Latest / Be Amazed / Ways You’re Secretly Tricked By Companies
Transcript
- 0:00[SPEAKER_00]: In the consumer-focused society we live in, it seems you can't even walk out the door without spending twenty bucks on God knows what.
- 0:08[SPEAKER_00]: That's because big companies know exactly how to manipulate us into parting ways with our hard-earned cash.
- 0:14[SPEAKER_00]: And often, we don't realize they're doing it.
- 0:18[SPEAKER_00]: From the subtle to the shameful, let's investigate some of the sneakiest ways you're secretly being tricked by companies.
- 0:36[SPEAKER_00]: they say patience is a virtue even so there's nothing more boring than waiting around for something surely no company would make us wait for something if they could just give it to us straight away then right wrong
- 0:50[SPEAKER_00]: a few years ago social media giant Facebook rolled out a security checkup.
- 0:56[SPEAKER_00]: Users who logged in were greeted by a little robotic doctor telling them their account was being checked for security issues.
- 1:03[SPEAKER_00]: The check ran for about ten seconds.
- 1:06[SPEAKER_00]: However, the Facebook servers are far faster than this and actually completed the check in less than one second.
- 1:14[SPEAKER_00]: The thing is, we inherently mistrust a process if it takes a very short amount of time.
- 1:19[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you'd be suspicious if I told you I did all the research for this episode in five minutes, wouldn't you?
- 1:25[SPEAKER_00]: So, Facebook and other companies purposefully inflate the waiting times of certain processes to ironically build people's trust in them?
- 1:34[SPEAKER_00]: Damn, and there's more.
- 1:36[SPEAKER_00]: In situations where there really is a genuine reason for us to wait, like when our phones are updating, there's always a progress bar, isn't there?
- 1:45[SPEAKER_00]: Companies know that without this small feature, we'd be up in arms, but the bars aren't even accurate.
- 1:52[SPEAKER_00]: Install times vary depending on phone model, so manufacturers devise progress animations that reflect the average install time instead.
- 2:01[SPEAKER_00]: It's why sometimes they'll speed through ninety-nine percent in three minutes just to get stuck at the end for five hours.
- 2:07[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I've known riots that have started for less.
- 2:11[SPEAKER_00]: We've all been there.
- 2:12[SPEAKER_00]: You find a new pair of pants that you love only to try them on and rapidly realize they're too tight.
- 2:18[SPEAKER_00]: It's not a good feeling and it only gets worse when you have to fish around looking for the next couple of sizes up.
- 2:25[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, studies show that after an experience like this, we're less likely to buy, even if we do find the right-sized pants, because we're in a worse mood.
- 2:36[SPEAKER_00]: Clothing companies know this and have a supremely sneaky tactic to make sure it happens as little as possible.
- 2:42[SPEAKER_00]: They keep their clothing physically the same, but crucially make the sizing chart smaller.
- 2:48[SPEAKER_00]: Back in nineteen thirty-seven sears sold dresses with a thirty-two inch bust as size fourteen S. But by nineteen sixty-seven it was a size eight.
- 2:59[SPEAKER_00]: Fast forward to today and that same thirty-two inch bust is a size zero.
- 3:05[SPEAKER_00]: This smaller size is designed to make you feel better about yourself when you try it on, so you're more likely to buy it.
- 3:13[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't always this way though, in the U.S.
- 3:16[SPEAKER_00]: closed sizing used to be standardized.
- 3:19[SPEAKER_00]: In nineteen eighty three however, the rule was abandoned.
- 3:23[SPEAKER_00]: Since then stores have used their own sizing charts and most have opted to label everything significantly smaller than it used to be, which is a phenomenon called vanity sizing.
- 3:34[SPEAKER_00]: A better name for it might be insanity sizing considering the insane level of manipulation on show.
- 3:42[SPEAKER_00]: You know what would be really insane though?
- 3:44[SPEAKER_00]: Not following my podcast.
- 3:47[SPEAKER_00]: I post exciting new content weekly and I've got some real treats coming up that you don't want to miss.
- 3:53[SPEAKER_00]: All done!
- 3:54[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, where were we?
