ODA Episode 2: Watch Ads to Gain Gems: A Conspiracy

I was playing this android kid game with my niece when an ad popped out. I quickly told her to close it but she was already tapping on the close ad button. She has seen this before.

These days, the lifeblood of app developers seem to be drawn from allowing advertisements from another party. We gamers are told to watch ads to gain some gems or to rush the production of this part of the castle, or the training of this soldier or even to open a treasure. Who wouldn’t? It’s almost free and there is nothing to lose but a few seconds of doing nothing.

Sounds harmless enough as you could always just turn away from the phone during these seconds. It’s what everybody else is doing; we don’t really watch the ads.

But if skipping it and turning away from it is so easy, then why do advertisers insist on this method and why even on a kids game?

A scientist named Pavlov is known for his famous experiment on dogs and a theory he derived from it. Normally, dogs would salivate when they were given food, he adjusted this by ringing a bell every time he was feeding the dogs.  This was done repeatedly. In the end, by merely ringing the bell the dogs would salivate even without the food.

The theory is quite simple and we could look at another advertisement to see how it is employed on us human beings. Most fastfood advertisements follow a simple narrative. If we have a special occasion, we eat at Mcdo or Jollibee you choose.

Special occasion = Go to Mcdo.

Special Ocassion. Happy faces =  Go to Mcdo

Special Occasion Happy Faces, Happy colours = Mcdo

Special Occasion Happy faces, happy Colours = Mcdo

The theory, Classical Conditioning, is grounded on repetition and association.

You repeat an associated stimulus of food and bell, Mcdo and special occasion with happy faces. Of course, advertisements do not only sell food, but we can also sell people, for example when politicians splatter their faces everywhere.

This could answer why advertisers insist on repetition. Watch a Pacqiao fight on a local channel and brands would be advertised every single round. And to think that kids these days, are more exposed to such ads(on games and youtube videos) is quite alarming if you believe the theory.

But there is something more insidious.

Subliminal messaging is when you send a message without the receiver consciously knowing that you sent one. In an advertisement, for example, a video could have in it a split second message telling you something else aside from its obvious message. That split second might be barely noticeable at all. There is no shortage on the internet for famous videos that attempted to do this.

Product placement works almost on the same principle. They won’t tell you that they are selling you their stuff but they are. In a local telenovela, you might have the heroin serving the newest corned beef. It would be rare to have the villain do so.

The obvious message = an almost harmless scene where the star serves her family a corned beef.

Hidden message = this corned beef is good( see? The family is all smiles while eating it. Buy it. Buy it.

But of course these are just theories and are we really that easy to be sold anything?