The caveman and the buy button – or why the buy button is the ultimate marketing tool

The caveman and the buy button – or why the buy button is the ultimate marketing tool. With this in mind, I was interested to see the result when Asos decided to trial buy buttons on Instagram and Pintrest, in 2016. Well, first we should look at how brands like Asos traditionally use social media. The idea is that, with combined discounts and bespoke offers to followers, you’re encouraged to buy, reinforcing your social status with each item you purchase. In his book, entitled The Chimp Paradox, Professor Steve Peters explains that the frontal lobe is the rational, decision-making part of the brain, which effectively makes us human. What you need to realise is that ad campaigns have the arduous task of convincing the rational part of your brain to part with your money. If you bear this in mind, it’s easy to see why the buy button is so dangerous for consumers. How do brands get round this? Make that all-important purchase only a click away, using the buy button. With all of these factors playing on a part of your brain which acts on impulse and emotion alone, the potential effect on consumers’ wallets could be devastating.

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Ever found yourself in the situation of trying to explain the return on investment of social media to a client? It’s usually accompanied by feelings of deja vu, despair and pure dread.

It baffles me that some of the largest companies in the world still don’t see the importance of a bold social presence, nor the potential for prising consumers away from their hard earned cash, in the comfort of their own home. In an age where advertising monoliths battle for supremacy through increasingly complex campaigns, social media has given us the gift of simplicity in the form of one of the most ingenious and divisive marketing tools to emerge in recent years – the buy button.

There are currently over 500 million active users on Instagram and over 100 million on Pintrest. If you combine this with the fact that, according to Ofcom, we spend over two hours every day trawling the internet on our phones, then the potential exposure for brands is patently clear. With this in mind, I was interested to see the result when Asos decided to trial buy buttons on Instagram and Pintrest, in 2016. I’m guessing it went fairly well considering the National Retail Federation recently declared that buy buttons unlock the true power of social media. But what elevates this client-appeasing call to action above a device used merely to measure click through rates, and why is it so devastatingly effective?

Well, first we should look at how brands like Asos traditionally use social media. In the ever-rising tide of status updates, motivational pictures and the occasional YouTube link, brands fish for consumers using visual stimuli as bait. They attempt to halt absent-minded scrolling with videos of attractive models, posing in exotic settings, wearing the trendiest clothes, making you wish you’d been born with a chiselled jawline and pushy parents. Unfortunately, it’s not possible to change the composition of your face or your family but at least you can dress like the cool person in the photo, right? The idea is that, with combined discounts and bespoke offers to followers, you’re encouraged to buy, reinforcing your social status with each item you purchase. And this is an over simplified explanation of how social media has helped retail sales grow in the digital age.

However, if that’s what all brands are…

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