This is how you program a person

I’m more eager to get you to learn + change your behaviour than I am to increase "read-time" on this article. So here’s the chase:

It’s repetition

That’s it. Repeat something enough, and it will be adopted as truth.

There are opinions that have been repeated to you so often in different packaging that you’ve adopted them as your truth. Your job is to start realising the repetition, and stop adopting these as truth.

That could be ideas about certain countries, people, towns, foods you’ve never tried, companies. Everything. From movies, to news outlets, to YouTube videos. Every medium plays a role in projecting a perspective.

Context:

I spend my day repeating basic instructions to my two daughters, I’m only 4 years into motherhood and I’m already losing interest in the repetition without IMMEDIATE results. So I turned to my mother and asked her how she’s repeating these basic instructions without losing enthusiasm.

To which she said;

“This is how you raise a child, you program them. And you’re not doing it so they act on what you said now, you’re doing it so they know it as a truth in the back of their minds and one day, when they need it, they will act on it.”

Profound. She also said that she repeats the instruction every chance she gets. And if she could, she’d repeat every minute, every hour and every day. If it meant that she’d get the desired results.

Then I thought:

That’s the exact link between marketing and propaganda. Program a person to believe one specific thing, by repeating it in different ways and different scenarios so that when you need them to act, they’re already primed to act.

My daughter is 4, no matter how small this YouTube logo is, she will associate it with videos she has seen.

These are some of the substack symbols. Obviously, I can predict what each of them will do when I click them, because I’ve seen them. But what’s cool is, my daughter can predict none of them, yet. But once they’ve been repeated to her enough, even though they don’t make headphones or cameras like that any more, she’ll know they mean sounds + visuals.

Marketers, Journalists and Lobbyists know that this is how we’re programmed. Just show us an image, with some kind of sound over it over and over again, we’ll associate the two together even if we don’t want to.

Repetition teaches the donkey

It’s an Arabic saying. Repeating the same thing over and over - especially if it’s simple enough, will teach even the simplest minds.

Someone recently told me that Russians say: “Repetition is the mother of learning.”

Here’s a simple example.

This is just a snippet of the oldest “Try Guys” videos. It’s 4 guys, trying stuff. And they repeated the words “Try Guys”, in the channel name, in the title, in their thumbnails, in their descriptions - you get the idea. , and now we’ll forever just associate them as the Try Guys, for better or for worse.

All good marketers repeat. Great marketers repeat more

I’ve worked with so many marketing teams and the more successful ones actually say the same thing over and over and over again. And it’s because they’ve spent so long getting the proposition and the words perfect, that it bodes well to keep repeating it.

So they plaster it everywhere, so their message, product or services stick in our minds rent-free, exactly where they intended it to live.

Sometimes when I tell clients that they have to repeat their messaging across different platforms, or they wonder why I haven’t produced new copy for every platform, I have to explain to them the bravery it takes to be simple. Being clear, and repeating the same thing over and over builds an association in the minds of readers.

By the time you’ve hit the shopping isles, the winners have already won. You’ve already been programmed to buy the familiar thing. Spend money on the recognisable brands. You don’t even have to like them, you just have to know loosely what they are and recognise them. The message just had to be SIMPLE, and consistent. Almost predictable.

The simpler the message, the stickier it is

So, repeat they simplest truth. We all know nuance doesn’t travel well. And it’s because the inverse is true, simple messages are the ones that program us.

London is rainy, Russia is cold, Floridians are eccentric, the list goes on. We all have shared images of things that we haven’t experienced first hand, but have been repeated to us in so many scenarios that we’ve adopted them as our truth.

Familiar. Not offensive. Fits right in with the rest of our imagination

I think I’ve only known 2 Floridian’s in my life, and I think 4 Russians. Certainly not enough to build a consensus. But I’ve adopted truths that I am questioning now, and would implore you to do the same.

Not to sound like a conspiracist… but it’s time to ask:

Where have you been programmed?

Just consider the question. What “truths” are you unlearning?

For me it was the idea of “what is a country”. I don’t know why, but I’ve recently been taking to task what I consider the role of a state. Based on the last 18-ish months, I just don’t think there’s a concrete truth in what we’ve been told it is. I do not think that it is drawn by geographical lines in the sand. I do not think that it is simply a “governing system”. I do not think that most countries are what they say they are.

Only because the reality of their actions are not matching up to the opinions of the people in those countries. So I have to go back to the question: “Why did I believe these things about what a country is?” and “Why did I think it would act in my best interest?”

What are you unlearning?