Will Ads & Instant Gratification Save Us?

The TED Conference officially kicks off today in Monterey and already this small town is abuzz with the good intentions and lofty goals of the actively curious and benevolent who find their way here each year.  There is a palpable energy, with ambitious and inspired social entrepreneurs preaching their messages and appealing for support and collaboration.

Last night, at a pre-party thrown by Google (thanks for the invite!) I was treated to a host of intriguing conversations aimed at addressing social problems including personal health, disease, fossil-fuel addiction, drug discovery and the like. One after another, TEDsters shared staggering insights from their work and research and were now hoping to start projects to get this information more widely disseminated to the masses so we can all start taking care of ourselves and our planet and living better.

Despite the laudable aims of these efforts, I have a major concern and it has taken me a while to admit it: I don't think we, as humans and citizens, have been trained to be good decision-makers. In fact, any instincts we did have to make good choices have been systematically neutered. In an advertising-driven realm, we have consistently been programmed to allocate our thoughts, resources, and energy to satisfy perversely short-term cravings, invariably at the expense of longer term benefit and this behavior has been rewarded by the delights of instant gratification and pleasure-associative feedback.

The result is that, despite the recent deluge of science showing us the concrete path of enlightenment for ourselves and our planet, and notwithstanding our conscious intellectual embrace of such ideas, we continually fail to make good decisions.

We know a fascinating amount about the impacts of carbon, but we still drive SUVs. We have at our disposal rich troves of information demonstrating irrefutably the damage inflicted by smoking, drinking, eating poorly, and yet, we are gluttonous. In these realms of convenient consumption we are veteran Pavlovian instruments obediently perpetuating our conditioning. Our foundations for informed, analytical decisions have been consistently undermined by targeted sensory engagement and sensationalized rewards that tunnel into our primal instinctive brain layers and get cozy. Any attempts to supplant this automation by informing us as to the global implications of climate crisis or obesity seem impersonal, distant, abstract, and ethereal.

Can this be overridden? Can we overcome decades of indoctrination in the principles of indulgence? I am pessimistic. Our exposure to marketing and advertising continue to increase and there is no reason to think that this torrent of manufactured messages will ever abate. Moreover, the science used to craft and deliver such missives is so finely honed as to deliver them almost hypodermically to our minds. So, what to do? I am starting to believe we should abandon our futile appeals to logic and reasoned decision-making, and instead pursue two parallel approaches.

1) Create new neural pathways that bypass conscious thought. In the Summer of 2006, I posted a picture to my blog illustrating how much oil it took to transport a bottle of water to California and displaying that quantity within the bottle itself. Friends of mine who were all previously well-versed in the perils of bottled water consumption, nevertheless had a wonderfully identical reaction even weeks and months after seeing that picture - every time they put their lips to a bottle of imported water they smelled gasoline! They were on the verge of ingesting perfectly clean water, but that one image seared the association of bottled water and petroleum deep into their brains and their senses responded with visceral rejection.

I am deeply interested in how this might scale across other issues and cultures and what could happen if we used the same skills and techniques that the most effective advertisers utilize but for benevolent and social ends. We have seen interesting experiments whereby talented folks have started campaigns like the anti-smoking Truth messaging. However, despite design aesthetics and theater worthy of praise, these attempts fall short of truly shocking our brains into reflexive action.

2) Create short-term incentives to make good long-term decisions. As you might have noticed, I don't blame each of us for being bad decision-makers. I am not sure it is completely our fault considering the daily regimen of advertising to which we have been relentlessly exposed since childhood. Whatever the cause, despite living in such a narcissistic age, we are notoriously poor at doing what is best for us. In that case, I think it is helpful to consider others who might hold stakes in the outcomes of our decisions and see if they might help.

For example, consider our personal health. As a nation, we have continually shown we are incapable of making good choices for ourselves concerning diet, smoking, and exercise. Who else should care though? Our health insurance companies? I recently spoke at a dinner of healthcare CEOs and learned that the average tenure of a patient with any one particular insurer is just 18 months! Thus, our insurers do not consider themselves as having vested interests in our robust longevity and don't invest in the preventative care that would be indicative of good decision-making.

