Are we test subjects for advertisers?

A group of scientists are doing test on a group of mice. The test consists of eachscientist has their own thing of cheese and the object is to get the most amount of mice to chose their cheese. They have a month to study the mice and look at the way they act and what the mice seem to like and dislike. This is also the same process that advertisers use on their customers (us) to try and sell as much of their product as possible.


In order for an advertiser to attract customers they have to show us something that attracts us. To do that the advertisers study us. They look at the likes and dislikes of their targeted audience. They look at what activities their targeted audience take part in. They take in mind the enviroment their targeted audience feels most comfortable and excited in. After they know this they are able to to appeal their targeted audience and give them (us) what they want.


For example in an ad for a Hummer they have the viewer looking down upon the car from above, giving the audience a feeling of power. Also the enviroment the car is in is "rocky" area. They are trying to attract people who like are active in nature and that like to either hike, rock climb, or other similar activities.  However, they leave out the negative sides of the car. They don't tell the audience anything about the high price of the car or about its poor gas mileage. If somebody looks at this ad and it meets all of their likes, there is a much higher chance that they will buy the car than someone who doesn't like the same these things.

Another example is an ad for a JEEP Grand Cherokee. In this ad the car is on a street that has an apartment building behind it that looks somewhat liek a castle. It looks like the car could be in England and surprisingly it has a random waterfall coming from the roof of the appartments. In the upper left hand corner the ad says, "Always have adventure in your heart". This ad does a good job of attracting people of all kinds. Because of the fact that the surroundings of the car have two completely ideas (a really nice neighborhood and a waterfall) they attract multiple types of people. The ad says that the car can be whatever you want it to be. If you are adventurous the car appeals to you because of the waterfall. Also if you are a person who cares more about living in a good neighborhood and your family the car appeals to you.

Advertisers are very good at what they do, that's why they do it. They know how to appeal to an audience because they study us and know what we want. By knowing this they are able to make an ad appeal to anybody they want to. Usually those people are the ones who end up buying the car in the end.


So are we test subjects for advertyisers? Make that decision next time you look at an advertisement.