Cognition. It’s the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses. Basically, it’s how we know stuff. The issue is however, most people, most of the time are cognitive misers – a term coined by Susan Fiske and Shelley Taylor in 1984 to describe people that tend not to think too hard about things. Instead, they take little shortcuts whenever possible. Or as Fiske and Taylor put it “people are limited in their capacity to process information, so they take shortcuts whenever they can.”
“But what the heck are these shortcuts and how can they be utilised by a small business in relation to graphic design?” I hear you esoteric bunch bellow.
So let’s dig down on a few of these cognitive shortcuts, biases and principles and have a look at how they can be utilised!
5) Priming
Priming is the phenomenon in which one’s exposure to a topic, thought or idea influences their response to subsequent stimuli. For example, the word ‘sleep’ is quicker to recognise when preceded by ‘yawn’ than it would be if preceded by the word ‘cobweb’. You can probably see how we could apply this to design. We’ll use ourselves as an example here. The name Pioneer Creative Marketing primes people to immediately recognise the content we’re sharing as being related to a creative form of marketing and as such, they’re able to apply context to it subconsciously. Priming means you guide people the right way by giving their minds little hints which they can subtly pick up. Another example could be a video game – if you enter a room filled with health potions and weapons and ammunition, you know there’s going to be a big fight up ahead. You haven’t been told directly, but you’ve been pushed in that direction. You can use this to your advantage by using imagery to nudge people into feeling the right way about something .For example, perhaps a picture of a cute dog will let everyone know that everything is fine and relaxing, or fire to imply something passionate and dynamic. If you want to know more about the role colour can play in graphic design, check out our blog post on the topic here.
4) Anchoring Bias
Not just for pirates. Anchoring bias builds on priming, in that users are most likely to make judgements about what they see based upon the first piece of information that they are provided with. It is often used to increase the perception of the value of a product. This is why pricing plans will often show you the most expensive item first so the others look cheaper in comparison, or why TV channels like QVC are so popular. People will see a toaster that was initially priced at £300 dropped down to £90 and think “wow that’s worth it definitely, I’ll get that”. In your design you can apply this by creating a post explaining a specific topic or perhaps a meme that imparts information onto people about a certain topic.
3) Curiosity
Ever had one of those friends who tells you the best way to meet people is to ‘play hard to get’ and it annoys you a bit because you just want to be honest about life and instead you’re being encouraged to play games all the damn time? This is that concept essentially. The curiosity gap is based on the innate human desire to know things. If there is a gap between what people know and what they want to know, they will seek that information out. In-keeping with the dating theme, Tinder will show blurred photos of people users have matched with so that those users will be more inclined to buy the product to find out what the person actually looks like. It’s sneaky, but it works. It can also be used to quickly and easily earn a million quid. How? Email us to find out more…
(that was an example, don’t actually do that)
2) Social proof
I’ve got an Uncle called Jeremy. When I was about 13 years old, he told me at a barbecue that I should never get an iPhone under any circumstances and to only get an Android. Spin on a decade later and I’ve never owned an iPhone, primarily because of that conversation. It’s a good example of social proof- when someone is unsure as to what to do or what to think about something, they’ll often look for cues from other people to base their attitudes off of. Applying this to your design, you can look at creating testimonials, or photos of people having fun. It’s also why brands will use influencers a lot. That can be a bit of a minefield though, so tread lightly and read a lot before you choose to use an influencer.
1) Sunk cost fallacy
You ever been sitting in the cinema watching possibly the world’s most boring and noil movie (I’m looking at you Once Upon A Time In Hollywood – a good film tells a story, it doesn’t just assume you know the story and not bother telling you anything) but sat through it until the end because you’ve “made it this far”? This is the sunk cost fallacy! It’s quite a dangerous one to play with and can often be unethical and unfair, often it’s the basis of a lot of scams and whatnot. However, in terms of creating content, you can definitely use it to your advantage – creating a photo series, a ‘follow us for more’ call-to-action or perhaps a top 5 blog post. The possibilities are endless when you think creatively!
That’s all for now though. See you later.
Pioneer Creative Marketing 