Your Brain on Credit Card Marketing
Tags: adults, behavioral economics, bitch, blog, campus marketing, campuses, college kids, credit card application, credit card marketing, downside, free t shirt, parents, perception, philadelphia airport, tactic, unfair advantage
So for all the people that bitch and bitch about credit card marketing on campus, did you read my recent post on this over on my other blog? I’m passing through the Philadelphia airport at the moment and nearby is a credit card marketing booth that is passing out T-shirts in exchange for completing a credit card application. Sound like campus marketing doesn’t it. This is the same tactic that parents complain about and say it should be banned from campuses because it takes unfair advantage of students and entices them into applying.
Well just a minute ago, there was a line of adults at the booth waiting to fill out a credit card application because the free T-shirt thing works. It works on parents and college kids. Actually the reason it works so well is because people don’t perceive a downside to it.
Let’s see, someone can easily see that all they have to do is give a bit of information in return for a free T-shirt. If they get approved, great, they get a card. If they get rejected, so what, they still got the T-shirt.
This isn’t a college campus trick. It is a behavioral economics trick. By applying the perception of immediate gain over future responsibilities it just isn’t that hard to get someone to apply. So for all the people that want to ban college campus credit card marketing and think that will stop anything, let’s get real. You’ve got to change peoples brains, not their locations.
Squirrel - Out.
