Chapter 9: Memory, Metaphor, and Stories

Chapter 9:Memory, Metaphor, and Stories Peter HayashidaLynn MaikkeMarketing 642Fall 2003

The Metaphors Just Keep Coming…

Social Contexts for Memory • Memory, metaphor and story contain truths and fictions, thoughts and emotions, and all three overlap • The fusion of memory, metaphor and story enables consumers to create meaning around, or to see personal relevance in, a company or specific brand

Storytelling • Not something we just happen to do; it is something we virtually have to do if we want to remember anything • Particular story changes depending on the stimuli of the moment and the goals of the actors • Marketing managers provide props and costumes and help consumers create memories and define their self-identities

Marketing’s Role • Through marketing, companies re-present events to consumers and tell a new story about those events • Marketers partner with consumers in creating consumers’ memories • Marketing efforts alter not only how easily consumers recollect a product experience but also whether they remember the experience as satisfying or dissatisfying • E.g., Moviegoers basing memory of film on reviews

Memory and the Mind-Body-Brain-Society Paradigm • Memory is highly social “[T]he process of remembering can only be understood as a kind of chemistry between inner processes and out settings. It is the dynamic interplay between inner and outer that gives rise to the thing we know as memory.” Susan Engel, Context is Everything: The Nature of Memory

Co-evolution of Biology & Culture • How we remember and what we deem important to remember are functions of both our biology and our culture (scientist and conservationist Edward .O. Wilson) • Culture strongly influences cognitive “wiring” • Stories we hear starting in early childhood become important frames of reference or mental models that later influence the products and brands we buy

Social Memory • Cultural artifacts, events, and rituals facilitate encoding, retrieval and reconstruction of memory • Do more than just contain shared understandings; also shape those understandings • Information maybe misplaced or lost, or may undergo change owing to extensive use or neglect • Social-memory containers can also serve as engrams, retrieval cues, and purposes or goals  they can produce the experience of memory • Separation of internal & social memory is not real; each shapes and is shaped by the other

Social Memory resides in: • Social norms • Rituals and rites • Vocal and instrumental music • Icons • Bodily movements, posture and gestures • Language • Architecture • Social structures • Objects • Sensory stimuli • Formal archival records

Social Norms • Norms serve as guidelines governing our aspirations, such as our desire for world harmony and our behaviors, such as how we relate to our children • Include when and what to provide as a treat to our children and what constitutes moderation • Even whether a consumer will buy a particular product in the first place

Sensory Systems • Sensory systems play a critical role in our encoding, retrieval and reconstruction of memories • Varies from one social setting to another • Certain odors make us more alert and enhance our ability to process information • Odor can also operate outside our awareness (“blind smell”) • Music enables people of similar minds to transmit information to one another, to find shared meaning, and to respond to specific events in common ways

Rituals and Rites • Through rituals and rites, we honor national and religious holidays, celebrate birthdays and wedding anniversaries, and participate in ceremonies • Advertising for diamonds, jewelry, and graduation gifts is designed to evoke these social memories

Icons • Brand names, packages, logos, and other symbols can become icons (symbolic images) • Take on meaning based on people’s experiences in the external world as well as conveying private meanings

The Power of Social Memory • We acquire much semantic knowledge through unconscious observation & imitation of others • Also through formal instruction & work experience • People and institutions act as gatekeepers, influencing the kinds of semantic and episodic memories we create • Learning to ride a bike, blow bubbles, sing, split an atom, launch a rocket, sail a ship – all require a social order • Souvenirs are obvious social markers of memory • Once we establish memories, people, institutions & culture reshape & store them in external repositories

Implications • Relates to customer relationship management (CRM) • People who manage customer relationships must grasp how consumers store, retrieve and reconstruct memories of every interaction with a firm • Every consumer interaction can make or break a brand

Unconscious Metaphor • We often understand new things by relating them to past experience • “It tastes like chicken” • But memory can also be creative • Represent prior experience differently with each recall • “Unconscious metaphors” • Re-creations of the past, mistaken as accurate reflections of what happened • We’re unaware our memories have changed

Unconscious Metaphor • Some people’s memories represent the kinds of things that occurred in the past, event though specific episodes never happened • Literally false, but figuratively accurate E.g., consumers’ single most upsetting experience with a product or store – really an amalgamation of multiple experiences

Memory as Story • Memory is story-based • A story: • involves both episodic and semantic memory • contains both our beliefs and our knowledge about the world • A belief is something we recall and consider truth • Knowledge is he information on which truth is based

As a Matter of Fact “What happens is fact, not truth. Truth is what we think about what happens.” • Factgeneric brands are as good as national brands • Truththe national brand is better and they will buy it instead • Successful brands help consumers create stories full of promise • The story exceeds the brand’s physical features

“... Driving a Corvette makes me feel cool and sexy.”

Knowledge The Drivers of Memory Processing Belief Memory scheme Memory scheme Attributes Information Values Information Consequences New experiences New experiences

Implications for Marketing • Marketers should always present a product’s functional and emotional benefits closely together in their communications to consumers • Example: Michelin’s ad communicates the benefits of extra traction using the image of a baby in a tire to trigger feelings or thoughts of safety in a powerful way

Memory and the Familiar • People remember new information more easily when: • it has some connection to what they already know • it has personal relevance for them • it is associated with an emotion • Thus, the familiar strongly influences what people notice, remember, and feel

An Animal on Another Planet • The exercise demonstrates how: • quickly we refer to what we already know when we encounter a new challenge • unaware we are of the influences of the familiar • easily we represent on thing in terms of another • we struggle to create a new idea that doesn’t relate to what we already know

Ingredients for Storytelling “What we know and remember constitutes the ingredients for storytelling, the re-presentation of our beliefs.” • Storytelling can be verbal, pictorial, or take many other forms, such as music or dance • Hence, marketers must: • learn the ingredients • carefully select and design additional cues • distinctive and familiar elements

Conclusion“Memory is one more source of fiction.” Stories Personal Memories Social Norms & Icons Metaphors Stories Stories Stories A New Memory Social Memories Stories

Questions? Peter HayashidaLynn MaikkeMarketing 642Fall 2003

Chapter 9: Memory, Metaphor, and Stories