The psychological reason brands use the power of association to sell

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In the 1890s, Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov noticed how dogs began salivating not just when food was placed in front of them, but when they heard the footsteps of the person bringing the food.

He ran experiments where he’d ring a bell right before he fed his dogs. After repeating this several times, the dogs started salivating at the sound of the bell alone, no food needed.

Pavlov had identified classical conditioning, or learning to associate one stimulus (the bell) with a different stimulus (the food) to produce a conditioned response (salivation).

Now, I like to think I’m a little bit more evolved than those dogs. I’d hope I wouldn’t fall for the same tricks. But I do. In fact, we all do.

The Real Reason You Love That New Car Smell

Take the “new car smell” as my first example. No one is born liking this smell. Instead, we learn to like this smell through repeated associations. That new car smell becomes associated with the pleasurable experience of sitting in a shiny, clean new car.

Yet this association can be hacked to alter our perception.

Charles Spence, in his terrific book Sensehacking, describes how Rolls-Royce customers sent their cars in for service, and they returned to their owners seemingly brand new. Rolls-Royce managing director Hugh Hadland is quoted as saying, “People say they don‘t understand what we’ve done, but that their cars come back different and better.”

How did Rolls-Royce deliver this incredible service?

Apparently, by spraying the car with an aromatic mixture of leather and wood designed to capture that distinctive new car smell. The scent has become so iconic that the brand released it as a fragrance that can help keep a Rolls-Royce smelling great for longer.

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It’s a perfect example of classical conditioning at work — this time on humans. It’s the same formula. We learn to associate one stimulus (new car smell) with another (a new car), producing a conditioned response (believing you’re sitting in a new car).

It’s not the only associative hack pulled off by car manufacturers.

One 2011 study found that students overestimated a car’s speed when the noise of the car was artificially increased. Likewise, one 2008 study found that lowering the in-car noise by five decibels led people to underestimate its speed by 10%.

This is because over time, we’ve built an association between sound and speed. F1 cars make deafening noises, as do jet planes. We have learned to expect that fast cars do the same. So it’s no surprise that some Volkswagen Golf models use sound actuators to help boost the roar of the engine.