How Advertisers Hypnotise you into Buying
Have you ever bought something and then later wondered why you bought it. Or are you trying to lose weight but you just can’t stop yourself from eating that calorie dense food, even though you know you shouldn’t? Do the Advertisers Hypnotise you into Buying the item or eat the food? Does that sound too far-fetched? Well I am here to tell you today, that no, it isn’t far-fetched and yes you have been hypnotised.
Here I will show you how advertisers use the techniques of the hypnotist to make you buy what you don’t want or need. I have two decades of sales experience, I am a qualified Hypnotherapist, and I can tell you that what I see from the advertisers shocks me.
Most importantly at the end of this post, I will show you what you can do about it to protect yourself.
Firstly, I will show you the exact process used to hypnotise someone and how the advertisers apply this to getting you to do what they want.
By the way if you are looking to lose weight contact me and I will show you how I did it.
The steps to hypnotise someone
To hypnotise someone, firstly it takes experience and training to gain peoples trust. You can’t be hypnotised against your will. You can reject the process. However, what if you don’t know you are being hypnotised?
Before I can explain how advertisers can hypnotise you, I first need to tell you the process of becoming hypnotised.
Trust
Trust is of paramount importance. If you do not trust the hypnotist, you will simply reject them and any of their suggestions. This is why they will use rapport skills to try to gain your trust. Simply put, people like people who are like themselves. The trained hypnotist will spend, usually the whole of the first session (in therapy) gaining your trust.
Induce trance
Once the hypnotist has gained your trust, they will the go-ahead and induce trance. The trance state is where you are most suggestible. This is why they need to get you in this state. Your preconscious mind and its critical faculty are side-lined, so that the hypnotist’s suggestions will go straight to your subconscious mind.
There are many types of induction
First the hypnotist will make sure you are relaxed. They will ask you to release any tension in your body.
The hypnotist will highlight something visual to stimulate your senses. Then they will ask you to close your eyes and imagine seeing the same visual stimuli. This is very hypnotic as it forces your consciousness inwards. Again you are giving your permission to do this. You can also do this with sound. You hear something and then they say ‘Listen to that sound I wonder what it is?’. Again this induces trance.
Deepeners
After inducing the trance state, the hypnotist will use deepeners. These are designed to deepen the trance state. You could be asked to imagine going down some stairs, or down a lift. It might also be counting down numbers. They might use hypnotic music and brain entrainment devices like Binaural Beats
The language a Hypnotist uses is very important here. They will deepen your trance state further by saying things like “that’s right…” “ Imagine…”, they may use hypnotic language. Some of this language is designed to be vague and metaphoric as opposed to specific . This again deepens the trance state.
Suggestion
Finally, when the hypnotist is confident that you are in a state of trance they are then ready to deliver the therapy, often in the form of suggestion. These are usually commands that the subconscious will obey, because the conscious and preconscious critical thinking parts of the mind are distracted or sidelined.
How the advertisers use these hypnotic techniques
Watch most of the slick adverts and they will follow the same formula that the hypnotist uses.
Trance induction and deepeners
Firstly, you are already relaxed, usually if you are watching TV as you recline in your sofa.
You will watch a stylised version of the product and then be asked to imagine owning and using it. You go inside your mind to imagine yourself in the picture. Very hypnotic, just like the hypnotist does.
There is deliberately vague language like “Because you’re worth it”. “The one that you want”. This nonsense is very ambiguous and very hypnotic.
The music is also designed to induce trance and to be an auditory anchor. I explain what anchors are in a later post. What this means is that you will associate the good feelings, induced by the music, with the product. Whenever you hear the music again, you will subconsciously desire the product. Combine this the with rich visual stimuli of beautiful young people and it is a potently hypnotic vehicle to get you to buy.
There are also some other extremely subtle tricks, where the camera pans in to the image or logo. It has a trance inducing effect of drawing you in.
Marketers and advertisers are becoming adept at brain entrainment techniques. The pace of the editing cuts has a metronome-like effect, where each camera cut or sequence changes at regular intervals. It is the same way that a ticking clock is hypnotic, only this is visual.
Then we come to the suggestion part
This is usually traditional upfront marketing where the advertisers sell the benefits of the product.
There is also usually a call to action, like a ‘buy now while stocks last’ request.
Trust and rapport
You might notice that although the hypnotist starts with trust, I didn’t start with this to explain how advertisers use it. This is because advertisers have struggled with ways to gain your trust and rapport. To remind you again, you cannot be hypnotised or put in trance against your will. You must give your permission to give your self-determining power away.
Advertisers therefore try to gain your trust in many ways.
Branding
Brands are extremely important to the marketer, because of the familiarity and trust they engender. After all you invite them into your homes already.
Celebrity
Ever wondered why a snooker player might advertise double glazing? Or a retired news reader sells us life insurance? It’s because you trust the celebrity already. Therefore this trust is transferred to the product and you are more likely to buy.
Product placement
This is where a product is used by the characters in soap operas and Hollywood films. Beware of this. You might think that this is innocent enough, but your subconscious doesn’t know this. Bond wears an Omega, therefore I need one, but McQueen wears a Rolex. Aahh, I need both. At least with adverts you know you are being sold to.
What can you do about it?
The most important key to all this is your awareness. I started by saying that you can’t be hypnotised against your will, however you can be hypnotised, if you don’t realise that you are being hypnotised.
So here’s the trick. Be aware whenever you watch TV, especially soaps and films with product placement. Just mentally wake yourself from your relaxed stated. See the adverts for what they are. Mentally note that this is an advert and say to yourself “I reject this brainwashing”. When you watch a film or Soap, notice the product placements and smile to yourself.
One final word on the media: TV, Radio, Podcasts, the Internet, Social Media etc. The media’s business is not to inform you or entertain you. The media’s business is to influence you to make buying decisions or vote a certain way. They use information and entertainment as the conduit to do this and they will play a long game. Always be aware of this.