- 3:56[SPEAKER_00]: Shopping malls have been a popular part of consumer culture since they first appeared in the US back in the nineteen fifties.
- 4:03[SPEAKER_00]: But did you know they're designed very specifically to milk as much money as possible from you?
- 4:09[SPEAKER_00]: The first mall architect Victor Gruen was a master of commercial design.
- 4:14[SPEAKER_00]: He knew that in order to buy more, customers had to spend more time in the retail space, so his malls were designed with intentionally confusing layouts filled with all sorts of interesting sights, smells, and other stimuli.
- 4:28[SPEAKER_00]: The sensory overload and odd layout make you forget your original intention and you become more likely to buy things you hadn't come for, a concept called the Gruen Transfer.
- 4:40[SPEAKER_00]: And it doesn't just apply to malls, it's used to varying degrees, and pretty much every store you go to.
- 4:46[SPEAKER_00]: Ever noticed how there's rarely any windows or clocks and grocery stores?
- 4:51[SPEAKER_00]: That's another example of the grew in transfer in action.
- 4:55[SPEAKER_00]: Being aware of the time pulls you out of the shopping experience, which is the last thing store owners want, so anything reminding you of it is removed.
- 5:04[SPEAKER_00]: to further maximize the time you spend in store companies regularly change the layouts too.
- 5:10[SPEAKER_00]: If we know where something is, we'll usually make a B-line for that item, grab it, and leave.
- 5:16[SPEAKER_00]: But if the store layout changes and we're unsure, we're forced to spend more time checking through aisles we wouldn't otherwise walk down.
- 5:23[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, more potential purchases.
- 5:27[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know about Gruin, but it's definitely enough to make me grown.
- 5:31[SPEAKER_00]: Can you guess what links food, cleaning products, and insurance?
- 5:36[SPEAKER_00]: Only friendly humanoid mascots.
- 5:39[SPEAKER_00]: The reason?
- 5:40[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it's all to do with basic human psychology.
- 5:44[SPEAKER_00]: As humans, we find it easier to connect with things if we humanize them, or anthropomorphize them if you want to be fancy.
- 5:53[SPEAKER_00]: It's why we give names to our cars and other items that are precious to us.
- 5:57[SPEAKER_00]: Humanizing things also lends us control over them.
- 6:01[SPEAKER_00]: When a car starts fine, it's just a car, but when it fails we get angry at it and blame it like it's alive.
- 6:08[SPEAKER_00]: Or at least I do.
- 6:10[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, anthropomorphizing it makes us feel better, it's very easy to do as well.
- 6:16[SPEAKER_00]: Just sticking a simple face on something is often enough to do the trick, and we don't just connect with things more when we anthropomorphize them, we trust them more too.
- 6:27[SPEAKER_00]: Companies use this to their full advantage.
- 6:30[SPEAKER_00]: Google, for example, designed their self-driving car with face-like features to calm down anyone nervous about getting in it.
- 6:38[SPEAKER_00]: So a product with a friendly mascot humanizes it, evoking positive emotions and leading to a better overall view of the product itself.
- 6:49[SPEAKER_00]: Think about Tony the Tiger, the M&M candies and the Coolade Man.
- 6:54[SPEAKER_00]: None of the brands associated with those would have been as successful without their iconic mascots.
- 7:00[SPEAKER_00]: And now think about this.
- 7:02[SPEAKER_00]: Every one of them was created to take advantage of kids.
- 7:05[SPEAKER_00]: Those friendly characters, just a way of gaining children's loyalty and lining the pockets of the companies that design them.
- 7:13[SPEAKER_00]: Next up, inflation makes pretty much everything more expensive.
- 7:17[SPEAKER_00]: However, the price of some store products remains suspiciously stable.
- 7:22[SPEAKER_00]: Ever wondered why?
- 7:23[SPEAKER_00]: Well, in response to inflation, some companies opt to avoid raising prices and instead subtly reduce the amount of actual product you get.
- 7:32[SPEAKER_00]: Something called shrinkflation.
- 7:34[SPEAKER_00]: This is because people pay much more attention to the price of things than they do to their size.
