How skillful advertisers can word-jack your brain

A study carried out by two marketing professors called I Imagine, I Experience, I Like: The False Experience Effect has found that “exposure to an imagery-evoking ad can result in an erroneous belief that an individual has experienced the advertised brand.”

Two groups of people were given a description of a brand of popcorn, one group’s was detailed, the other was succinct. Then, a selection of participants from the groups were given a sample of the popcorn to taste. When asked a week later, those who had read the full and elaborate description of the popcorn but hadn’t eaten any were just as likely to report that they’d tasted it as those who actually had. So a well-written, detailed description that evokes a person’s imagination about a product could make them crave foods they think they’ve tasted but actually haven’t.

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