Psychology and Influence — Why Over Spending by Vote Leave is Important

The news is full of the stories about Cambridge Analytica, Vote Leave, potential funding crime, vote rigging, Facebook, Brexit and whistle-blowers.

Many are saying it doesn’t matter as we make our own minds up. This isn’t true and it’s important.

It’s important because what we read influences us all. This is my take on it.

I’ve got some previous form here as way back in 1994 I believe I may have been responsible for the very first paid for social marketing campaign. I’ll share the details. The client was Vauxhall the car maker and they were launching a new version of the Vauxhall Astra. I was talking with their advertising agency which had a new department dedicated to this new Internet thing. The department was two guys in a pokey room at the back of the main office. One of those guys today works for Facebook. We mostly held our meetings in the pub (all afternoon). Back then there was obviously no Facebook or Twitter but there were “newsgroups” These were lists, a little like the format Twitter has now but each one dedicated to a separate subject. Anybody could start a newsgroup about any subject and others could comment on them. Think Reddit. There were a number devoted to cars and motoring.

We had an idea and over another pint or two agreed a fee of hundreds of pounds a week, and me and another guy at the fledgling Internet company started posting in the motoring related news groups about the new Vauxhall Astra. It’s important to note that advertising was frowned upon in newsgroups and if you did it you would be blocked from the group. Given this, we pretended we were car enthusiasts and started conversations about cars and often (surprisingly) about how interesting or good the new Astra was. We didn’t feel we were doing anything wrong, but in hindsight we were getting paid to promote a car company without letting on we were anything else but interested petrol heads.

It’s important to say again that we got paid for this. Why? Because advertising works. People are influenced by what they read or see. I’m influencing you right now.

If you don’t believe me go and read something else. Go on. Come back though. Whilst there you will remember I explained you are influenced by what you read. And you’ll pretend it isn’t true. Sorry, but of course it is. Advertisers, journalists and politicians know this. This is why so many politicians trained as or were journalists before they decided they could use words to influence you and often to enrich themselves. In older times it was more often rulers and priests.

It’s true because of our evolution. Ever since before we broke from the tree line we have survived because we can react quickly to outside stimuli and hope not to be killed or eaten. The older parts of our brains are still doing this right now. Every second. So when you read something your brain processes it as either a threat or not. This is why fear is a huge motivator. And fear is used to motivate you all the time. Especially fear of or care for others like you.

I don’t even need to talk about modern politics to demonstrate that most political messages are based on encouraging you to fear someone else or favour a group of people that seem like you and influence you to vote or choose accordingly.

So lets move to today. 2018.

We now have a situation where we all have personalised messaging influencing us all the time. Some people say that it doesn’t matter, or it doesn’t influence people much, or that people make their own minds up. People think they do. You think you do. But you only partly do. Your thinking and views are dependant on the messaging your brain receives over time. In simple terms it then tells you what to think.

I could talk about the Trump campaign but I’ll stick closer to home and so write about the Brexit referendum. The vote was close 52 -48% in favour of leaving. 17,410,742 vs 16,141,241. But those are big numbers so most of you just switched off.

Let’s just though take an easier snapshot. Let’s take Birmingham for example. Someone should. From 450,000 voters the result was Leave by just 4,000 votes. 49.6 to 50.4.

So enough statistics for a moment. Let’s instead concentrate on Facebook profiling and data on voters. The BeLeave campaign was being successful it felt in turning liberal EU types to Leave. By its own admission it wasn’t using immigration or sovereignty but more subtle means.

Let’s also forget it’s the Internet for a moment. Remember pre-Internet? Remember television? The TV?

Imagine if people knew so much about you that the programmes and the ads were tailored exactly at you to push the position they wanted, and that you didn’t know what was an advert or what was programming and what was news or just a story someone wanted to tell you?

So now imagine you love and care about animals. Go on you do. Fluffies are cute. You are probably more concerned about animals than you are about politics really. In fact you give to an animal charity every month. Lots of us do. It used to be true (it might still be?) that the UK population give more money to animal charities than to charities caring about people. Or at least I read that this was true and I believed it.

So imagine that every day the TV tells you in between your favorite shows, or sometimes in what seem to be interviews or reports from new channels, that leaving the EU will ensure better animal welfare, and for good measure shows you pictures of suffering animals. These clips or statements don’t carry an advertising warning. They are just there and repeated over and over. Of course it’s not TV it’s Facebook and your friend shared them with you. If you clicked on one of them it might take you not to a politician but to a site that professes to care about animal welfare and they implore you to help you save the animals from suffering by saying no to the EU.

You might just feel differently to how you thought before. 4000 people out of 450,000 people is so small. It’s less then one person on your whole street changing their mind. And most of us can think of someone they know that doesn’t care about politics much but goes all gooey over a fluffy.

So when some people tell you that advertising doesn’t work or that messaging doesn’t influence you I say they are lying. This is why they wanted extra money. This is why they spent it. These people don’t spend money for no reason.

We have reached the stage, because as Alexander Nix the head of Cambridge Analytica reminded his own staff the other day “there is no law against lying”, where people know so much about you that they can tailor a message over and over with great sophistication just to influence you to do what they would like.

Now you could say that this is fair? You could say that all sides can do it so it evens out? But it doesn’t. It only favours the side that have got the ability to do so and when their messages can’t be countered or called out. And the people who had the resources were the Leave campaigns.

So next time you read something remember that most people are trying to tell you what to think.

I’m doing so right now. And this is the truth.

Update May 2021

I didn’t remember when I wrote this article that by coincidence, I was interviewed by Cambridge Analytica’s Alexander Nix in 1991. I’d read an article in the London Evening Standard about a new company (Behavioural Dynamics) that among other things was using pheromones to influence behaviour in retail environments and casinos.

Their charismatic founder the one and the same Alexandar Nix was claiming they could prove that if they pumped a particular synthesised pheromone into an area people would buy more, or if they spritzed some on a chair at a Blackjack table people sitting there would gamble more.

I was very young, wanted to get on in exciting things and fascinated so I rang them up and got myself an interview. I said I wanted to work in sales.

The office was in Chelsea Harbour. I didn’t get a job and only realised after this more recent story had broken that they were one and the same person.

That company (institute it seems) is explained here under “History”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCL_Group

So there you are, Mr Nix has been operating on the margins in underhand manipulation since he started. Still, think he got all that money for not achieving anything?