Comments on: The Unseen Behavioral Influence of Company Logos

By: Emergent Culture – News Literacy: Antidote to the Mainstream Media Poison

Emergent Culture – News Literacy: Antidote to the Mainstream Media Poison — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:53:54 +0000

[...] The Unseen Behavioral Influence of Company Logos Situationist contributor Grainne Fitzsimons and her research on the effects of popular company logos on human behavior are the subject of an interesting article by Joseph Brean of the National Post. We excerpt portions of his article below. [...]

By: Tamara Piety

Tamara Piety — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 15:56:56 +0000

This is disturbing and consistent with much of the research I’ve read. But I’ve also read that earlier attempts to identify a subliminal effect for advertising on the basis of extravagant claims made by Vickary in the 50s and then Wilson Key in the 70s resulted in failure and an inability to duplicate the claimed results. I know advertisers would love for it to be true and most of us fear it is true (and it seems to defy common sense that all this bombardment of imagery has NO effect), but it seems unlikely that as narrow and targeted an impact as these researchers claim could possibly be true. For example, saying Apple is associated with creativity sounds like an association made up by their advertising people. I did not (or at least not consciously) associate the Apple logo with creativity – rapacious, offensive sales practices? Yes; Creativity? No. Aesthetically pleasing and innovative design? Yes. But not some sense that creative people use it or if I use it I am creative. So it is curious that there was this unanimity amongst the experiment subjects as to the meaning, and hence their reaction to, the brief, subliminal glimpse of the logo. It is so curious in fact that it makes me suspect that the researchers might have had a little confirmation bias of their own going on – that is, they saw and interpreted what they saw, as what they expected to see. I’d have to know more details about the study to really know if that were possible but it does not seem like some that could be ruled out.

By: Larry

Larry — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 17:27:02 +0000

I guess this confirms what may of us in the designing and marketing world always suspected. It’s gratifying to say the least :)

By: The Situation of Hate Speech - Abstract « The Situationist

The Situation of Hate Speech - Abstract « The Situationist — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 04:02:55 +0000

[...] to priming, see “The Unconscious Situation of our Consciousness – Part IV” and “The Unseen Behavioral Influence of Company Logos.” For another Situationist post on schools and hate speech, see “Dueling Stereotypes [...]