What’s Wrong With This Picture?
Why are we so dismissive of the signs around us?
Contrary to what we’d like to believe, most of us don’t behave congruently to what is shown to us. In fact we often disregard or even completely ignore what we see. For example, the picture above shows boxes containing stained glass, clearly something that shouldn’t be stacked, hence the “Do Not Stack” warning printed prominently on the box. Why do we do this? Part of the reason is advertising. As buyers, we have been conditioned to disregard the claim of the product or service being promoted. Consider the Big Mac, a sandwich served millions of times a day around the world, and promoted through advertising just as often.
How many times are customers served something like we see below, yet don’t complain that it barely resembles what they were promised?
It’s remarkable if you think about this going on at every fast food restaurant around the world – a billion times a day. Others have considered this phenomenon as well – we found several interesting websites when doing some research showing advertised fast food pictures vs. real fast food pictures, including this one: http://thewvsr.com/
We are trained to disregard both the promises and warning signs. How many times do we do this in our personal lives? In our businesses?
In an effort to raise our awareness of how we respond to signs, I welcome my readers to submit their favorite pictures, whether silly, funny, or sad. Email your pictures to the Caruso Leadership team with your comments about where, when and why you took it. We will feature them in a regular series (interspersed with other blog posts) called “What’s Wrong With This Picture?”
We look forward to hearing from you!