Priming (its magic for persuaders and manipulators)

In most things there is an easy way and a hard way,  Strange as this may sound, most choose the later.   It's not that they want to do things the hard way, it's just that no one ever explained to them the concept of priming.  (I sure wish I would have known this earlier in my career)

So what is priming?

Priming is preparing the other person to be persuaded.  It has little to do with logic and everything to do with managing emotions. The purpose of priming is to create the conditions to make the person receptive to your persuasions. As you read on you will also see how others are using these techniques on you!

It's fun to watch a commercial or walk into a business and think to yourself....hey I know exactly how you guys are trying to influence my buying decisions! And of course  I know you will use these powerful techniques only with the best of intentions, right?

There are many techniques to use when you want to prime your customer to buy into what you are proposing.  In this article I will use just one and post other techniques in later articles.   Ok, lets have some fun...

1.  Using images/visuals to prime your persuasion....

For starters I am using an example popular with the masters of manipulation....politicians.   If you are writing an article on Hillary Clinton and you want to prime the reader to believe she is sincere, warm and open, you of course would use the picture on the left.

Now if you want to prime your reader to think negatively about her, then the picture on the right will do the job nicely.   In this picture she looks harsh, angry and unapproachable. So whenever I see articles about politicians, I can usually guess the bias of the writer  based on the picture selected.

The prime demographic for beer companies is young males.   So they use images of young, healthy and sexy women.  They are trying to prime you to believe that by drinking their beer, you will have more fun than should be legal.   As they say, sex sells.

Just seeing an image of a brain primes us to think what we are about read is more intelligent.   And of course I need all the help I can get.    (but let's keep this our little secret)

Time for a food fight?   This image would prime you to believe that if it's not organic, your food is going to kill you.    Of course if that were true we all be dead by now!    But then again  organic food is a hugely profitable business....hmmmm!  (follow the money)

This is an image that was used by Fox News.   They were priming their viewers to believe that welfare rates were sky rocketing out of control.   In reality the increases were small but by not starting the graph at zero, the image creates a very different prospective.

Have you ever really listened to those Viagra and Cialis commercials?   At the end of the commercial they will tell you all of the potential side effects from taking their drug.  When you listen carefully they tell you that it can cause anything from anxiety to 4 hour erections and potential death (kidding).  When I first heard their commercial it made me wonder why would anyone buy it?

Here is what they do to get around that problem.   They show you images of the happy loving couple having a fantastic romantic time.  The images over power the reality of the dangers spoken of.  You are primed to think about romance, love and a perfect relationship and most people don't even process the negative side effects of the drug.

And finally....

You are priming the expectations of your clients by the way that you dress.   Are you projecting the kind of image that you want to be perceived as because people tend to accept the image you are projecting as real. Think about that?


This is the power of priming with images!   Stay tuned for more priming techniques in coming articles...