“Influence” and “engineering” are both words that we all know separately. Which is funny, because neither of them seem to have anything to do with each other. But, like many other words, such as ‘car pool’ or ‘cream cheese,’ they join to create a brand new meaning– just not quite in the way you expect (you can probably imagine what my little child brain first imagined upon hearing the word carpool).
So what is this influence engineering, anyway? Well, it’s a bit complicated. In short, Gartner defines it as a marketing tactic that blends behavioral science with certain AI systems to read and respond to consumer behavior, personalizing advertisements and making marketing more meaningful to the average person.
It’s playing emotional jiu-jitsu with the public opinion, instilling powerful emotions in them to form a connection between consumer and product.
It borrows some ethos from the idea behind subliminal messaging, (which was debunked back in the ‘50s!) essentially guiding our consumer decisions with a subtle hand. It’s certainly a powerful tool, and we will get into the weeds about how exactly it works and its potential ramifications in the near future.
First, let’s cover our bases. The word AI has just been used to describe influence engineering so it has already become a polarizing topic for a lot of people, but the tactic does not necessarily require artificial intelligence to work. Nike’s “Just Do It” campaign, along with Coca-Cola’s “Share a Coke” initiative are both examples of influence engineering. In these examples, some very intelligent marketing teams created a strong message that would resonate with consumers with just a few words. The phrase Just Do It invoked a sense of determination and pride that quickly became associated with the signature Nike swoosh. Share a Coke did that same thing, albeit a little bit differently, invoking community and generosity by literally encouraging people to share a Coke by buying their product.
Do these products have anything to do with determination or generosity? Not really! But the point is they made that emotional connection, they engineered their influence in just the right way so that people would have a positive emotional association with their product right off the bat. This follows a particular principle in real behavioral science called anchoring, a type of cognitive bias where people depend too heavily on a first impression when forming an opinion about anything—that initial information is known as the anchor. These companies’ swanky little catchphrases are the anchors by which people could connect to their product.
This leads us to the dreaded question: is this moral? Is it okay to manipulate your consumers’ emotions so that they are more likely to buy your product? There’s not a clear answer here, but the primary issue with the campaigns Coca-Cola and Nike ran is one of honesty. These big name brands are not exactly paragons of moral good, nor do they align with the ideals they espouse in their popular campaigns (looking at you, coca-cola death squads). There is not really a problem with running a good marketing campaign, but practice what you preach, at least. The average marketer does not have the money or resources to run a campaign like this, so moral concerns are a nonstarter. Just be honest and be smart.
Now we can bring influence engineering into the modern era and broach how it intersects with artificial intelligence. With this topic especially, it is important to remember that artificial intelligence is not truly ‘intelligent,’ it is an immensely powerful calculator being fed heavy algorithms to react and respond to certain stimuli in heavily regulated environments, and that is how it is employed.
Artificial intelligence is being used in this case to do real time market research and updating the consumer experience based off of that data simultaneously. And, as strange as that may or may not sound, this kind of thing is not new. Amazon has already made a habit of observing your behavior on their website and using that information to ship your products before you buy them. You know how they do next day delivery? That’s because they’re already delivering it!
Influence engineering does a similar thing, but more advanced. They use what are called Emotion AI and NLPs to collect this real-time market data and curate the user experience as it happens. Emotion AI is a term that has surged in recent years, the term describing AI algorithms that can detect the emotional state of a user through certain inputs like computer vision, audio/voice input, sensors, and software logic. And NLP is an acronym for natural language processing, which is how programs like Siri can understand human language with increasing accuracy. By interpreting a user’s emotions and speech, systems can be put in place to alter the user’s experience based on their current state so that they can better guide customer behavior.
Programs like these allow companies to collect vast amounts of data, truckloads more than they would ever have before, and integrate them into marketing campaigns for better targeting and emotional resonance with consumers. This kind of technology can also assist in personalization of products and online storefronts and enhance the customer support experience when it is needed. It all comes down to a technology that helps brands understand their consumers in a way they have simply not been able to before, and thus be able to react faster, with better reach and empathy.
This is undoubtedly incredible technology that has the possibility to change the world of digital marketing forever, but it would be a disservice not to think about the ramifications of a product like this. If any company with enough resources chooses to use this technology, they could theoretically guide their customers towards any decisions. You can see how this can get bad– if the world becomes filled with companies persuading you to buy products you don’t really want, then people will just become surrounded by the companies with the most ability to leverage this technology. But we don’t live in that world and fingers crossed we won’t.
Honesty is important for strategies like this even without artificial intelligence, but with that, companies must also use it in a controlled manner to not interfere with consumer’s lives. This is powerful stuff, but when you become too much of a thorn in the customer’s side, you risk driving them away on pure annoyance. So use, but use in moderation. Which is the rule for everything, actually.
It is doubtful that most people will have the technical or financial resources to utilize AI systems. But there are ways to run these kinds of marketing campaigns with and without assisting algorithms. Engineer your influence! Establish an emotional connection with your consumer, make them understand, make them care, remember that first impressions are king, and most of all, know your audience. Whether you have an AI to help you or not, make sure you know who you’re talking to. That can be the vital difference between success and failure.
This wraps up our dive into influence engineering
If you want to put this information into action, you can combine it with this blog post about how to promote your music for free. Or, if you want to see more about how technology intersects with us humans in the flesh world, check out this post about the occult in the digital age.
You can find more amazing posts about music, marketing, spirituality, and more at Kellee Maize’s blog!
