Hey what’s up guys! Kathy Gibbens here…
Alright, let’s start with a quick review of a fallacy we covered earlier in Season 1: the Appeal to Pity. This is a perfect one to be reviewing right now b/c this is often used in a manipulative way, to try to get you to do or stop doing something! An appeal to pity is when someone says or does things to evoke the emotion of pity in order to get you to do, believe or think something. One place we see the appeal to pity is in the commercials for dog shelters, where the music, the images and even the tone of voice is all used in a way to make you feel pity for the dogs who are in the shelter.
Here's the Question to ask yourself if you’re facing an Appeal to Emotion: “Is what they’re saying being backed up by a real argument or are they just trying to play on my emotions?”
If you want to review or hear more about this fallacy, check out Episode 24.
Alright, today we are on Part 2 in our Manipulation mini-series and we’re talking about something called False Urgency. False urgency is when someone tries to get you to take action by creating a strong feeling of urgency to take action…even when there’s not really any urgency there.
I’m going to give you guys a peek behind the curtain of almost every marketing agency or advertising plan out there. False Urgency is one of the HUGE tactics that they use to try to sell more of whatever they’re selling. Think about it. How many times do you hear phrases like, “Only 300 left, and when they’re gone, they’re gone forever!” Lol…if you’ve ever watched QVC or any kind of online shopping network, they totally use this! And it’s by design.
They will purposely set a limit to how many orders of a particular thing they’re going to sell. It’s by design… they want to make you feel like there’s a sense of urgency to purchase or you won’t get it. Or sometimes you’ll hear a car dealership or a furniture store saying something like this, “This sale is only good until midnight, so come on in now!” Same thing. They’re creating False Urgency b/c the reality is, as soon as the next holiday comes around, they’re going to be offering the same sale all over again!
The reason people and advertisers often use False Urgency is b/c it works. It plays on people’s FOMO: the Fear of Missing Out. People don’t like to feel like they’re missing out on an incredible deal or an incredible experience, and that fear is a strong motivator. This is a real thing in human psychology, and the advertisers know it. That’s why they like to play on it to get people to take action.
As a consumer, we have to be aware of this and we have to ask ourselves a few questions: Number 1: do I even want this thing?? Or do I even want to do this?? Just b/c there are only two slots left to join the hot pepper eating contest with the chance to win $1,000 if you’re the winner…I have to ask myself: do I even want to eat hot peppers? Is that even worth it to me for a chance to win the thousand dollars? For me, the answer is a resounding No. I have absolutely zero desire to eat hot peppers. So I just need to let that FOMO go.
The second question is this: Is the urgency real? One place I’ve seen this a lot is with online or digital marketers. People who sell stuff online. I’m going to let you in on a little secret. They’ll send you ads saying that this awesome offer/class/workshop (whatever it is) expires in 12 hours. And there’s usually some sort of countdown timer or clock on their webpage that starts counting down. Here’s what you might not know. That offer actually never expires. It’s a website feature they put on their page to make it SEEM like the offer will expire and it’s only there to create urgency.
If you were to go back to that website the next day, two weeks or two months later, the offer would still be there, exactly like it is today. It’s called an evergreen offer b/c it’s always available and they just use the countdown timer to make you feel the FOMO. Now, does that apply to all online marketers? No. There are some people I follow who open the doors to their product only once a year, and if you want that product, you do have to buy while those doors are open. They’re using urgency, but they’re being very up-front about it. They’re not creating False urgency.
When you’re faced with Urgency of any sort, you have to stop & check in with yourself…check in with your emotions. Has the urgency triggered your FOMO to make you take action on something you really don’t want or need? See how easy it is for emotionalism to sneak in there?
Ok, so I’ve already said them, but let me go over them again. The questions to ask yourself when you’re faced with False Urgency are: “Do I even really want this? Is the urgency real?” *repeat*
Up next, part 3 in our Manipulation mini-series is going to be on something called Snob Appeal.
Remember: When you learn HOW to think, you will no longer fall prey to those who are trying to tell you what THEY want you to think and it all starts with asking one simple question: “Is that really true?”
