Baby schema Doesn’t Like Sharing the Stage
As you may have noticed, we’re awash in cuteness these days. The latest dose comes in the form of a full-length documentary film, Babies, released Mother’s Day weekend. Advertising Age reports that marketers were all over it. Vanity Fair examined the trend at length last year, noting among other things the scads of Internet sites devoted to baby animals, the enduring success of Hello Kitty, the evolution of the Geico gecko from slithery to big-eyed, the fact that even Darth Vader is now available as an adorably stumpy stuffed toy …
What’s going on?
“Baby schema,” aka cuteness, that’s what. When presented with characteristics we unconsciously associate with infants, such as a round head and big eyes, our brains get busy telling us to nurture. Cuteness may even be addictive.
A recent series of experiments using functional MRI showed that baby pictures—especially those with the best baby schema—stimulate the nucleus accumbens. This ancient part of the brain is involved in reward processing, and it’s also stimulated by perennial favorites such as food, drugs, and sex. In a less high-tech experiment, a psychologist left hundreds of wallets, some containing baby pictures, around the streets of Edinburgh, Scotland. The wallets with the baby pictures were returned far more often than those with other pictures or no pictures at all.
So cuteness can help you get your wallet back, but can it get your customers to reach into theirs?
Maybe. Like sex, cuteness is reluctant to share the stage. You might get everyone’s attention, but you might also lose the battle for brand recall. My friend’s real estate agent dreads bringing his 7-month-old daughter to appointments when he’s on child-care duty. “She steals the show,” he says. It’s good for his ego, but not for his sales: buyers are so busy cooing over the baby, they don’t take in the house.
Tips for using cuteness in marketing:
1. Make sure the focus is on your brand, not the cuteness.
2. The cuteness has to work with the context of the brand or ad. A puppy selling razors? Probably not. A Chihuahua selling tacos? I don’t have to tell you it worked.
3. Everyone has the cuteness button, but cute’s effect seems to be strongest with women on the young side. The audience of the hit website cuteoverload.com, for example, is largely female and between 18 and 34.
4. Beware the dark side. Cuteness sometimes puts its object into ridiculous or vulnerable situations, as Daniel Harris notes in his book Cute, Quaint, Hungry and Romantic. Kittens crashing into walls? Adorable to some, disturbing to others.
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The Power—and Pitfalls—of Cuteness
Baby schema Doesn’t Like Sharing the Stage
What’s going on?
“Baby schema,” aka cuteness, that’s what. When presented with characteristics we unconsciously associate with infants, such as a round head and big eyes, our brains get busy telling us to nurture. Cuteness may even be addictive.
A recent series of experiments using functional MRI showed that baby pictures—especially those with the best baby schema—stimulate the nucleus accumbens. This ancient part of the brain is involved in reward processing, and it’s also stimulated by perennial favorites such as food, drugs, and sex. In a less high-tech experiment, a psychologist left hundreds of wallets, some containing baby pictures, around the streets of Edinburgh, Scotland. The wallets with the baby pictures were returned far more often than those with other pictures or no pictures at all.
So cuteness can help you get your wallet back, but can it get your customers to reach into theirs?
Maybe. Like sex, cuteness is reluctant to share the stage. You might get everyone’s attention, but you might also lose the battle for brand recall. My friend’s real estate agent dreads bringing his 7-month-old daughter to appointments when he’s on child-care duty. “She steals the show,” he says. It’s good for his ego, but not for his sales: buyers are so busy cooing over the baby, they don’t take in the house.
Tips for using cuteness in marketing:
1. Make sure the focus is on your brand, not the cuteness.
2. The cuteness has to work with the context of the brand or ad. A puppy selling razors? Probably not. A Chihuahua selling tacos? I don’t have to tell you it worked.
3. Everyone has the cuteness button, but cute’s effect seems to be strongest with women on the young side. The audience of the hit website cuteoverload.com, for example, is largely female and between 18 and 34.
4. Beware the dark side. Cuteness sometimes puts its object into ridiculous or vulnerable situations, as Daniel Harris notes in his book Cute, Quaint, Hungry and Romantic. Kittens crashing into walls? Adorable to some, disturbing to others.