Transcriber: Iryna Abramidze Reviewer: Eunice Tan
We encounter messaging constantly:
on billboards,
our phones,
the labels of products we use every day.
J. Walker Smith,
president of marketing firm Yankelovich,
stated that we are exposed to as many as 5,000 advertisements a day.
Our minds are constantly being saturated by messaging.
But to what level is our perception of these brands
being dictated by the advertising industry?
Is our preference for one brand over another
based on its quality,
our awareness of the brand,
the way it's presented at the point of purchase?
When a product's catchy jingle gets stuck in our head,
we might be more inclined to choose that product over another.
That's a more obvious advertising tactic.
But is there a subtler persuasion at play?
Can designers use typography to manipulate us on a subconscious level?
Think back.
How many times have you bought a bottle of wine
based on its fancy-looking label,
later to only be basically pouring purple vinegar?
Me too.
So first, let's do a quick crash course on typography,
so we can all become experts.
Typography is the general term for the style and appearance of text.
A typeface is a stylized collection of letters and numbers.
The whole collection is called a family.
Much like your own family,
they're similar, but they have their own style.
See, you have the fun uncle,
you have the cousin going through his heavy-metal phase,
you have the aunt that insists you have a second plate.
Typeface and font are often used interchangeably.
However, nowadays, a font only refers to the digital file.
The two most common ways to group typefaces
are serif and sans serif.
Serif means the typeface has little feet at the bottom
whereas sans serif does not.
But, of course, there are many other subcategories.
Different type designs convey different emotions.
For instance,
something in bold might feel heavy and impactful,
something in script might feel elegant,
and something in a geometric sans serif might feel more modern.
The emotion a typeface evokes
can be considered a subjective gray area.
However, I can assure you
the majority of people would not say Comic Sans gives off a "scholarly" vibe.
About seven years ago,
scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research
announced they'd discovered something called the "God Particle."
Some refer to this
as one of the most important scientific breakthroughs in decades.
But they presented their information
in arguably the most hated typeface on earth.
That week, trending on Twitter higher than the God Particle
was Comic Sans.
One simple design choice
completely shifted the conversation
from this incredible scientific breakthrough
to how ridiculous a typeface designed for Windows 95 children's software is.
So we've seen that typefaces can distract us from the message.
But can simply the style of letters sway us to believe what we're reading?
Errol Morris, who's known for his investigative documentaries,
was inspired by this
and conducted an experiment in 2012 just to test this.
He found inspiration from reading designer Phil Renaud's blog.
Renaud wrote about how in university
his grades had drastically improved
despite not adding any additional effort.
After a bit of detective work,
he had realized only one thing had changed:
his choice of typeface.
After reviewing 52 essays,
he realized that essays written in sans serif Trebuchet MS
had averaged a B-minus,
whereas those written in serif fonts Georgia and Times New Roman
averaged A and A-minus.
Now, Morris was definitely inspired by this,
but he wanted a more empirical test.
He wrote a New York Times article featuring excerpts.
At the end of the article,
readers were asked two questions:
"Is the information in the excerpt true?"
and "How confident are you in your conclusion?"
The twist was readers were being presented the information
in a different typeface each time.
Not surprisingly,
the excerpts written in Comic Sans were not very well received.
However,
two seemingly similar serif typefaces
had drastically different results.
Baskerville had the lowest rate of disagreement,
whereas Georgia had the highest.
IBM designers Alessio Laiso and Rick Sobiesiak
wanted to see
if the superiority of Baskerville held true outside of news articles.
Participants in their test were given four sites -
a banking,
fitness,
shopping,
a news site -
all in four different typefaces.
They were then asked to rate them
on a scale of trustworthiness,
how appealing they were,
and how easy they were to use.
Overall, Baskerville held its title as the most trustworthy.
But if we look closer,
we see that the fitness site opposed the news site,
naming Baskerville as the least trustworthy
and Fira as the most.
So perhaps typefaces can influence our sense of credibility.
But can they go further and affect our senses?
Researchers Vincent P. Magnini and Seontaik Kim
published research in the International Journal of Hospitality Management
indicating that italicized menus
caused potential diners to see a restaurant as more upscale,
with the capability of delivering top-rate service.
Is it possible that this design choice
sets up customers to enjoy this meal
more than one ordered off of another menu?
That this design choice will set up a preconceived notion of quality
before they even taste the food?
So before I began my talk,
I gave you a slip of paper.
This slip of paper had a spray of perfume
as well as the logo of that perfume printed on it.
I then asked you to estimate
what a 50-milliliter bottle of this perfume might cost
and rate its quality on a scale of 1 to 100
via a live online poll.
So these are the results.
The more cheesy-looking sans serif logo
had an even spread of votes among the lower brackets of price scales,
whereas if we look over here,
the large majority for the script logo
rested in the 150 to 300 RMB, or 22 dollar to 45 dollar, price points.
Additionally, we can see a difference in the rate of quality.
Those that were given the cheesy-looking logo
had a quality estimate median of 48.9%,
but those that were given the script
sat at 57.1% -
nearly a 10% difference in quality estimation.
These two fictitious brands have the same name.
In fact, all strips of paper
were sprayed with the same 2 dollar, 15 RMB, bottle of perfume.
The only difference is the typeface of the logo.
How can we be more cognizant of this persuasive messaging?
Is there a way that we can see past the implications these typefaces give us
to judge in a more objective way?
Before you make your next purchase,
ask yourself:
are you buying the product or the packaging?
Thank you.
(Applause)