Blog 7 - Michael Shermer

Every morning millions of people wake up and watch the news. Every morning millions of people read their newspaper with their cup of coffee. We look to these sources to find out what is going on in the world around us. We are not able to witness each event that takes place so we trust others to communicate what happens and tell us what to believe, feel, and think. Michael Shermer, in his discussion, introduces the idea that people will always believe what you tell them. ‘Grainy information’ makes for a grainy conclusion that people will often buy into.
Shermer argues that people are getting smarter, however why is it that people will believe whatever they hear? Most people do not question the things they see. If someone is told that a product will perform a certain task, we have the faith that it will. Even when the Virgin Mary’s outline appeared on a building no one thought to investigate the situation further. Common sense, as Shermer demonstrated, would show that something as common as a sprinkler head and palm tree could be the creator of this ‘miracle.’ Yet why did no one else think to discover what was really going on? We are quick to believe whatever someone tells us.
The news portrays top stories in the way they want people to perceive them. They provide the ‘grainy information’ so that we have enough to paint a fuzzy picture, but not enough to truly see what is there. I thought Shermer’s discussion was particularly interesting in the second half. He demonstrated how we naturally all see faces in everything we look at. Without someone else pointing at a ‘face on the moon,’ it is hard to draw the conclusion on your own. However, the minute someone else points out the happy face that is all we focus on.
In relation to marketing and customer insights, Shermer’s position connects the power that marketers have to influence their customer’s decisions. We are able to feed information, in a particular way, to a particular group of people. We are telling them things that might not necessarily be true, but that we deem it important for them focus on. If a marketer does not point out the freshness of a certain product or mention the convenience of a service, people are unlikely to think that the product is fresh or the service is convenient. As marketers, we are quick to decide that other people are like us. We immediately assume they want to hear the things we like best. We deem what we believe most important and capitalize on that aspect.
While conducting research, I think we are all quick to make assumptions about the observations we are gathering. Our own biases start to influence how we judge certain situations. We might be observing a family in their home and we begin to see things that really are not there. If we are told to look for something particular, we are often blinded by anything besides the thing we are looking for.
As consumers, we do not know who we really are or what we really want. When we see something we believe it. And when we often describe who we are and the things we do, we are usually describing ourselves in terms of who we wish we were, not who we really are. Marketers often spin a product to reflect what they think costumers want. However, most of the time the assumption is wrong. Consumers have communicated what they would buy in a hypothetical situation, but in reality they are not likely to do what they say. Consumers are easily influenced by the smallest factors just as marketers are easily fooled.
The audio example Shermer played in his lecturer completely demonstrates his point. Listening to the song backwards, most of the students only caught the word Satan. Once Shermer told them what hidden messages were in the song, people were able to differentiate one word from another. And they believed it! As a marketer, we must be aware of the story we are trying to tell our consumers and what story will influence them to purchase more.