What are the Proven Psychological Triggers which Generate Word of Mouth

Heard of emotional triggers?

Well, in psychological terms, trigger is something that brings back a certain memory.

Triggers initiate an association of thoughts which is why when someone says something like ‘vacation’ you start thinking of the last time you had a long and good one. However, this was a layman’s example just to establish a point; psychologists would tell you that triggers are more specific, and these triggers can be anything – a sight, a sound, a word, a smell, or even a touch – a trigger can be any form of stimuli.

Psychological triggers and word of mouth – Intricate details:

For brand advocacy

We have moved a step ahead from television commercials and now live in the era of e-commerce and online advertisement. The last couple of years have witnessed an exceeding success of brand advocacy. Brand advocates are genuine consumers of specific brands who recommend the products they use to the people in their lives.

Brand advocacy can take place online. Researches, however, have proven that only a mere 7% of brand advocacy takes place online. The main advocacy takes place in real life scenarios, during interpersonal communication – through word of mouth.

Can you ever possibly think of bread without also simultaneously thinking about butter?

So bread becomes a trigger for butter, and associating a particular brand of butter with bread in the advertisement will work to its advantage. Here is why: assuming that bread is something the target audience consumes pretty regularly for breakfast, there are chances that seeing bread will bring back the memory of a brand of butter and people will get talking about it. That’s how psychological triggers generate word of mouth, which in the present times is the most trusted form of advertisement.

Also, remembering any brand is associated with a certain social cause might trigger a person’s memory. For instance, bamboo straws reduce the use of plastic; some brands contribute a percentage of their profit towards the education of children. These factors improve the chances for the brands of getting recommended during casual conversations.

Words of mouth over commercials

Our generation is way too smart and informed to be duped by tv commercials. When they see a superstar advertising for a soap used mostly by the middle-class they know for certain, there is no truth behind their words. And hence, there is no reason to trust their recommendation. On the other hand, when people recommend products we know in person – whether it be a colleague, a friend or even a stranger reviewing a product on an e-commerce website – chances are we would trust them.

To get your consumers to endorse your brand, the best way is to associate your brand with keywords or images that remain at the top of their head and are likely to become a topic of conversation. Take ‘Monday Blues’ for example. Everyone whines about it once a week and a brand associated with the same has good chances of finding a place in conversations as such psychological triggers do a great job in generating words of mouth.

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Created on Jan 8th 2019 00:17. Viewed 627 times.

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