Rock Hymas

I recently read J.D.’s post at Get Rich Slowly warning us to Beware the Insidious Power of Marketing. It reminded me of the power of what we see, hear, smell, taste, and feel to influence our actions, even in ways we are unaware of. Advertising takes advantage of this by doing it’s best to subtly move us closer to making that next purchase, to buying just one more whatchamacallit, to “investing” in a bigger home, a faster car, or a nicer computer. However, the power of advertising and marketing can be used for good too. The concepts behind effective advertising are fairly simple psychological principles. Because they are being used by people to make a living, the application of the principles of psychology to influence behavior has been studied and perfected over many years. We can take advantage of those principles in our lives to change our own behavior just as effectively as the advertisers do.

Personally, this means that I try to surround myself with “advertising” for my goals. The idea is embodied in lifehacker’s recommendation to make a collage to get motivated. They don’t talk about doing anything more than just making one, partly because that can be so motivating by itself. But of course, you’d need (well, I’d need) something more frequent and regular to fight the advertising designed to get us to eat a lot. Make sure to put the collage up somewhere that you’ll see it every day, preferably many times a day. Trust me, that’s cheaper, timewise and magazine-wise, than making a collage every day.

Of course, making a collage is not the only way you can advertise to yourself. Something I’ve started doing is listening to motivational talks by men and women I admire. Podcasts about hobbies you want to spend more time on can be just what you need to actually do something about it. I can’t tell you how many times in the last few months I’ve been listening to a podcast on the commute home and made a note to myself about something I should change or do. When I follow through on that, I feel great. Even better, when I don’t I’m usually reminded of it the next day or the next week by another podcast.

And that’s exactly what advertisers are trying to do. They fill your head with ideas of things to buy and then incessantly remind you about them. They often do it by claiming, explicitly or implicitly, that if you just have their product, then you’ll be rich, famous, in control, powerful, funny, cool, athletic, healthy, happy, relaxed, or whatever. Of course, owning a given product doesn’t make you that person, or we could all be perfect by taking on enough debt. And a perfect person could pay off the debt easily, right?

But wait, aren’t I recommending that you advertise to yourself in order to become all those things and more? Frankly, yes, if that’s what you want. However, the key to advertising to yourself is finding out what it really takes to change. If your goal is to run a marathon, then advertise that goal to yourself in a way that actually helps. Some of that advertising can be “awareness” based, just to regularly remind you of your goal. At least some of it should link that goal to the actual steps required to acheiving it. And by this I don’t mean buying the latest, most expensive running shoes that you saw in the mailer from your local sports shop. The key is finding ways to link the euphoria that you’re sure will accompany accomplishment of your goal to the sometimes hard-to-do things that are required.

Of course, advertising for real products can be used when you’re doing this. Some of the most inspiring stuff out there is in the form of advertisements, such as Nike’s Move commercial. Just don’t feel like you have to buy Nike’s shoes in order to move. And the tools now exist to make exposing yourself to this great stuff, whether it’s commercial advertising or not, very easy.

Speaking of tools, I have to admit that my MP3 player died a couple weeks ago, and I’ve gotten so used to my personal advertising during the commute that listening to the radio is a trial. In my mind, it’s well worth the investment to buy a new MP3 player, because it’s an investment in myself.
The key for me to remember is

“If I can market to myself the person I want to be, slowly but surely I can become that person.”

I’ll have to post that quote on my mirror or something…

This entry was posted on Monday, February 19th, 2007 at 3:43 pm and is filed under advertising, productivity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.