Thursdays Sneak Peek: Our 21st Century Twist on #BurmaShave Signs

Thought for the Day: Preparing for a promotion is a lot of work, even with a wonderful team of interns helping me out! Today, instead of my regular post, I decided to share some of the wonderful photos that my interns & I have been preparing. Dream Team Adam sent me these last night & they are just too funny & cute for words! Let me know what you think of our 21st Century #BurmaShave signs! Be sure to download a free copy of The Wake Up and Dream Challenge starting at 12 AM on Sunday 8/4/2013 & lasting till 12 PM on Tuesday 8/6/2013 (PST). Here's the link where you will be able to download the book: goo.gl/8F2TbU. You do not need to own a kindle, you can download it straight to your computer using Amazon's Free e-book reader.

Please share this with all your friends & families. If you have read the book & been following my blog, I'd love it if you also left a review on the same page. The more people who read & review the book, the more it will eventually support the nonprofit organizations featured in & benefiting from the book! Thanks in advance!

P. S. Would you like to know how to find great photos like these for free for your social media campaigns? Come back tomorrow for our #FF Friday's Fabulous Finds to learn more!

 

Tuesday's Psychology Trivia: Who Invented Givaway Advertising: Coca Cola, Anheuser Busch or Burma Shave??

Thought for the Day: Since I had trouble finding pure psychological research on free advertising campaigns, I searched for information on the history of advertising which led to today's trivia question. Certainly, psychology has played a large part in the advertising & marketing industry. Here's today's question:

Was Burma Shave, Coca Cola or the Anheuser Busch the 1st company to use free giveaways to promote their products?

Come back on Thursday for the answer.

Photos from WikiCommons
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cocacola-5cents-1900_edit1.jpg
Set of signs promoting Burma-Shave, on U.S. Route 66.
Anheuser Busch Logo  A&Eagle.png

Motivational Mondays: Why We Have a Love/Hate Relationship with Free Offers

 

*Photo by Kevin Dooley on Flickr.com

Thought for the Day: Everyone loves a bargain. I must admit I am a yard sale addict. I cherish all the bargains I have found & recycled over the years. My finds become like family treasures. Last week we celebrated our nation's independence. The posts on the blog focused on freedom & independence: Saturday's Songs for the Soul American Pie, Don McLean & George M. Cohan, #FF Friday's Fabulous Finds on Independence & Veterans, Wednesday's Words of Wisdom:Khalil Gibran & Dr. Lavi on Freedom, & Throwback Tuesday Thank Someone Who Helped You Become Independent & Motivational Mondays Modern Parenting Parable. America is known as the "Land of the Fre," but it might also be called: The Land of the Free Offer! We seem to have a love/hate affair with free offers. In the new age of self-publishing, I have resisted giving free offers of my book, since I dedicate half of my profits to the nonprofit organizations featured in my book However, it appears to be an effective way to get the word out & may help the nonprofits as well. Therefore, I decided to consider breaking down & having a free offer. I asked one of my interns to research how to go about setting up a free campaign on Amazon.com.

I also tried to see what other psychologists have to say about freebies. I found very little research but a slew of free offers for courses in psychology. It seems that psychologists simply believes that free offers work & have been using them in the field.

I did find an interesting article by an publisher, Mac Slocum: Using the Psychology of Free. Slocum says that, "A free product comes with low expectations (“hey, it’s free!”) & neutral perceptions (“what’s the worst that can happen?”). If that product proves useful, expectations are exceeded & perception elevates from neutral to positive (“it’s free and it’s cool/useful/interesting, etc.”)." I actually think that free products sometimes carry negative expectation ("It's too good to be true, so I won't even take a look.") When offers are over sold, they tend to turn me off & I simply don't bother or assume they are scams. So a free offer needs to move some people from negative expectations, not just neutral ones, to a positive perceptions.

Recently, I received an e-mail from my nephew, a talented musician, with a clever use of a free offer. It went like this:
    "What if I told you there was a pill? A pill that would make all your troubles go away. A pill that would give you the intelligence of Albert Einstein, the athleticism of Michael Jordan, the charisma of Don Draper, & the ability to recall humorous quotes from popular movies. A pill that would bring you eternal youth, wealth & happiness. Would you believe me?
     Now imagine I told you that pill was FREE. And that it wasn't even a pill, at all, but a   Plushgun (My nephew is the drummer) show!
     Well, believe it, because it's happening, and it's happening this weekend:
        FREE Plushgun Summer Kickoff Show
        Saturday, June 29th at 10pm Spike Hill - 184 Bedford Ave, Brooklyn NY
       Sounds too good to be true, doesn't it? Well, if you don't leave the show feeling like a cross between Superman and Abraham Lincoln, I'll give you your money back, no questions asked.
       Also: SAVE THE DATE - Saturday, July 13th. Sneak preview of PREP - an indierock tragicomedy. Details forthcoming."

