At the presentation of their new book, advertising strategist Tim den Heijer and co-author Eva van den Broek seated the forty children present at a table. They were each presented with a plate with one marshmallow in front of them and instructed: “Either you eat it now, or you wait ten minutes, and then you get three.”
“It was suffering,” says Den Heijer. “Really, you saw them having so much trouble keeping their hands off that marshmallow. Some had eaten the edges off, others had stuffed it in their pockets, hoping to keep their hands off it. And still others just ate it. That’s how strong our short-term impulses are. Our brain quickly goes for the easy way, without us even noticing it.”
And that is exactly what Den Heijer and Van den Broek try to explain in The bluebottle effect junior, their recently published children’s book about ‘little things that secretly determine what you do’. Like that advertisement of a nice holiday park, between level 1 and 2 of a game: it is aimed at getting the parents to book a holiday through the child.
“Companies are even advertising things that children can’t buy yet, such as cars,” says Den Heijer. “If you show something often enough in someone’s childhood, that person will think later in life: I want that BMW, I dreamed of that as a child.”
But also: the ticket for an amusement park that is more expensive than the ‘regular’ ticket, but with which you can go through every attraction without waiting in line. And the grabbing machine at the fair, also something like that: we pay a lot more for toys there than we would pay for the same toy in the store, because – once we’ve squandered two coins, we can’t stop. “Our brain does not like waste. So if you lose two coins, you throw in some more coins, because otherwise you did it all for nothing.” Den Heijer chuckles: “It is even rumored in the world of consumer psychology that fairground operators often give away larger prizes in the morning, so that people see others walking around with large prizes in the afternoon and think: I want that too. And it is also rumored that fairground operators have brought that rumor into the world themselves, so that people also come to the fair in the morning. Whichever is true, I think they’re both brilliant.”
Trump
The book is full of cheerful explanation drawings and ready-made language. Take the explanation of what ‘behavior’ is: ‘Something is only behavior if you can see it on a selfie. Doing your homework: behavior. Intend to do your homework: no behavior. Football is behavior. But daydreaming about your future as a top scorer is not behavior. If you only think something but don’t do it, it’s not behavior.’
The authors met a few years ago through a mutual acquaintance. Tim den Heijer studied communication sciences and worked for years at a large advertising agency for brands such as HEMA and IKEA, and became increasingly interested in the question: why does one advertisement do very well, while the other does not catch on? What theory is behind that? Eva van den Broek studied artificial intelligence and obtained her PhD in behavioral economics at Wageningen University & Research (WUR).
He the advertising man, she the theorist. They wrote together at first The blowfly effect (2021), for adults, named after the now well-known bluebottle that has been drawn on the toilet bowls at Schiphol – and now also elsewhere in the country and across the border. “The airport had to deal with filthy toilets, it was impossible to clean up,” says Den Heijer. With the fly in the pot, the men took aim. This results in much lower cleaning costs.
Behold: the bluebottle effect. Small, inconspicuous things that we see every day and that determine our behavior. We stand by, we look at it and we act on it, but we don’t realize it – that idea. “You only see it when you focus on it,” says Den Heijer. “Do you remember the storming of the US Capitol two years ago? Those Trump supporters want to get in, the ME hits them, you would say: a baton should stop them, but they continue their assault. And then they come in, and then there are those posts with braided rope between them, and what are those stormers doing? They walk right through it! That is what you want: to send people with something very small.”
Like in a restaurant, where the choice on the children’s menu can be: apple juice or orange juice. “A child may prefer something else, such as iced tea, but if the choice is apple juice or orange juice, then a child automatically opts for freshly squeezed organic apple juice, which is much more expensive than iced tea.”
Evolution thingy
It is effective because we are lazy by nature. The book quotes renowned Israeli psychologist Daniel Kahneman. He is a pioneer in the field of psychology and economics, and in the book he is referred to as a ‘bobofly discoverer’. Kahneman once said: “Thinking is to humans as swimming is to cats: they can do it, but they prefer not to.”
Den Heijer: “Our energy is distributed throughout our body during the day. It’s not that if you have to think very hard, less energy goes to your knees or arms. Our brain has a physical limitation, we cannot think without limits. That is why the brain cheers at everything that is made easy for us. Just an evolution thing.”
Den Heijer herself has a 13-year-old daughter, and watches with suspicion when she is gaming. “Game makers are very smart about it,” he says. “Children can buy clothes, weapons or avatars, with diamonds, digital coins or credits. You earn that with a game – which in turn ensures that you play longer and therefore see more advertising. I’ve heard my daughter’s classmates say, “I can’t play outside because I have to collect points.” That goes a long way.”
Another manipulative element is that those digital coins can also be purchased with real money. And therein lies the crux: the euros are converted straight into credits on a screen, after which they no longer feel like real money. “Fifty points for a virtual superhero suit doesn’t seem expensive at all. But secretly it is pocket money for two weeks!”, according to the authors in their book. This ‘bomfly’ is based on the principle that people can feel payment pain. “We know from scans that if we show a car enthusiast a very nice car, and then a very high price, the same parts of the brain become active as when they stub their toe.”
The bluebottle effect junior focuses on children between the ages of 8 and 13, the phase of life in which they are allowed to make more and more decisions themselves: they are allowed to go to the fair, receive pocket money, a debit card, are allowed to sell things themselves on King’s Day, go on social media, get a mobile phone – and because of the latter two, they are putting entire industries on the back burner. “All major social media companies and game makers employ behavioral scientists who know exactly how to make children addicted in a systematic way. That’s scary when you think about it. A lot is coming at those children.”
Dopamine kick
This is how social media works with the four-step scheme: the user has to do something, post something on the app, the app gives a reward, but you don’t yet know what that reward is: three likes or a hundred likes – that is determined by the algorithm. And then, when you get a hundred likes and a dopamine kick in your brain, you want those hundred likes again, so you keep making content. And if you only get three likes, you will continue, hoping to get a hundred next time, including a dopamine kick.
Something similar: games are increasingly being played in groups. If one group member stops because homework has to be done or food has to be eaten, the rest cannot continue. “It is increasingly difficult for a child to get rid of that screen.”
It means that Den Heijer started this book cheerfully – “and it has also become a cheerful book” – but as the writing process progressed, he also felt an increasing need to explain this to the youngest. “We have no illusions that we can make children immune to manipulation, but it helps a bit if they start recognizing it.”
And that works, thinks Den Heijer, especially by doing it in a playful way. For example, through the marshmallow experiment, after which Den Heijer explained to the children that if your brain sees something attractive, the brain wants it now. The same goes for those candies that are displayed at the supermarket checkout. And for that red circle with 1 in it when you have a notification from your app.
After that explanation, forty pairs of eyes looked at him. After which one of the children exclaimed in bewilderment: “But that is not fair!”
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of May 26, 2023.
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