“With the advent of social media, the influence of our environment on our choices has only increased – although that effect is stronger for women than for men. It turns out that especially women are influenced by social media when they choose a product”, can be read in the ‘Buying Infusion’. A bit confrontational to read, but also hits the nail on the head. Author Chantal Schinkels wrote it in her new book, the ‘Koopinfuus’ and immediately reveals quite a few other marketing secrets…
Have you ever been aware that…
- women more often exhibit compulsive and addictive buying behavior than men?
- many commercials are aimed at women at all?
- and that it is because she is taught from an early age to shop for pleasure?
- are men more likely to become addicted to online gaming and gambling?
- that different addictions are indeed linked to gender?
The funny thing is: research even shows that women think they are being manipulated more often than men. And yet they fall for it more often than men. You may wonder how that is possible if consciousness is there… Author Schinkels wonders aloud: “Are we actually still able to make our own choices? Or are we now being influenced to such an extent that we as consumers have become ‘unwilling’?”
Koopinfuus describes 29 ‘Dark patterns’ techniques
‘Only 1 spot left’, ‘In 24 hours the price will increase by 1200 euros’ and ‘Cheaper than competitor X’. These marketing tricks are probably familiar to you. They are perhaps even the most used tricks to win over online customers. As you know by now, e-commerce companies are constantly looking for ways to entice consumers to make a purchase. One more transparent than the other.
The Koopinfuus states: “In 2019, research was conducted into the various dark patterns that are used. No fewer than eleven thousand webshops were screened with a web crawler. Two thousand different dark patterns were extracted from this. It is impossible to name them all in this book; I therefore limit myself to the dark patterns with the most impact and the dark patterns that are explicitly mentioned in the study by the European Commission.
We will of course not reveal what those dark patterns are in this article, for that we refer you to the Koopinfuus. We do that very consciously. On the one hand because she explains it like no other with all the nuances surrounding it, on the other hand because writers earn a living writing books. We wish Chantal Schinkels fantastic reactions to this book!
Koopinfuus is for sale from 1 June
The Koopinfuus can now be pre-ordered and available from June 1, 2023 for the price of 22.99 euros. Ironically, that could mean a new online purchase for you, but hopefully one that gives you a better understanding of how online marketing tries to influence you. Might save you some impulse purchases in the future!
source reference
Chantal has used a number of sources for her book, which we have included in this article. For the sake of completeness, we also note them here:
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https://www.bnr.nl/podcast/baanbreaking-businessmodels/10480463/how-chinese-business-models-are-furnished
- Štefko, R., Tomková, A., Kovalova, J. & Ondrijová, I. (2021). ‘Consumer Purchasing Behavior and Neuromarketing in The Context of Gender Differences.’ Journal of Marketing Research and Case Studies 1-11. 10.5171/2021.321466.
- https://webtransparency.cs.princeton.edu/dark-patterns/
- https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_418