At the same time, employers are starting to realize that poor personal health practices by employees are having deleterious effects on productivity, efficiency,  and health care costs all at levels that are material to the bottom line. Realizing the scale at which these issues are effecting their companies, some employers have underwritten creative schemes that bait their employees into making better decisions in the short-term by appealing to the same senses of recognition and gratification that pattern our obsessively consumer lifestyles. Virgin HealthMiles is one such project where companies hire Virgin to create tiered incentive structures so that employees who actively wear pedometers and meet certain walking goals can earn cash and prizes. Client companies see absenteeism improve, health care costs drop, and productivity increase. Yet, the underlying participants are merely hoping to win a few bucks. It is no accident that the CEO of Virgin HealthMiles is Chris Boyce, co-founder of Upromise, a pioneer in the world of using self-interest and consumer behavior to establish the largest private funding source for college in the U.S.

In the weeks that come, I will lay out more of my thoughts in this space including more examples in which I see these tradeoffs being made. For now, as I consider each of the new projects I am being pitched here at TED, I can't help but pause to consider the interests and motivations of individual users and why they would feel compelled to contribute or participate.

In the interim, I have run these ideas by friends and colleagues and they seem to resonate but I am curious to hear what you think. Will appealing to short-term self interest save us all? Are we just stooping to the level of predatory marketers? Is there an alternative path?

Comments

[Brian Duffy]

I think that you have to consider that people are motivated by cash-flow and convenience. My decision to drive an SUV was based on my economic circumstances.

Our primary vehicle is a Honda Pilot SUV, which we bought for two primary reasons. First, I'm 6'5"/300, and this is a comfortable car for my size. Second is that it has room to haul stuff around when needed.

Gas for me isn't really a factor. I don't live in California where economics forces me to live 100 miles from work. My wife and I carpool with a commute distance of around 10 miles. We drive around 3,000 miles for working, another 3,000 for essential errands, shopping, etc, and about 14,000 for discretionary trips. (Drive to Florida or the Carolinas for vacation, etc)

That's about 20,000 miles a year @ 20 MPG @ $3.50/g, or $3,500 in gas. If I bought a Prius and averaged 50 MPG, it's $1,400... a $2,100/year difference. If we took the bus (2 x $25 monthly passes), we'd pay about $50 more (since my wife has free parking) and increase our commute time from 15 minutes to about 45. (A loss of about 10 person-days of free time annually)

That 2% is about 1.5% of our gross income -- not alot of money. Plus, I'm going to have to waste alot of time or money when I buy my plants for the spring, and I'm going to have to rent a car or fly twice a year for vacation. When I buy a piece of furniture, now I'm paying for delivery.

By the time the extra expenses that I'm going to accrue are factored in, the savings for driving a small car are marginal at best. I think that your POV on this is skewed by living in the Bay Area. The average driver drives 15,000 miles a year -- more like me. I have a former associate who works in NYC and lives 90 miles away in the Hudson Valley -- his economic reality demands that he "goes green" and takes the train to work every day.

[Anonymous]

I personally think the only thing that matters is correcting the externalities around pollution. At a basic level, that means a high carbon tax. Slightly more broadly, that means eliminating subsidies on polluting industries and substantial taxes on all types of polluting emmisions.

Individual cutbacks may make us feel good about ourselves, but do nothing to correct the broader problem. To change behavior, we need to price pollution at its true cost.

[Amit Patel]

I think for things like bottled water, SUVs, etc., I agree with Anonymous that we need to correct externality pricing. I also think some of the thinking around these things is far too simplistic. For example, with bottled water, if the oil isn't used to manufacture the bottles, what would it be used for instead? Is it better to be in a bottle in a landfill or to be in our atmosphere? With SUVs too, I think the SUVs may actually be better for the environment than most cars, once the system effects are accounted for. (Chris, let's get together and chat!)

Short term vs. long term thinking is a separate problem. I think businesses (especially privately owned or family run businesses) are more likely to make good decisions. But in the anti-business environment we live in, society assumes all business decisions must be bad. I think the alternative, decisions made by individuals, are often worse. At the same time, I think individuals are making better decisions than the rationalists think. They just have a different value system. People would rather believe anyone unlike them is stupid or bad than to believe that someone else just has a different set of values.