The Importance of Cognitive Dissonance (and How to Utilize it in Digital Marketing)

For example, you may be an animal lover at heart, and therefore hold the view that eating meat should be avoided on a moral level. However, when you’re exposed to TV commercials, or the billboards on the subway (no pun intended), you could become undeniably reminded that meat generally tastes good.

People are hardwired to seek consistency in their views and behaviors. So when information comes along that runs counter to their beliefs, it results in mental conflict.

This mental discomfort, spawned from holding two opposing beliefs, values, or attitudes, can act as a barrier when it comes to decision making. We call this cognitive dissonance.

What is cognitive dissonance?

First coined by social psychologist Leon Festinger in the 1950s, cognitive dissonance ultimately describes the discomfort people feel when two cognitions, or a cognition and a behavior, contradict each other. Take the current global pandemic, for example. It’s a token and modern example of just how our behaviours and beliefs can often contradict each other, thus creating cognitive dissonance.

It’s impacted the way we view behaviors and culture for many years. This has transcended into almost every facet of day to day life, and the digital marketing world is certainly no exception.

Cognitive dissonance can work in a variety of ways. One could be forgiven for assuming that it only describes situations in which a person feels guilty about buying something despite feeling that it's wrong to do so, for example on a moral or financial level. However, it can also be harnessed in order to coerce people into buying things for the greater good, both on a personal level as well as on a moral one.

Everyone’s different

Each person has their own level of resistance when it comes to how much persuasion is required to convince them to buy something despite their reservations. As a digital marketing professional myself, I know people who are so susceptible to advertising, that all it takes is a mere billboard with something appealing on it and they’re already looking for the nearest place in which to buy the product.

Conversely, other acquaintances of mine are at the opposite end of the spectrum. They actively ignore every single email they get that is of the advertising kind. They do this by default, no matter how relevant or potentially helpful the offer may look.

One certain colleague of mine will even mentally boycott a product, if it's being advertised to him on a level he deems repetitive or annoying. Even if he one day needs the product, he'll instead buy a different brand, practically out of spite. Ironically enough, this person works in advertising.

The point here is that everyone has their own different levels of cognitive dissonance susceptibility, and not everyone is so easily swayed. Consequently, as digital marketers, working in large enterprises, it's crucial for us to harness it to the best of our ability.

An ideal world

To answer this, it's important to take into account the fundamental aim of utilizing cognitive dissonance in a positive way. In essence, it's about painting a picture that evokes feelings of incompleteness. By pointing out the stark differences between an idealized version of their lives, and their actual lives, we can conjure emotions that trigger a need to make things right. This essentially reduces cognitive dissonance, by mitigating the often hefty costs of brands with the promise of a worthwhile and better life.

Luxury brands, for example, are adept at this technique. Take the fragrance industry; pretty much every brand operating in it has focused their marketing campaign on painting a picture of an idealized lifestyle. Their commercials present illusions of grandeur, fame and wealth, all sown up with an undercurrent of sexual prowess. It's this type of marketing that paints a picture in our minds that even the most stubborn people find hard to ignore. It's a token example of cognitive dissonance and its effectiveness, when used properly.

Moral dilemmas

Of course, cognitive dissonance isn’t just about the promise of a better life. The flip side of it refers to feelings of discomfort a person may have when they feel the negative side of the argument more than the positive side.

For example, they could find themselves presented with delicious-looking food that undeniably came as a result of animal slaughter. The feelings of discomfort, spawned from guilt, serve as obstacles, and many people, even meat-eaters, have reservations when it comes to the morality of being a carnivore. Furthermore, humans are programmed to prioritize the avoidance of discomfort, before seeking personal enhancement.

Marketers can try to manage these factors, using whatever techniques possible, so that the reservations of a potential buyer are mitigated.

How digital marketers can limit negative cognitive dissonance

1.    Change people’s beliefs

Fundamentally changing the core beliefs of people is an unenviable task, but it can be done. For example, a supplier of a junk food snack can rebrand themselves, boasting a new and healthier recipe, using clever copywriting to oversell the significance of the difference from the old recipe. This fundamentally shifts the core belief of the customer.

2.    Reduce the importance of people’s conflicting beliefs

It's possible to justify a purchase, even an expensive or possibly immoral one, by playing down its apparent pitfalls. For example, an expensive supermarket might launch a TV commercial, in which they compare (some of) their prices to those of budget supermarkets. This would extinguish the notion that they truly are as expensive as their reputation suggests, thus limiting the cognitive dissonance.

3.    Add more supportive beliefs that outweigh people’s dissonant beliefs

This can be achieved through mitigating discomfort with an opposing benefit. This effectively makes up for any feelings of negativity. For example, shopping with an expensive brand would invoke an unsurprising level of cognitive dissonance. However, shopping at an expensive brand that does a lot for the environment, would make up for this significantly, at least on a moral and emotional level.

Freelance websites are a good example of sites that do a good job of showcasing their benefits over their drawbacks, despite their controversial reputation.

What's the bottom line?

Cognitive dissonance plays a huge role in the decision-making of customers. Consequently, knowing how to leverage it, in order to reap the benefits, is a critical part of the digital marketing world. Whether brands need to focus their efforts on minimizing the perceived negative connotations that a customer may believe, or enhance the temptation of them benefiting from the purchase, staying in control of cognitive dissonance can prove highly lucrative.