The Baader- Meinhof Phenomenon!

You are walking down on the street and randomly look at a billboard and guess what? you see your crush's name there . Take another scenario for instance, you have learned a new word and now you are seeing this word everywhere, even your teacher is also using the word while delivering the lecture. Did you ever confront situations like these? And asked yourself question like - Am I going insane? It happens to most of us at some point of our life. By the way, what is actually happening here? Is your crush or the word stalking you? To answer these questions we have to know about the Baader -Meinhof phenomenon commonly known as the frequency illusion or recency illusion.

As claimed by the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon (BMP), After noticing something for the first time, there is a tendency to notice it more often, leading someone believe that it has an increased frequency of occurrence . Simply say, we notice or see what is on our mind.

It happens for two reasons, one, selective attention which makes something stand out subconsciously. Second, confirmation bias that says, one interprets information in a way that supports one’s prior belief. Frequency illusion also connected to social proof, the idea that others recommendations, testimonials, positive opinion can influence our way of behaving or decision making.

Now coming to the main part, Can companies use this phenomenon to sell their products? And make their products look like omnipresent? The answer is, yes, they can. By following a few techniques companies can trigger frequency illusion. For instance, by being an attention seeker through distinctive headlines, vibrant images, and creative videos of the product. Being in various platforms and spreading helpful information about the product. And by repeating messages consistently about the product through different channels. And retargeting the customers etc. Finally, companies can use other complimentary techniques (like - conformation bias, social proof) to strengthen frequency illusion.

When a company exposes a new product to us for the first time, the product may or may not catch our attention. When additional references occur in quick succession, the frequency illusion kicks in. And eventually, people start to notice the product or the brand. Sometimes, customers don’t even realize the need of a product until they are introduced with it. Moreover, frequency illusion users, even if they won’t be actually interested in the product, can recommend the product to their close ones.

Now let's take a quick look at an example of frequency illusion, On Thanksgiving in 1950 Coca-Cola commercials started to broadcast on television. And it also became the first product to show up on the cover of the Time magazine. And Coca-Cola’s advertising strategy over the following decades was noticeable. Now coming to the main question, what is the relation of this with frequency illusion? Unknowingly, Coca-Cola used the phenomenon. Research shows that frequency illusion plays a great role in buying. With awareness being a great reason we think we want something. Simply put, all the advertisement created awareness in consumer's mind about Coca-Cola. And that resulted in consumers picking out Coca-Cola over any other soft drink.

The writer is a freelance contributor