Good morning fellow survivors!
As I was checking my Gmail this morning I noticed a clever little Gmail Ad that almost got me to click on it. Not because of the product offered, or because I was interested to see what was in the other site. I almost clicked on it because there are some elements that triggered some of my robotic behaviors in my computer. Here’s the ad:
Can you tell what triggered my robotic behavior? Hahahaah, no no no, it wasn’t the text saying “Someone has a crush on you..”. It was the “(1) New Message” text. You see, those ads aren’t new, and I would never automatically click on something like that elsewhere on the web. The thing is I’m in my own trusted Gmail Inbox, and I see a perfect little link saying “(1) New Message”, I automatically put my mouse cursor on top of it. I had to pause, read the rest and think for .5 seconds in order not to click.
The concept of advertisers capitalising on people’s robotic behaviors isn’t anything new, it just feels weird when you realize they almost had you. Now think of this, for everytime you realize that they just had you, there have been at least 10 or more times that they got you and you still don’t know about it.
Watch this cool short video about something similar to what I’m talking about. It’s called “Subliminal Marketing”, scary and interesting stuff…
