How does Physics relate to either Marketing and Advertising? :|

Wow, tough question!

My first thought was about momentum. Inertia is pure physics, but metaphorically, it’s a very important goal for marketing – you want to create enough momentum in both your campaigns and your results that your product “takes off” or “goes to the next level of sales”, ya know? But maybe that’s a really cheesy answer to a (maybe?) serious question.

Hopefully some other really smart jellyfish can more seriously relate the two fields.

My first thought was the study of group trends in what looks like randomness. When the Universe was in its early days, there was a randomness to the scattering of mass, but there were enough groups that the mass began to succumb to the forces of gravity and the first stars began to form. I sort of see this as a lose parallel when a slightly random group find themselves together in enough proximity to each other as to start affecting each other. I wonder if you could take a group of people who find themselves at a baseball game, so they have that proximity and common interest to bind them and give that some sort of mathematical value, and then show them images or advertising and somehow reorganise them in how they align themselves with that image or ad to show subgroups, and so on and so on…... Is that a weird thought? Has it been done?

A lot of marketing touches on physics.

Product size and weight
Packaging
Transportation and logistics
Use of the product itself
Assembly instructions
Assisting designers with optimum tradeoffs between cost, durability, size, battery life and other user metrics.

I can’t think of so many applications for advertising.

Oh, @CyanoticWasp I love the packaging size and weight one. They did a very simple test. The product weighed exactly the same, only in one version, it was packed in a large box that made it difficult the hold. Almost 100% of test participants said that the larger boxed absolutely weighed more. Computer software is packaged to give the purchaser the utmost feeling of value for money during the tactile purchasing process vs. the cost of transporting a box that is almost completely empty. So, it’s very much physics vs buying psychology.

Oh, I’d find a product with weight and significance, and show it being very good at what it does and using the tag line “It’s pure physics.”

You might even do it as a pun, like with a model with very long legs, smiling generously and a luxury car that has a novel propulsion system, perhaps deliberately making “physics” sound like “physiques.”

God. Weird. An ad line in search of a product, instead of a product in search of an ad line.

@cazzie

I wasn’t thinking so much of psychology (although now that I do think of it that would have a lot to do with advertising), but ‘packaging’ in terms of being effective at presenting the product for retail sale, yet protecting it from transportation and handling damage and still not costing a prohibitive amount.

The use of color in advertising is pretty well documented, and ‘color’ is pure physics (and chemistry).

Apple learned a bit about physics in terms of product design with their recent iPhone antenna problem, didn’t they?

@CyanoticWasp I try not to pay any attention to the man behind the curtain… (ie anything Apple comes up with)

But you can’t ignore the tie between colour and the human psyche, nor how ‘relative’ weight feels to a consumer.

There is a man who studies oddities of human behaviour and buying habits and decision making. He really put behaviour economics on the map for me. His name is Dan Ariely. He’s done a few Ted Talks, if you haven’t seen him.

Human behavior can be construed in terms of physics. No numbers or anything, but a surprisingly large number of the concepts carry over.

Oh, @Nullo how about an example? ‘No numbers or anything’.... hmmmmmm

Stats Stats Stats Stats!

@cazzie In fact, I wrote an essay about the similarities after reading too much Xenocide, and having an assignment due the next day. All of the examples were from Newtonian mechanics, with some stuff (specifically Boyle’s Law) that I got from chemistry.

Think, for a minute, of an angry mob. They have metaphorical force and direction – anger (for instance), and generally a goal. Stopping or disbanding a mob requires action along the opposite vector – force, and either appeasement or else disillusionment.

As for Boyle: Pack a lot of people into a small room and tempers – comparable to temperatures – will rise. Possibly to the extent of a metaphorical explosion.

It’s not a perfect parallel, but it’s pretty darn close.

You might also look at Asimov’s imaginary field of psychohistory, which follows similar principles.

When it comes to the effects of marketing and advertising some uncertainty principle seems to apply as well.