If you have ever accompanied a 5-year old child to a store, you know the risks of saying no to their demands for what you deem to be an unneeded purchase. In some cases, their breathing weakens, tears well up, and their little bodies shake in anger. This can be heartbreaking—and lead to longer-term problems if you give in to the temptation of spoiling them.
Marketers celebrate this moment of “pester power” for its shattering of rationality and the cultivation of a lifelong vulnerability to the shopping frenzy. Never mind that kids can learn to identify those frenzied feelings and develop tools to deal with them, which include slow and deep breathing to calm the body and soul. That psychological skill is not much welcome in our culture of consumerism.
This brings us to the latest craze to gin up the masses—cryptocurrency and the useless stuff you can buy with it in the hope of a big payday. Advertising for crypto is on the rise, reflected in this year’s Super Bowl commercial breaks. As with most commercial advertising, crypto marketing exploits the psychology of “missing out” or being “less than,” which can elicit a perpetual feeling of inadequacy—of body image, health and fitness, income, and possessions. Celebrities feed this new frenzy by hawking crypto and nonfungible tokens (NFTs). Movie studios add options for crypto exchanges, talent agencies like CAA pay to represent tokens, and some high-profile people, including the…