I loved the e-mail announcement & know the band is great (they have over 12,000 fans on Facebook who agree with me, since you may think I'm prejudiced (which I am as Matt's aunt), so I turned it into ta double tweet & sent it out for Matt:
                           from @WakeUpDreamNow
     1)WhatIfAPillEndedTroubles GaveUEinstein's IQ DonDraper's Charm &Was FREE?    
        @Plushgun Sat 6/29 10PM Spike Hill 184 Bedford Ave Brooklyn NY
               and
      2)Sounds2Good2BTrue? If U don't LeaveFeelingLikeACrossBtween Superman & AbeLincoln, @Plushgun will give U ur money back, no questions asked.

Matt's e-mail captured both the skepticism & the love we have for free offers. With humor he encouraged people to come & have fun at the concert.

The fact that the Psychology of Free is not fully understood did not escape Mac Slocum, either. Slocum concluded that, "the equation of free + good enough = improved chance of success is often obscured by concerns over reliable revenue streams & clear business models (which is understandable since both are in short supply in the free universe)."

Although I still have a bit of atrepidation about setting up a free offer, I will be preparing one soon for you. So stay tuned if you have not purchased my book yet & would like to grab an e-book copy. How do you feel about free offers? Would you be more likely to recommend something to someone if you tried it for free or purchased it?



*Photo Credit:
www.flickr.com/photos/pagedooley/3194564161/

Thursday's Trends in Psychology: The Marketing of Motherhood

Pregnant Profile II *

Thought for the Day: This is my second report of research findings presented at the  Museum of Motherhood's Conference: A New Motherhood? Evolving Policies, Practices, & Families. In the first post, the articles addressed changing attitudes toward working mothers. Today the studies relate to how the marketing of motherhood, society's expectations & practices impact on mothers navigating their way as parents. Are mothers being expected to accept what marketers & medical professionals tell them about motherhood instead of being listened to by professionals to understand what motherhood means? If you have questions about these studies feel free to comment & I will ask the presenters directly, if I do not know the answer.

Dr. Laura Tropp, Associate Professor & Chair of the Communication Arts Department at Marymount Manhattan College, in NYC explored the "The pregnancy industrial complex: Marketing pregnancy in the 21st century." Women are bombarded with images of famous women's pregnancies, like Kate Midlleton's & Kim Kardashian, leading women to try to look the part of the glowing pregnant woman dressed in the latest maternity fashions. Expectant mothers are also bombarded with a wide array of products to purchase if they wish to attain the "perfect" pregnancy. According to Dr. Tropp this turns pregnancy into a public performance which "distracts (women) from determining what their pregnancy means. Their choices of pregnancy products become trivial, & their identities become warped up in branded categories." How these expectations make women feel if they do not feel glowingly joyous or beautiful during their pregnancies is not considered as marketers push their "perfect" products.

In an inspiring study, "Awakening maternal identity in homeless adolescent mothers," the common belief that teenage motherhood is a negative life choice, is questioned by Marina Mazur, M.A. & Alexandra Jordan, M.A., under the supervision of Dr. Aurelie Athan & Dr. Lisa Miller (Teacher's College Columbia University, NYC), shared their findings from work with teen mothers in a homeless shelter.  By providing weekly psychotherapy groups, they found teen motherhood to be "a walking contradiction. Through adolescent motherhood, much is lost but much is also gained."  Motherhood provides the opportunity for rapid gains in "maturity, fulfillment, purpose & healing."

Several papers examined how conventional hospital birthing experiences impact on mothers & infants. Ellynne Skove, MA, LCAT, BC-DMT, RPP, NCC (licensed therapist) presented a paper on "Broken bonds in the maternal-infant dyad." She found that disruptions of the bonding between mother & infant "can lead to physical & emotional health & development issues in the newborn, following into childhood. " Infant asthma, colic, sleep problems, social relationships are just a few of the issues that can arise. She suggests that hospitals can implement simple interventions in the minutes & hours following birth that could prevent the negative birth traumas caused by separating the infant from the mother after birth.

What happens to mothers when their dreams of the "ideal" birth experience are shattered by complications during childbirth was the focus of Rumyana Kudeva's doctoral dissertation in the Clinical Social Work program at the University of Pennsylvania. Her project, "Disenfranchised grief in women: A qualitative inquiry into women's lived experience of the loss of the dreamed of birth," stemmed from her own personal experience. She lost her dream of natural childbirth when omplications arose & a C-section was required. The medical world acted as if her feelings of grief & loss were not warranted, since she had a healthy baby. When she searched for studies of how this impacts on mothers, she found nothing to validate her experience in the professional world. However, women were writing about it online & speaking about the trauma & loss privately. Therefore, she did a qualitative study into a common problem mothers experience when C-section is necessary.

These studies raise questions of why women are being told what to expect when they are expecting & as mothers, but their feelings about what they are experiencing are often not taken into account. As the study of motherhood, which is in it's infancy evolves, less of the experiences will be left to marketers & branders & hopefully, more will be placed in the hands of mothers.

*Photo from FlickCC.com
'pregnant profile II' http-/www.flickr.com/photos/18773952@N00/154017720