Classroom Exercise-Media Kit Analysis

Online Media Kit

Numerical Rhetoric

There is an interesting phenomenon about the human mind and the way it perceives advertisements. Everyone knows that $0.99 is much more appealing that $1.00, although we all also know how little a penny is worth these days, so what is the difference? Why do we become convinced to purchase, believing we're getting a deal, when logic tells us simultaneously that we are not? The answer, Rhetoric. 

Companies use logos to advertise appealing prices to the general public. If anyone has taken a psychology class you will understand how the brain perceives prices with a lower dollar amount as more appealing than a high dollar amount, and we almost completely do away with the remaining values in the number. It is similar to how we read words, as lnog as the frsit and lsat ltertes are in plcae, our mnid udnretsndas waht the wrod syas. We don't realize it, but we often overlook small details, such as the order letters are in, and more importantly, the value of what we purchase. 

Companies understand this phenomenon, and use it to trick the consumer into buying their product because they are a better deal that competitors. Is $0.99 really a better deal than $1.00? We know its not, but don't kid yourself, I'm certain everyone reading this has fallen prey to the $0.99 cent scam. Don't keep allowing your mind to throw out the numbers that come after the decimal, you'll be proving companies right by doing so. This issue becomes a battle of the logos, your logos vs. the business logos. You know $0.99 is the SAME THING as $1.00, you know that $7.20 is not $7.00, or that $9.80 is not $9.50. In the short run, this pricing manipulation we all do to convince ourselves to purchase something may seem ok, but in the long run, those cent values add up. 

So here's a suggestion, if you don't already have a piggybank, go out and buy one, or make one, and pay attention to the cent values, defeat the companies pricing! Put all the money you would have spent if you had allowed your logos to be overrun into your empty piggy bank. When you're ready, crack that thing open and find the true value of $0.01.