- 7:40[SPEAKER_00]: And even if we do notice the size difference, we'd still rather buy a smaller product and pay the same price for it than pay more than we're used to.
- 7:49[SPEAKER_00]: Take Coca-Cola, for example.
- 7:52[SPEAKER_00]: In twenty seventeen, the old five hundred milliliters bottles were phased out across the US and replaced with four hundred forty milliliters bottles.
- 8:02[SPEAKER_00]: But despite losing a whole sixty milliliters, the price remained the same.
- 8:07[SPEAKER_00]: Doritos suffered a similar fate back in two thousand eight with the bags getting a whole two ounces smaller and bad news for Doritos fans.
- 8:16[SPEAKER_00]: The pack strength again as recently as March, two thousand twenty two.
- 8:21[SPEAKER_00]: shrink-flation isn't just limited to the US either.
- 8:25[SPEAKER_00]: Over in the UK, Snickers bars have shrunk a whopping seventeen percent over the last few years.
- 8:31[SPEAKER_00]: On top of this, by reducing the amount of actual product they're selling, food companies can make misleading claims like twenty percent less sugar.
- 8:40[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, it's got less sugar, but it's got less everything else, too.
- 8:44[SPEAKER_00]: Not that companies always get away with it.
- 8:47[SPEAKER_00]: When Toblerone made the gaps in their chocolate bigger back in the year, people got so enraged that they were forced to revert it.
- 8:55[SPEAKER_00]: You could say they got Toblerone.
- 8:58[SPEAKER_00]: Now we're all guilty of indulging in a cheeky McDonald's every now and again.
- 9:03[SPEAKER_00]: But as tasty as their fries are, they're also the center of a life-changing lie.
- 9:09[SPEAKER_00]: You won't believe it.
- 9:10[SPEAKER_00]: But the small bag fits more fries in it than the medium.
- 9:14[SPEAKER_00]: Or at least more fries for the price.
- 9:17[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, maybe it's not life-changing.
- 9:19[SPEAKER_00]: But still, how could this be?
- 9:22[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it's all about the material of the container.
- 9:25[SPEAKER_00]: You see, because the small fries come in a paper bag, it bends to accommodate as many as possible.
- 9:31[SPEAKER_00]: The medium fries, on the other hand, come in a rigid card container, which doesn't have this same flexibility.
- 9:39[SPEAKER_00]: As such, there's more unfilled space netting you less bang for your buck.
- 9:44[SPEAKER_00]: Take a look, the small portion sits snugly in both containers.
- 9:48[SPEAKER_00]: Don't get me wrong, if you order a medium, you'll probably get a few more fries, but the difference really isn't enough considering you're paying almost an extra third in cost for them.
- 9:58[SPEAKER_00]: Finally, proof you can show to your girlfriend that bigger isn't always better.
- 10:03[SPEAKER_00]: I know, thank me later.
- 10:05[SPEAKER_00]: Next up, a good photographer will tell you that lighting is everything.
- 10:09[SPEAKER_00]: Two photos taken from the same spot six hours apart will look drastically different.
- 10:15[SPEAKER_00]: This same principle applies to mirrors.
- 10:17[SPEAKER_00]: It's why sometimes I look at myself and see a young Brad Pitt while other times Shrek's shorter brother is staring back at me.
- 10:24[SPEAKER_00]: and nobody capitalizes on this more than clothing store designers, specifically the ones responsible for the fitting rooms.
- 10:31[SPEAKER_00]: To appeal to our vanity as much as possible, fitting rooms are often arranged so their lighting shines out from the mirror, as well as down from the ceiling.
- 10:40[SPEAKER_00]: This creates a flattering shadow-free reflection.
- 10:43[SPEAKER_00]: As well as this, the mirrors themselves are frequently angled slightly upwards, elongating the look of the body and making our legs appear longer than they actually are.
- 10:53[SPEAKER_00]: Some mirrors are also tended to give our faces a healthier glow.
- 10:57[SPEAKER_00]: All this makes us feel better about ourselves and brings us one step closer to that all important purchase.
- 11:05[SPEAKER_00]: To test the theory Australian journalist Amanda Plattell decided to try on the same dress in several different stores, and she was shocked at the result.
