Propinquity Effect

Have you ever met someone new and felt that instant click? You somehow knew that the two of you were going to be friends? It may even feel like you’ve known them for years already. You can’t quite put your finger on what it is but you know you’re a match for each other somehow. This is the propinquity effect. This is caused when we meet someone with similar ideologies, attitudes, beliefs, etc. as ourselves. It is also known as the proximity between two individuals as well. When someone is in contact or closer to someone a relationship is more likely to form with that individual. Brands can use this effect to create strong bonds with their brand image and voice to those with similar ideologies, etc. If you create a solid and consistent image of your brand that your audience can relate to and expose them to your image more often, then you are destined for success when using the propinquity effect. This strengthens brand salience. There are two reasons that this effect can take place.

1.     Physical distance from someone: this proposes that the physically closer you are to someone, the more likely you are to have an interaction with them. Typically, interactions are neutral or positive and thus, provoke positive experiences. This is how relationships begin.

2.     Mere exposure effect: if a person is exposed to a particular stimulus more often, then the more favorably that stimulus tends to be evaluated. For example, you have a name that ends in the same last letter as someone in your classroom and therefore, you two are more likely to interact more often due to being seated in alphabetical order.

Proximity and like-minded values will create strong ties with your customers, whether it be B2C or B2B. Actually, “Research shows that the modern B2B prospect gets 57% of the way through the buying decision before ever talking to a sales rep” (Converse Digital). Cultivating brand salience through email, social media presence, and digital advertising is one of the most important.

Sticking with What’s Familiar: The Mere Exposure Effect

Sometimes the best decision is not always the familiar one. The mere exposure effect, also known as the familiarity effect, is when people chose preferred things, they’ve seen over things that are new. You can see why it is also called the familiarity effect because we tend to choose things that are familiar. This effect occurs even if the exposure is short and goes unnoticed by the viewer’s conscious mind. Therefore, the more someone has been exposed to something the more likely they are to like it. However, it should be noted that this only works when there is no preexisting negative attitude toward the product/service/brand. This is important for advertisers to know and implement. The more that people see your ad, the more likely they are to buy your product or service. It’s like when that jingle that you can’t stand comes on T.V. but eventually you find yourself singing it later in the day and it stops bothering you so much over time. The effect works with photos, sounds, foods and smells. Psychologists have come up with a couple of theories as to why this happens.

1.     Uncertainty reduction

2.     Perpetual fluency

Uncertainty reduction is the idea that the more we are exposed to something the less uncertainty we feel about it. This really goes back to human nature and staying alive. We’re hard wired to be cautious of new things since they could be dangerous. It helped us stay alive back in the early days of being human. Perpetual fluency is the idea that since we’ve seen something before it’s easier for us to understand and interpret it. Think about the first time you watched The Matrix perhaps. It was confusing and you were barely holding on to understand what was going on. After you saw it the second time you totally got it and knew what it was about. This is perpetual fluency. But this effect is limited. Studies have shown that seeing something more often will make people like it but if it’s shown too much then they will eventually get tired of it. This is why it is important to keep your ideas creative in marketing and advertising. Repeating the same concepts in many different ways keeps things exciting for the viewers. There’s no magic number that says show the ad this many times before returns start diminishing unfortunately. However, keeping the audience engaged with consistent branding is key to this effect taking hold and remaining effective.