"Social proof." This idea is pretty self-explanatory. People look to other people when making decisions. These decisions can be as small as which cup of coffee to buy. They can also be big life-changing decisions like giving up smoking. The point isn't what the decision is, it is the fact that there is a general trend of people relying on others. This is why stores may fill tip jars with a couple extra ones at the start of the day. Customers coming by may see this and decide to contribute a tip themselves. When looking for a restaurant in a foreign city, people tend to look for restaurants full of people. Marketing can benefit from this idea of "Social proof." In order for a company to create a product that will "catch on," the product marketing needs to have some element of social proof. In order to do this, a marketer needs to understand when social proof is at its strongest.
Humans can only observe what people are doing, not what they are thinking. This means that in order for a product or service to become popular, it needs to be used in public. Berger states that, “Most products, ideas, and behaviors are consumed privately”(178). This means that spreading awareness of a product through social proof can be quite tricky. It involves making the product that was once used in private to be used in public. Advertising is centered on this idea of making private, public.
Hotmail was the first email company that allowed people to access the website from any computer. This meant that the product was advertising itself. People no longer had to check their email in private at work or at home. Email could be checked at the local library, or coffee shop. This meant that the brand spread through word of mouth very quickly. Hotmail also did this thing where at the bottom of every sent email, it said, "'Get Your Private, Free E-mail from Hotmail at www.hotmail.com"(179). Social proof came right into action as every recipient of a hotmail email saw this little piece of advertising. The recipient realized that others were relying on hotmail as an email service, and might have decided to do the same. This is social proof at its finest.
Neat info about hotmail. I had never heard that before. Social proof seems like a brilliant idea, a great way of explaining how marketing works together when (as you say) so much consumption goes on in public. Perhaps this is why companies set up twitter feeds and instagram accounts for customers to post: so that others will know that they were there.
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