy to social media, to traditional ads. It is the way your brand presents itself to the world and the way the public perceives you. Even when you don’t communicate, you actually do.

We need narratives to inspire others to join our cause, for our sales team to convince people to buy, and for our customer support centres to convey a positive experience.

Brand narratives evolve over time, changing to suit the product, the market, culture, and the audience. A brand’s story must be true, and it must help sell whatever it is you’re selling. You can’t control a brand’s narrative and your audience may take it places you’d never expect it to go, but you can shape it.

The most important rule of brand storytelling and the one most difficult to put into editorial gear is that Your brand is not the hero, the consumer is. To resonate with your audience, content should put consumer first.

Editors who run brands as fountains of content must set their ambitions to create compelling narratives. When done successfully, a great brand story should create change. If not a huge change, at least an improvement of some kind.

The Editor must run the content engine such that it can routinely land an emotional impact or advantage. The story involves the people you are selling to so drop the spin and tell the truth. The best brand stories are real.  But we live in a mutation era where even the internet is going from 2D to 3D and with the imminent full bloom of the Metaverse, even more people will engage brands beyond reality.

Nearly a hundred million people a day log on to Roblox, Minecraft, and Fortnite Creative, platforms that operate tens of millions of interconnected worlds, which support a consistent virtual identity, virtual goods, and communications suites, and can be accessed from most devices. Most time on these platforms is spent on leisure-playing games, attending concerts - but we are starting to see people go further. No brand or business can neglect its representation given such a massive shift to new media. 

The Editorial Role Beyond Advertising

Many will argue that such editorship has always been a part of great brand building. Indeed, that is true. But the scale, scope and implications have transformed. In the earlier era, advertising was the exclusive language of a brand.

Steve Jobs famously said, “it’s better to be a pirate than to join the navy” and that attitude drove a lot of Apple’s most significant product launch campaigns. 1984, an iconic ad, created by TBWA\Chiat\Day and directed by Ridley Scott put Apple on the map at the Super Bowl.

Based on George Orwell’s dystopian novel, the ad cost $650,000 to make and featured a British discus thrower as the woman who stops crowds of men from mindlessly following the words of a dictator on the screen. The ad made a deep statement, on American politics as well as its rivals IBM, in the middle of a very challenging political climate. It proclaimed that ‘Apple was revolutionary.’

But it almost did not air. In fact, test groups found it to be one of the least effective commercials made. Steve Jobs -one of the greats if ever
Brand Editors had a hall of Fame – saw to it.

Taking a risk is the hallmark of a great Editor as is a spine of tempered steel.

It was only in 1997 that Think Different was launched but this advert seeded the spirit much ahead in time.

Not only brands but also the business entity can tell a story -at each stage of its evolution. It has a huge bearing on how it evolves and has value. Ever wondered how a company that has never turned a profit has a multibillion-dollar valuation? Why do some start-ups attract large investments while others do not? The power of story very substantially drives corporate value. In business, there are the storytellers who spin compelling narratives essential to success. Tesla , RedBull , Nike, Disney , Apple and Amazon are all examples of how a company's editorial track can enrich and constrain its narrative.

There are brilliant examples of brand editing everywhere. Some of the most exciting content initiatives are going beyond blogs and articles, to podcasts, video series, and even experiential, real-life encounters. Brand editors take authentic content and find new platforms and avenues on which it can continue to expand ideally in ways that are profitable for their brand.

Editorial Stance

A key part of Editorial discipline is to decode the brand DNA in terms of voice, tone, style and rhythm . Deciding who you are not, is a lot more difficult than to decide who you are. That’s also the essence of strategy. This editorial stance matters to consumers at a conscious and subliminal level. Like you choose a newspaper aligning to its editorial outlook and treatment of issues, likewise consumers respond to brand narratives whilst making choices.

If the brand is a developing story, it can have many editors, each responsible for a different aspect. Put together, the editors create the community glue for the brands’ audiences – arguably the most significant and influential element of modern marketing.

A Difficult Road

Brand editors will not find the road smooth. In fact, they will be pushed around wrt their roles and remits. Many well minded stakeholders may still think there is encroachment of their turf. Many will resist arguing its much ado about nothing.

Keep in mind that you’re a communicator you have to create the conviction internally as much, if not more, than with consumers. The realisation needs to grow that everyone communicates even if that’s not their job.

Everything you write has a purpose, and your audience must understand your content before they can act on it. In other words, clarity leads to engagement. Engagement leads to conversations. Conversation, when done right, ends in conversions. Whenever you write a product description, a social media post, or a story for your website, you’re using the power of your words to inspire your readers to act. And whenever you write, you are obliged to edit.Good editing will embrace your identity and help you craft memorable, effective content to keep you top of mind for your audience.

As I conclude, let me again emphasise that Consumer is Queen - audiences are savvy enough now to know the difference between editorial writing and sales writing, and it’s editorial they prefer. Brands not only need to find people who excel at creating content rather than selling it, but let them have the freedom necessary to create this kind of quality editorial.

A few years ago Seth Godin said that content marketing is the only marketing left. Why would Gillette not run the most important online magazine for men? Why didn’t Encyclopaedia Britannia start a search engine to organize the world’s information? They could have been Google if they took a bigger view of their role as a brand and institution.

I think part of the challenge is that we must redefine what business we’re in and to shift to a different way of thinking and empower some really smart people with the resources and creative freedom to go out and make great content. It’s about mattering.

The rise of brand journalism signals an exciting time in media, and it shows no signs of slowing down: more and more brands are growing their editorial teams and branching out into new forms of quality content.

Happy Editing.

“You can say the right thing about a product and nobody will listen. You’ve got to say it in such a way that people will feel it in their gut. Because if they don’t feel it, nothing will happen.” - William Bernbach

References:

The Power of Myth – Campbell and Moyers

Inside Apple – Adam Lashinsky

Winning The Story Wars – Jonah Sachs

The Mirror Makers : A history of American Advertising and its Creators -Stephen R Fox

Shubhranshu Singh is vice president, marketing - domestic & IB, CVBU, Tata Motors. He writes Simply Speaking, a weekly column on Storyboard18. Views expressed are personal.

SHUBHRANSHU SINGH