- 11:15[SPEAKER_00]: despite the dress being the same, her look varied wildly, and some places she felt like she looked great, but in others she felt significantly more lumpy in her own words.
- 11:26[SPEAKER_00]: Witch explains why our entire appearance can be altered just by walking from one room to the next, and I'm going to need some time to reflect on all this.
- 11:37[SPEAKER_00]: It's no secret that streaming services are fast becoming the go-to way of consuming television over their more traditional cable counterpart.
- 11:45[SPEAKER_00]: In response to this, TV executives have come up with a seriously sliced solution.
- 11:51[SPEAKER_00]: They're speeding up their broadcast.
- 11:53[SPEAKER_00]: Say what?
- 11:54[SPEAKER_00]: Because cable is drawing less profit than it used to, companies are scrambling to recover that lost cash in any way they can.
- 12:02[SPEAKER_00]: And how do TV execs make money?
- 12:04[SPEAKER_00]: Commercials.
- 12:06[SPEAKER_00]: So, by increasing the broadcast speed of their shows just a tiny amount, more time gets freed up for advertising instead.
- 12:15[SPEAKER_00]: Both TBS and TNT have been exposed for doing this speeding up sign-filled by about eight percent and freeing up an additional two minutes of broadcast time.
- 12:24[SPEAKER_00]: Two minutes might not sound like much, but that's four thirty-second commercials, which is almost seventy thousand dollars more in advertising revenue.
- 12:32[SPEAKER_00]: Now, you might think doing this would ruin the show, however the difference between the original broadcast and the G-Fuel One is pretty subtle.
- 12:41[SPEAKER_00]: Even so, less subtle are the extra four commercials for every twenty minutes of showtime.
- 12:46[SPEAKER_00]: As if there weren't enough adverts already, if you ask me, this is only going to drive more people away from cable in the long run.
- 12:54[SPEAKER_00]: It's commonplace for all kinds of companies to offer customers so-called plans or packages.
- 13:00[SPEAKER_00]: These are bundles that present different levels of service for sale depending on what a customer wants.
- 13:06[SPEAKER_00]: Did you know though that they're nefariously designed to make us go for the more expensive option?
- 13:12[SPEAKER_00]: Take the popular magazine the Economist for example, at one point the publication had three packages for sale.
- 13:20[SPEAKER_00]: Web only for fifty-nine dollars a year, print only for one hundred twenty-five dollars a year and both web and print.
- 13:27[SPEAKER_00]: also priced at one hundred twenty five dollars a year.
- 13:30[SPEAKER_00]: One of these options is obviously a terrible choice.
- 13:33[SPEAKER_00]: Print only that is.
- 13:35[SPEAKER_00]: So why even included was it just an oversight?
- 13:39[SPEAKER_00]: Far from it the print only option was a decoy designed purely to make the third option web and print seem like a better value for money.
- 13:48[SPEAKER_00]: Without the decoy the price hike of fifty nine dollars to one hundred twenty five dollars seems pretty big.
- 13:55[SPEAKER_00]: With the decoy, however, the blow is softened because there's an inferior option between the two main packages.
- 14:01[SPEAKER_00]: Suddenly, web and print don't seem so expensive anymore.
- 14:05[SPEAKER_00]: And it worked like a charm before the decoy was added only thirty-two percent of buyers opted for web and print.
- 14:11[SPEAKER_00]: After it was added, this rose to a whopping eighty-four percent.
- 14:16[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, the economist is just one example.
- 14:19[SPEAKER_00]: You'll start seeing it everywhere now, you know about it.
- 14:23[SPEAKER_00]: Imagine you're the manager of a clothing store and you want to promote a sale.
- 14:27[SPEAKER_00]: When printing the sale prices would you go for big, bold lettering or small and subtle?
- 14:32[SPEAKER_00]: I'd have said big and bold every time to grab people's attention shortly.
- 14:36[SPEAKER_00]: But apparently this isn't the right answer.
- 14:39[SPEAKER_00]: According to a two thousand five study, people shopping for a bargain are more likely to buy something if it's advertised in a small font.
