The Psychology of Marketing
- Wandile Nyundu
- Feb 2, 2025
- 5 min read
Updated: Jul 12, 2025
Discover the secret psychological trigger for influence and persuasion in a fast changing world, where brand voice has to cut through distractions and connect with customers faster and more effectively.
Why would someone spend a small fortune on one sneaker brand versus another? Both brands could serve the functional utility, and yet derive a greater sense of appreciation by the same customer?
This is what differentiates commodities from brands, people will pay more for a feeling than they do for a utility. Human beings are emotional, and while we pride ourselves for being the most logical of the animal kingdom, we still make most of our decisions based on emotion.
The Role of Emotion in Decision-Making
It's a general misconception that people will do what is most reasonable in a situation, but we can't help but default to our more primitive aspects when making decisions. The primary purpose of the brain is to facilitate the survival of the organism.
Human beings have been at the edge of the evolutionary cycle for well over 300 000 years, and what got us here is the instincts and intuitions that helped us avoid predators and seek out food and pro-survival associates in the environment.
People Buy Feelings, Not Products
Emotions are contagious, and people are drawn to brands that evoke strong feelings. We can think of marketing as the strategic control of the dynamics that influence emotions. This can be done either through the facilitation of pressure for the attainment something or relief from something unwanted. The human brain has evolved to seek and resolve problems that could threaten our survival and reproductive values.
So it is constantly scanning the environment for solutions that can solve the number of problems it may be processing at any given time. Those problems could range from physiological, to social in nature, but either one of them triggers us to take actions that fulfils our needs for physical survival or social belonging.
Stimulating Demand Through Scarcity and Exclusivity
In sneaker hype culture, brands such as Yeezy and Supreme have demonstrated this in the most subtle and effective way possible. These brands have managed to convince a specific segment of people to pay 10x between production cost and resale price. They did this through marketing psychology methods that leverage the parts of our brains that filter for scarcity, social proof and the fear of missing out.
As a result, at its peak, the Yeezy brand was a significant contributor to Adidas' earnings. In 2021, Adidas reported that Yeezy sales accounted for nearly $1.7 billion in revenue, representing a substantial portion of the company's overall performance. The brand collaboration accounted for 10% of Adidas total revenue that year.
By creating a sense of exclusivity and tapping into the consumer's fear of missing out through the digital countdown and limited quantity systems at their retail point of sale, Yeezy has positioned itself as a luxury sneaker brand that commands premium prices by managing customers' emotional associations with the brand. The emotional and cultural appeal of the brand ensures that customers are willing to pay more, even if the purchase is driven by impulse or FOMO.
The Psychological Basis of Emotion Based Actions
What moves anyone into action is emotion. The best minds in behavioural psychology, technology and social sciences are helping giant social media companies to engineer the best algorithms to take advantage of the brain's autonomic nervous system, which is responsible for the processing of emotions and the formation of long-term memory associations. Think of any brand you have a strong emotional connection with and a few scientific studies support that you may have been conditioned to have those positive emotional associations to that brand through consistent and repeated exposure of emotive narratives.
In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman describes a study illustrating loss aversion, where people's emotional reactions to losses are stronger than their reactions to equivalent gains. Participants were asked to imagine gambling scenarios involving potential wins and losses. The study found that the pain of losing $50, for example, was far more intense than the pleasure of gaining $50. This asymmetry in emotional response shows us how people are naturally more sensitive to losses than to gains, a key aspect of loss aversion.
In a world of distraction the best markers understand that the most effective resource to gain and retain your attention has to leverage motions associated with the fear of loss or fear of missing out. People tend to react more strongly to the potential of losses than to the possibility of gains. This demonstrated that people are more motivated to avoid losses in uncertain situations, even if the rational outcome would favour a calculated risk.
A 2005 study by Lesieur and Custer found that people would often gamble more in efforts to recover lost money. This tendency is exploited by online gaming, casinos and by financial trading platforms, where mechanisms are in place to nudge people into making risky decisions in the effort to recoup their losses. This behaviour is known as loss chasing or sunk cost fallacy in behavioural economics and psychology.
What Impact could this have for your brand and business?
While the primary function of brand marketing is to use the resonant emotional associations to position brands as top-of-mind before the customer needs your product or service. Consider how you could further optimise your marketing message and funnel activity through the following principles:
Limited Supply and Scarcity: By controlling supply, you can create a perception of exclusivity, making your offer more desirable and justifying higher price points and volume sales.
Social Proof and Peer Endorsement: Collaborations with other high-profile influencers that speak to your audience can further amplify your brand's appeal, making it culturally and topically relevant at low costs.
Tactical Promotions and Activate Anticipation: Use social media campaigns, to test, drop teasers, and leaks to build anticipation of launch, ensuring that customers are ready to purchase as soon as the product becomes available.
In a world where audience attention is more valuable than ever, it takes a methodical and science backed approach to cut through the clutter, reach the right customers with impact, be memorable and build customer lifetime value.
While the human race has made quantum leaps in the evolution journey, we still predominantly function from the same biological instincts that our primate ancestors survived on. The idea that these natural inclinations can be triggered for specific responses presents us with both a challenge and opportunity. On the one hand we have the challenge of ensuring that these giant tech firms and global brands aren't taking advantage of these psychological defaults. On the other hand we have the opportunity to leverage technology and psychology to make the best products and services available to a customer seeking for a solution when they need it the most.
Schedule a complementary Creative Solutions consultation session to discover the emotional levers your brand can leverage for growth.
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