What Eating a Dozen Cookies Says About Your Personality

Based on a study in the Journal of Consumer Research, Newsweek recently published an article about how the lingering feeling of guilt, or lack thereof, affects forward consumption behavior.

One memorable example of psychological targeting a friend at an SEO conference gave as a technique to exploit the guilt feeling was upselling a computer cleaner announcing that a computer is infected after a person views a porn website, warning how would your boss or wife feel if they knew you were viewing porn sites.

MediaPost just blogged about a survey which concludes that women shopping habits are consistent throughout life:

According to a new online survey of over 3,000 women, ages 18-49, by AMP Agency, how a woman approaches shopping does not change as she grows older, shifts from life stage to life stage, moves from region to region, has children, or moves income brackets. A woman's approach to shopping is very much part of who she is: "it is part of her DNA."

Google has a patent for targeting in game ads based on user psychology. How far those ads get optimized remains to be seen, but creating media which makes it easy to understand and target the psychological flaws of users will become far more profitable as media titans and marketers invest more capital in understanding psychology and behavioral targeting.

Published: August 19, 2007 by Aaron Wall in marketing

Comments

August 20, 2007 - 6:38am

Aaron what about reese's cups I just got done eating one, and it was delicious :).

seo for my site,i building links every,but can't see my site on the first page of google

August 20, 2007 - 9:25am

How about marketing with scare tactics?

Search for
"Cheap Vitamin-X"

View an ad that says:
"Click here to learn about Vitamin-X side effects.
What you need to know before you buy"

Land on a sales page that says:
Side effects from Vitamin-X are very rare & mild. This is a very safe and effective product. Click on this [affiliate] link to buy cheap Vitamin-X.

August 20, 2007 - 2:50pm

Strange coincidence, I had about a dozen cookies yesterday while blogging.. with milk...

Cookies were also my breakfast this morning.

Jeremy Brooks
August 20, 2007 - 5:59pm

...I thought I was about to read how G was going to penalize my site for using an analytics system with too many cookies or something ridiculous. Imagine my relief when I realized it was only about advertisers manipulating psychological "flaws" in the masses... shoooo, what a relief.

-Jeremy

adam libman
August 20, 2007 - 8:16pm

this topic scares me. i do accounting, and i see patterns all day long. it's like we are programed. and now computers can detect our patterns.. wow

adam libman
August 20, 2007 - 8:16pm

this topic scares me. i do accounting, and i see patterns all day long. it's like we are programed. and now computers can detect our patterns.. wow

August 20, 2007 - 8:44pm

This caught my eye too due to recent personal behavior. I don't usually sit down with a plate of cookies but last evening I did finish off about 8+.

Amanda M
August 20, 2007 - 9:41pm

LOL. I just binged on about a dozen cookies last night. I must have no shame...

August 20, 2007 - 11:11pm

Aaron,

We would like to do an interview with you about your blog for
www.BlogInterviewer.com . We'd like to give you the opportunity to
give us some insight on the "person behind the blog."

It would just take a few minutes of your time. The interview form can
be submitted online at http://bloginterviewer.com/submit-an-interview

Best regards,

Mike Thomas

August 20, 2007 - 11:17pm

What's a cookie?

Do you mean a biscuit?

August 20, 2007 - 11:48pm

Well I didn't mean a crumpet ;)

August 21, 2007 - 6:01pm

LOL - If ever there was a headline worthy of clicking... I know if you'd used 'chocolate fudge cake' guess.

Jokes aside though, psychological triggers and motivators are very important to marketing - it's by far my favorite area to study.

The big three search engines already have and use data about what search phrases lead to what exact purchases online - so it won't be long before marketers are able to get this sort of information for their campaigns...

James
August 21, 2007 - 10:37pm

Great headline... but was disappointed to not see the answer for what eating a dozen cookies says about my behavior : )

"The world may never know"
- Tootsie Pop Owl

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