- 14:47[SPEAKER_00]: This is because unconsciously our brains associate the smaller font with a smaller price.
- 14:52[SPEAKER_00]: So if we see two identical t-shirts for the same price, but with different size sized price tags, we're more likely to buy the one with the smaller tag.
- 15:02[SPEAKER_00]: Researchers call it magnitude representation congruency.
- 15:06[SPEAKER_00]: I prefer the term smaller as baller, though.
- 15:09[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody wants to be fit and healthy.
- 15:11[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, who turned down feeling great and living a long, healthy life?
- 15:16[SPEAKER_00]: Because of this, we're drawn to certain buzzwords on the food we eat.
- 15:20[SPEAKER_00]: Antioxidant, whole grain, and organic being a few.
- 15:24[SPEAKER_00]: The thing is, these words don't carry as much meaning as they seem to, and they're frequently used to mislead us.
- 15:31[SPEAKER_00]: You see, even if we know something is inherently unhealthy, such as pop tarts, if it's advertised as whole grain or baked with real fruit, we see it as slightly less sinful, which can be enough to convince us to buy it.
- 15:45[SPEAKER_00]: In reality, baked with real fruit is about as vague as it gets.
- 15:50[SPEAKER_00]: Pop tarts make this claim, yet the filling inside the strawberry ones only contains a measly two percent fruit.
- 15:56[SPEAKER_00]: The rest is artificial coloring, sugar, and palm oil.
- 16:01[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, none of these ingredients are mentioned in the commercials.
- 16:05[SPEAKER_00]: Similarly, Welch's fruit snacks are quick to point out the real fruit they contain, but failed to mention the artificial colors and heaps of sugar that come with it, and don't get me started on low fat.
- 16:18[SPEAKER_00]: If you see that on something just remember, it's probably been pumped full of sugar, sweetener, and salt to make up for the lack of flavor that fats usually bring to the table.
- 16:28[SPEAKER_00]: So next time you're thinking of buying a product because of its so-called health benefits, don't just throw it in your cart, read the ingredients list first.
- 16:38[SPEAKER_00]: I think I speak for everyone when I say chip bags nowadays are more like airbags with a couple of chips tossed in for fun.
- 16:44[SPEAKER_00]: I've covered shrink-flation already, but this phenomenon is even more deceitful because the bags don't physically change size.
- 16:51[SPEAKER_00]: With chocolate bars you can at least notice the reduction.
- 16:55[SPEAKER_00]: Chips on the other hand have a trick up their foil coated sleeve.
- 16:58[SPEAKER_00]: The bags are filled with air.
- 17:00[SPEAKER_00]: Or rather, nitrogen.
- 17:02[SPEAKER_00]: As ordinary air would make the chips go soft.
- 17:06[SPEAKER_00]: This effectively means manufacturers can keep the bags the same size while reducing the contents right under our noses.
- 17:14[SPEAKER_00]: Even more frustratingly, they claim the nitrogen is there for good reason to protect the potato pieces while they're in transit.
- 17:23[SPEAKER_00]: Brooklyn-based artist Henry Hargreaves decided to test this by loading his car up with an assortment of different bags, then driving around with them all.
- 17:32[SPEAKER_00]: In complete opposition to the manufacturer's assertion, he found the chip bags with the most air suffered the worst breakages.
- 17:41[SPEAKER_00]: If you can guess how much air that was per bag, would you say fifty percent?
- 17:46[SPEAKER_00]: Otter by this other V-Thum?
- 17:48[SPEAKER_00]: Try again.
- 17:49[SPEAKER_00]: Hoggrieves found out that both lace and Doritos bags were an astonishing, eighty-six percent air.
- 17:56[SPEAKER_00]: Jeez.
- 17:58[SPEAKER_00]: Can Niving companies have been doing everything they can to get our cash since?
- 18:02[SPEAKER_00]: Well, forever.
- 18:05[SPEAKER_00]: In the last couple of decades though, the internet has brought forth a whole new slew of techniques they can use.
- 18:11[SPEAKER_00]: The most pervasive are known as dark patterns.
