It will be an ad like no other. Hoping to learn how advertising works, a Yale University psychologist has teamed up with a New York ad agency to design and test a novel marketing campaign - aimed at monkeys.
The idea is to explore whether susceptibility to messages, such as those used in marketing, is deeply ingrained in humans because it is embedded in our DNA - inherited from long-ago ancestors common to us and monkeys - or whether it is a strictly human weakness. The research is part of a broader effort to understand the evolutionary origins of our thought processes and behaviors, especially when it comes to making economic decisions.
Yeah! Let's put an end to that "Nature vs. Nurture" argument once and for all! I'm really not sure what this is supposed to prove, really; at least I wasn't until I came across this part:
If the monkeys are swayed by the campaign - a big if - it could help explain why people’s preferences are influenced so easily. We may simply be hardwired to succumb to the allure of attractive people hawking luxury cars and fancy perfumes.
Yep. Just another "It's not my fault" study - let's prove that it's all the fault of those awful advertisers that folks blow their rent money on big screen TVs. I mean, if monkeys can't resist advertisement, obviously humans can't, either, right? Let's take yet another pillar out from the "free will" stand.
Here was, IMHO, the most interesting part:
Santos pointed them to a 2005 study led by Platt that found thirsty rhesus monkeys would give up juice to stare at photos of high-status monkeys or female monkeys they found attractive. With that in mind, Olwell and Kiehner began work, all self-funded, on their marketing campaign.
ZOMG! Even monkeys pay for pr0n!
I'm sure there's a lot we can learn from this study. It will be interesting to see if the same patterns humans exhibit are present in the lower primates, and will shed a little more light on the processes by which we place value and make decisions. Especially as they pertain to bananas...
This is one area, though, where I'd agree with PETA - forcing monkeys to watch commercials is a cruel practice...
That is all.
2 comments:
Has anything good come out of Yale in the last thirty years?
And how much of this study is coming out of my Taxes?
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