3/25/08 Wall Street Journal Best of the Business Tech Blog Excerpts from Recent Entries at WSJ.com’s Tech Blog BY BEN YTORTHEN
Apple: Just Think About Ityou don't need to be a Mac owner to be a cutting-edge hipster. Just thinking about Apple Inc. can make you more creative. That's according to researchers atDuke University and the University of Waterloo, who found that exposing people to a brand's logo for 30 milliseconds will make them behave in ways associated with that brand. In Apple's case, that means more creatively, said Gavan Fitzsimons, one of the Duke professors who conducted the study. The study will be published in the April issue of the Journal of Con- sumer Research.
Scientists have long debated whether subliminal messages, the idea that subconscious exposure can shape behavior, really work. ln recent years, the consensus has tended toward no.But most studies measured whether subliminal messages caused people to buy products. Mr. Fitzsimons and his colleagues wondered if the exposure resulted in behavioral changes that don't show up on the balance sheet.
To find out, they exposed subjects to imperceptible images of brand logos forApple and International Business Machines Corp., among others. Surveys found that people felt similarly about the two companies in every way except creativity, where Apple came out ahead, and competence, which was IBM'S perceived strength. After exposing them to the brands, the researchers asked subjects to describe as many uses for a brick as they could.
The Apple-primed subjects averaged 30% more answers and independent reviewers also deemed their answers more creative. It's harder to measure competence, but Mr. Fitz- simons says that IBM-primed subjects had strikingly uniform answers.
Does this mean businesses wanting to inspire creativity or competence in a handful of areas should buy Macs or IBM equipment for their offices? (IBM sold its PC division to Lenovo Group Ltd. while the study was in progress.) Mr.Fitzsimons isn't ready to go that far: The key to shaping behavior is unconsciously planting the brand image.
_______________________________________________ The next Louisville Computer Society meeting will be March 25 at MacAuthority, 128 Breckinridge Lane. Posting address: [email protected] Information: http://www.math.louisville.edu/mailman/listinfo/macgroup