- 18:14[SPEAKER_00]: No, not like the ones you left in your underwear when you watch the conjuring.
- 18:18[SPEAKER_00]: These dark patterns are built into a website's interface design.
- 18:22[SPEAKER_00]: Take for example, web cookies.
- 18:26[SPEAKER_00]: More often than not a big vibrant button asks you to accept all cookies, but what if you don't want to?
- 18:33[SPEAKER_00]: Ah, then you'll probably have to click the Dole Grey Preferences button and manually untick every single one.
- 18:41[SPEAKER_00]: Most of the time I bet you just click except all out of sheer simplicity and I don't blame you.
- 18:48[SPEAKER_00]: But then the website has done exactly what it wanted to, it is taking your information.
- 18:54[SPEAKER_00]: Another common dark pattern is the account closure process, it goes without saying that no company wants you to close an account with them, so many will do whatever they can to make it as hard as possible.
- 19:07[SPEAKER_00]: Ever tried to close your Amazon account?
- 19:09[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the homepage doesn't give you any clues as to how you might go about doing that.
- 19:14[SPEAKER_00]: You've actually got to navigate to my account then, help then, contact us then, open chat, then four more options before finally requesting to close.
- 19:24[SPEAKER_00]: The key word being requesting, after all that, you're still left with time to change your mind.
- 19:30[SPEAKER_00]: The prize for most devilish dark pattern of all, though, has to go to Chinese footwear manufacturer Kaiwai Ni.
- 19:38[SPEAKER_00]: The manufacturer overlaid the image of a strand of hair onto an online ad for a sneaker they sold.
- 19:46[SPEAKER_00]: When people swipe their screens to get the hair off, they were taken to the website instead.
- 19:52[SPEAKER_00]: Nike.
- 19:53[SPEAKER_00]: That really puts the sneak and sneaker of all the sligh and calculating ways businesses trick us into handing over our hard earned money.
- 20:02[SPEAKER_00]: There's one so deceitfully devious, it almost doesn't seem believable.
- 20:08[SPEAKER_00]: Ready for your last scrap of trust to be destroyed?
- 20:11[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, here we go.
- 20:14[SPEAKER_00]: Companies can influence your buying decisions before you're even born.
- 20:18[SPEAKER_00]: You see, as early as twenty weeks into pregnancy, fetuses respond to sound, and at thirty weeks they can smell too.
- 20:27[SPEAKER_00]: At this point, a pregnant woman's listening and eating habits will have a profound effect on her unborn child.
- 20:33[SPEAKER_00]: So profound, in fact, that it'll affect their behavior later in life.
- 20:39[SPEAKER_00]: See where this is going?
- 20:41[SPEAKER_00]: Well, a Philippine candy brand called Copico exploited this information a few years ago.
- 20:47[SPEAKER_00]: First, they sent doctors free candy to give to pregnant mothers.
- 20:50[SPEAKER_00]: Then a few months later, when the kids were born, the brand released a new type of coffee that tasted just like the candy.
- 20:58[SPEAKER_00]: The mothers who had been given the free candy found that when their children played up, feeding them the candy flavored coffee, calm them down, they absolutely loved it.
- 21:08[SPEAKER_00]: So naturally the moms kept buying it.
- 21:11[SPEAKER_00]: Just four years later, and Copico Coffee was the third largest brand in the whole of the Philippines.
- 21:17[SPEAKER_00]: Those babies were effectively brand-washed into becoming loyal customers.
- 21:22[SPEAKER_00]: I bet most of them still drink Copico today.
- 21:25[SPEAKER_00]: Pretty scary, huh?
- 21:26[SPEAKER_00]: But hey, at least I know who to blame for my embarrassingly deep-seated love of Shania Twain now.
- 21:34[SPEAKER_00]: Mom, I'm looking at you.
- 21:36[SPEAKER_00]: Alright, how many of those Tricksie tactics did you know about?
- 21:40[SPEAKER_00]: How many do you think you've probably fallen for?
- 21:43[SPEAKER_00]: And did I miss any that you've noticed?
- 21:45[SPEAKER_00]: I hope you were amazed.
- 21:47[SPEAKER_00]: See you next time.