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Social Media, Psychology and T-Shirts
Social media is alive, well, and walking the streets of America. I’m not referring to mobile applications that allow you to post to your blog while you check Twitter while you drive to work while you sit in on your VOIP enabled teleconference. It’s about the re-emergence of the t-shirt, which in all likelihood is the epitome of self-publishing. How often do we see a complete stranger slouching down the street sporting a message on their shirt that would have gotten them in a fist fight in another time and place? Is this the unhappy post-Simon Cowell-esque nexus of reality TV and blogging, where public humiliation for the enjoyment of others meets the ability to craft your own “I’m with stupid” wearable? Maybe. But let’s look at this in a few other ways before we bemoan the state of casual wear nationwide.
Feel free to disagree, but I’m standing firm on my opinion that the rise of the T-shirt – either the one with the vaguely insulting statement or the arrogant self-reference – is a direct off-shoot of modern day self-publishing. The T-shirt has become self-publishing for the digitally illiterate. So when we talk about social media drivers, we need to include CafePress in the conversation from now on, thanks to this underserved need for self-branded underwear. So how do we process this phenomenon? Here are a few ways to understand the impossible-to-otherwise-comprehend culture of t-shirt psychology:
I’m not like you: We all want to be exclusive. Uncommon. Scarce, rare, and through invidious comparison likely to be in competition with others for bragging rights. Referring back to Dr. Robert Cialdini’s research and writings on the Principles of Persuasion, this shows exclusivity.
I’m like them: Wearables are another way of showing how strongly we identify with a brand. Wearing a Harley T broadcasts your self-image of a rebel and a biker. Wearing a Mister Stay-Puff Marshmallow T projects your own self-image of a guy who doesn’t believe in strong brand associations and who probably sneers at those who do. Wearing an “I’m With Stupid” T to the mall says, well, that you’re with stupid, I guess. Again, referring back to the Principles of Persuasion, this is liking – the propensity for people to be persuaded by those who are similar to them.
In this light, we can see why wearables matter so much to us. We find that rare things have more value to us. We also identify with those we like. When we change our perspectives and take a marketer’s point of view, there are few other compelling reasons why wearables are powerful social – and branding – motivators.
It’s hard to say ‘no’ when they’ve been so nice: once you give a gift, social pressure expects the recipient to give something back, often far out of proportion to the size and thread count of the initial gift. Want to get a higher conversion rate for a high-involvement purchase? Once they've accepted your "gift," it's simply harder for them to turn you down later. Even if the t-shirt costs $8 and the Porsche costs $90,000. So reciprocity is a powerful relationship starter.
It’s even harder to complain when I’m wearing their logo on my chest: We tend to feel strong social pressures to behave in a consistent fashion with our prior commitments. Few of us have the nerve to badmouth a brand to a friend when we’re wearing it. We wear it, so we have inner and outer social pressure to defend our choice. This is the principle of consistency.
Everyone’s doing it: t-shirts, as the man says, are walking billboards. And a big piece of branding is awareness and connection with other like-minded people. See a group of people who look like the kind of people you identify with, and you gravitate to their brand choices. Look at the Andre the Giant “Obey” campaign. There wasn’t even a product behind the logo when it first emerged. So consensus often drives our choices, particularly in cases of uncertainty.
So the lowly T-shirt becomes more than just a line item on our budget, doesn’t it? As a cultural phenomenon, wearables, souvenirs, and trophies of far-flung adventures are powerful motivators. When set in a branding framework, these take on significant psychological overtones. Wearables work because of how we’re wired, how we consume products and how we function as a society.
Now, as for whether our wearables reflect the state of our culture and conscious thought, let’s just hope that it’s a manifestation of our desire for self-publishing and content creation – and not an indictment of our copywriting.
Regards.
Stephen Denny is the President of Denny Marketing, a marketing consultancy helping clients in the areas of marketing strategy, demand generation and outbound communications. He is also the first in Silicon Valley certified to facilitate the "Principles of Persuasion” (POP) Workshop to corporate clients seeking leadership development and training in the science of influence. The POP Workshop is based on the research of Dr. Robert Cialdini, Regent’s Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University.
Apart from his consulting work, Denny also writes the marketing blog, Note to CMO: and is a frequent contributor to The Daily Fix.
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