Today’s Washington Post has a nice article about the kinds of appearance factors that make something appear “cute” to us. Here’s the link:
From a media psychology point of view, we are all apparently hard-wired to interpret certain visual cues in ways that excite our dopamine receptors and caring instincts. I would say the article does a good job of illustrating this.
Have you seen the latest commercial for Lexus? It’s called “What Makes Us, Us” and shows us the smarmiest, most arrogant and narcissistic (he can’t help it…he’s just written that way) Lexus driver ever, telling us, “By the time other people start doing what we’ve been doing, we’ve moved on.”
Here it is: https://www.ispot.tv/ad/79go/lexus-what-makes-us-us-featuring-henry-simmons
If what a number of sociologists have been saying about the Millennials is true, that they are the most narcissistic generation in memory, and if it’s also true that effective advertising arouses positive feelings of affiliation in viewers, then Lexus should be seeing land office business from the M-folks soon.
Or maybe they just need a different creative approach.
mediainmind 