Don't Underestimate the Power of the Desire to Fit In

Sasha Issenberg, journalist and political moneyballer, was the first speaker at Iconosphere. He shared with us some of the new studies that have been done to evaluate the effectiveness of various political campaign strategies and in doing so, reminded me of the power of the human desire to fit in.

One of the most interesting studies he shared with spoke to this truth about the desire to fit in. The objective of the study was to determine how to effectively get more people to vote. One strategy called out the horrific statistic of how many people in the United States currently do not vote. In fact, the number of people who vote for American Idol is probably larger. However appalling this fact was though, it didn’t have a great impact on getting more voters out to the polls. Another strategy sent people information on their voting history, as well as those around them. This report showed them how often their neighbors had voted in the past, and how many times they had voted - not many. This method was much more effective at getting the constituents out to vote. Why? Because the people felt left out/odd/like they weren't doing the right thing by not voting when all those around them were. The desire to fit in with others and not be the only one not doing something wins. This is also referred to as behavior economics.

I believe the desire to fit in is extremely powerful and one that we should not only consider when creating advertising campaigns, but also when devising social norm change communication. By demonstrating that a certain act or behavior is clearly what everyone else is doing, we’re playing into the impressionable part of consumers’ brains and chipping away at whatever confidence they have that what they’re currently doing is right or good enough. Although this sounds like quite an evil plot, when used for positive social norm change strategies, it’s not only effective but beneficial.

Kelleen Peckham, Senior Brand Planner