Brand Psychology 101 is a series of short articles written by Ojasvin Nagpal, a business associate and consultant, capturing and bringing to light the unique and interesting ways brands often leverage the consumer’s subconscious thinking patterns and psychological wants/needs in order to sell their products.
This is a Toyota Prius.
It’s ridiculously ugly, isn’t it?
It makes you wonder why anyone would make such an ugly car – surely someone at Toyota must have realised how bad it looks, right? Well, as it turns out, the fact that this car is ugly is no mistake—it was very much a deliberate decision on Toyota’s part to keep it this way. But why? To answer that, you’d have to dig a bit deeper into how we, as consumers, make certain decisions.
Speak to anyone who’s bought a Prius, and they’ll tell you they did so because it’s electric/hybrid and hence, good for the environment. What almost no one would tell you is that part of the reason they did so is because they want to be recognised as being climate-conscious and generous.
You see, at the end of the day, we are complex social creatures shaped by millions of years of evolution. We might believe we make all our decisions consciously, but the truth is that our behaviour is often driven by multiple motives, many of which are unconscious – that is, we aren’t aware of them. And one of the key motives behind all our decisions is to elevate our social status.
Buying an expensive electric car when they could easily have bought a Merc or a BMW allows the buyer to advertise their generosity and wealth, which, in turn, elevates their social status.
They can signal to the world: “Look, I paid a premium to buy an expensive electric car because I care about the planet.”
Now, the savvy folks at Toyota were very much aware of our tendency to make decisions to elevate our social status – they knew that the Prius buyer would want to advertise their climate-consciousness. Therefore, they made the Prius distinctively ugly and hence, immediately recognisable. As a result, any time you saw someone driving a Prius, you could recognise them as being environmentally-conscious, generous, wealthy, and most importantly, as having high social status.
So, the Toyota Prius sells not despite its ugly looks but because of it.
Words by Ojasvin Nagpal
Image via Wikipedia
