“Mere Exposure Effect”
Extending the psychology series & the overlap to product management, here’s how the Mere Exposure effect is used to gauge user behavior & how it becomes a precursor to building great experiences.
Taking off from the Kahneman's theory pertaining to frequent repetition which is where we left off in the previous article, the mere exposure effect seems like a deeper reflection of it that focuses on tracking and making sense of how individuals respond to repetitive stimuli.
Some Context…
There’s no denying that we’re clearly living in an internet era today and the products we see around us thrive on web-based technologies and the percentage of such products seem to be witnessing an alarming rise by each day’s passing. Am not even talking about products that are delivered on the cloud SaaS, PaaS, iPaaS, IaaS et. al. No, not anymore.
Take a look at how the physical products are all integrated with Tech today, the advent of which I believe started largely with innovations like Infrared about 2 decades back later transforming into Bluetooth and today we are talking of IoT and IIoT.
Consider a TikTok video for instance and the virality element that’s involved with so many of them short videos (or as they are termed “shorts”).
Talking specifically: “Zach King's Magic Ride”. It is a short snippet, under 20 seconds and it’s managed to amass about 2.2 billion unique views.
Captivating, isn’t it?
Here is the link & be amused…!
What is that’s really so engrossing?
Is it magic or is it sorcery?
One can’t help but feel transported to the world of wizards and Harry Potter, that’s JK Rowling’s turf right there and it’s definitely not about the gown he is wearing.
The video starts with a felicitation of the Guinness World Records certificate to the recipient and he seems to appear out of thin air. And then, post handing the certificate there’s a bit of that “Winguardium Leviosa!” which by the way is Latin for “waving and making things light and airy” and boy does that reflect when the certificate begins to float magically towards the end there!
And then, just like that you are kind of forced into denial as you have happened to just witness some stuff defying logic and your learnings from physics or the “laws of the universe” whilst at school.
Ok, so let’s break that down.
WHAT is it that exactly keeps the audience captivated over the video?
Its got to be one of these. Is it:
the display of a certificate
hearing the words “Guinness Book of World Records”
guy appearing out of thin air
the sorcerers attire
certificate beginning to float in the air
And for all you know, this is how the percentage distribution of each of those choices could look like over a given sample space of an audience:
It could really vary from person to person although the object floating in the air may seem to appeal largely to a mass audience.
Also note how the interest levels as induced by the shock factor seems to be inversely proportional to the number of times one witnesses the phenomenon in the video.
That practically and in essence is the “mere exposure effect” in action there.
Mere Exposure Effect
The mere exposure effect simply states that people show an increased liking for a certain stimulus and that seems to grow in direct proportion to that very stimulus they are exposed to.
“The repeated exposure of an individual to a stimulus is sufficient for that individual to develop a more enhanced attitude toward that stimulus”.
- Robert Zajonc
Going back to the TikTok video quoted in the above section one could correlate to the truth value of this statement above. And, as is pretty evident the factors that influence the audience and lead to creating that captivating effect is not just limited to a unanimous one. The truth is they indeed are multiple.
As is evident from the plot above, the “likability” which is to quote, the probability of garnering an absolutely impeccable initial reaction to any given stimulus may hinge on just that one or a combination of a few factor(s) that seem to have the pluck to captivate the audiences.
The Common Factors:
Here are the common factors that go in to influencing / inducing likability (explained with examples alongside highlighting a few antipatterns given today’s timeline):
1) Recency
Does the content being floated have any sort of relevance, either direct or indirect take on some other popular content or event that happened to rock the world in recent times?
For ex: AMUL – a popular dairy brand in India using the recent political events as a backdrop to promote their most popular product, “table butter”.
2) Classification
Is the content unambiguous helping the audience space it properly, stomach the correlation (if any), classify / bucket / segment it as originally intended?
For ex: Google showing how simple it is to find stuff you’re looking for over their search, in this case they seem to be using a narrative to show how there is no need to hunt, just a search will do the job.
3) Familiarity
Does the content breed a degree of familiarity? This could make marketing new products classified as futuristic & beyond the current space & time totally tricky given how dry the whole topic itself may be.
For ex: This IBM PC may be all powerful and totally what you may have wanted back then, provided you had the tenacity to read through all the subtext and go through the whole table.
4) Relevance
Does the content floated connotate the underlying idea of the product and the sole purpose of its existence successfully?
For ex: Viceroy’s cigarettes using the image of a Dentist upholding his views and recommending that brand of smokes whilst sporting a dental mirror. Here, the connection between a dentist and cigarettes could be profound given its link to gum diseases, not so easily decipherable to common man.
5) Complexity
Is the content totally simple to grasp and understand & simple here could mean everything that’s visible and audible over the pitch?
For ex: When the VW Tiguan is still a great advert no doubt & yet very easy for most to disconnect with the concept unless they happen to zoom into the bottom left corner and engage with that subtext there taking of the Park Assist feature.
6) Presentation sequence
Does the content gradually take off and progress smoothly right from the start to the finish delivering the message in a captivating and engrossing fashion? Also, does the audience feel that it is all accommodating sans any sort of disconnections?
For ex: Who doesn’t like a box of some fine Belgium chocolate & is there a better time than Thanksgiving & the “Black Friday Sale” to stock up on these? GoDiva here uses the narrative of a festive season with the images of the snowflake & Santa alongside the text “Black Friday in JULY” to create a drag.
Given those factors influencing likability you should have understood the complexity involved in building some sort of a pitch targeting the audiences who may not even classify as prospects yet.
So, here’s a stepwise approach your teams could follow so as to increase the probability of success and make headwinds towards virality:
1. Factoring in user behavior
It all starts with building an understanding of the space one is operating in as it is evident how one would get into building for a specific target market and a given user groups. And that understanding obviously hinges on good immersive research as a backbone so as to also gain ample insights into what may work and what may not & to arrive at the pulse of the market.
2. Building relevant content
The understanding of the markets (the pulse) ought to be broken down into building totally relevant content so as to entice the user groups by relying on some real crisp messaging that is in total alignment with the goals of the organization and the product vision. And, it is very possible that one builds & floats multiple such content so as to use the context and build some rich relevance.
3. Impeccable storytelling
To put it like “the messaging ought to be intriguing” could just be an understatement here. There ought to be a degree of continuity so as to totally capitulate the users by a brand of storytelling so as to cash-in on the power of correlation. Also, there are many advancements in tech off-late and that’s only translated to propelling the user’s expectations furthermore, sky-high.
4. A/B testing
Irrespective of how harmoniously content writers, copywriters, designers, internal teams, stakeholders seem to work and how impeccable they think the content they built is, the users are the ones who obviously have the last laugh in this matter, and rightly so. It’s important to take that content built, float it into the market strategically choosing to conduct A/B tests, gather feedback on the relevance, the messaging & measure the confidence over it being able to drive those outcomes – conversions & be quick to refine, edit & reload in case it doesn’t take-off to the expected levels or seems to fall totally flat.
5. Release
The culmination of the steps above ought to lead to a semblance of a pitch with the content resonating so well to the markets / users that it ought to improve conversions. Lock and load, it’s time for the final release.