Trump supporters are stuck supporting Trump

Marketing professionals can explain it.

Political pundits have wondered why Republican voters, who took a chance by voting for Trump, still support a man who they see break so many Republican values and policies.

Answer: It's human nature. 

Presidential campaign speeches are infomercials.  The candidate has a few minutes to attract our attention, make a persuasive argument, and then attempt to get commitment. In Iowa the close was a request that the audience meet with supporters and caucus on the candidate's behalf. In New Hampshire, they ask for ones vote.

I am here in New Hampshire watching and evaluating presidential "infomercials". I am seeing at least three candidate presentations every day, and fifteen of them on Saturday.

Tony Farrell

Tony Farrell is a marketing professional with a long and successful career doing strategic branding of products and creating infomercials. Farrell once again brings his perspective to presidential campaigns. He does it by reiterating some of the principles of persuasion written in what he calls "the best marketing book ever," Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini, which included a chapter on consistency.

Farrell observes that people want to be consistent, as outlined in Cialdini's analysis.  Once they have committed, humans justify being committed and therefore stay committed.

Trump got voters to commit to him when they voted in 2016. I am watching that process at work again right now. Presidential candidates are seeking people who will mentally commit to them. 

Guest Post by Tony Farrell

"Commitment and Consistency."

“It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.” (Leonardo da Vinci)

Like other weapons of influence, this one lies deep within us, directing our actions with quiet power. It is, quite simply, our nearly obsessive desire to be (and to appear) consistent with what we have already done. Once we have made a choice or taken a stand, we will encounter personal and interpersonal pressures to behave consistently with that commitment. Those pressures will cause us to respond in ways that justify our earlier decision.

To understand why consistency is so powerful a motive, it is important to recognize that in most circumstances consistency is valued and adaptive. Inconsistency is commonly thought to be an undesirable personality trait. A high degree of consistency is normally associated with personal and intellectual strength. It is the heart of logic, rationality, stability and honesty.

Without consistency, our lives would be difficult, erratic and disjointed.

COMMITMENT IS THE KEY

Once we realize the power of consistency is formidable in directing human action, an important practical question immediately arises: How is that force engaged? Social psychologists think they know the answer: Commitment. 

If I can get you to make a commitment (that is, to take a stand, to go on record), I will have set the stage for your automatic and ill-considered consistency with that earlier commitment. Once a stand is taken, there is a natural tendency to behave in ways that are stubbornly consistent with the stand.

                  
                      The Magic of Writing Things Down

Some door-to-door sales companies use the magic of written commitments to battle the “cooling off” laws recently passed in many states…. The companies have since learned a beautifully simple trick that cuts the number of such cancellations drastically. They merely have the customer, rather than the salesman, fill out the sales agreement (which) has proved to be “a very important psychological aid in preventing customers from backing out of their contracts.”

                                 

There is yet another attraction in commitments that lead to inner change—they grow their own legs. There is no need for the marketing professional to undertake a costly and continuing effort to reinforce the change; the pressure for consistency will take care of all that. What is important about this process of generating additional reasons to justify the commitment is that the reasons are new.

The advantage to an unscrupulous marketing professional is tremendous. Because we build new struts to undergird choices we have committed ourselves to, an exploitative individual can offer us an inducement for making such a choice, and after the decision has been made, can remove that inducement, knowing that our decision will probably stand on its own newly created legs.

                       The Car Salesman

New-car dealers frequently try to benefit from this process through a trick they call “throwing a lowball.” A very good price is offered on a car…(say $400 under competitors’)…but it’s not genuine; the dealer never intends it to go through. Its only purpose is to cause a prospect to decide to buy one of the dealership’s cars. Once the decision is made, a number of activities develop the customer’s sense of personal commitment to the car—a raft of purchase forms are filled out; extensive financing terms are arranged; sometimes the customer is encouraged to drive the car for a day before signing the contract “so you can get the feel of it….” During this time, the dealer knows, customers automatically develop a range of new reasons to support the choice they have now made.

Then something happens, an “error” in calculations, etc. “For only another $400” the car can be had, which, in the context of a multi-thousand-dollar deal, doesn’t seem too steep since, as the salesman emphasizes, the cost is equal to competitors’ and “This is the car you chose, right?”

No matter which variety of lowballing is used, the sequence is the same: An advantage is offered that induces a favorable purchase decision; then, sometime after the decision has been made but before the bargain is sealed, the original purchase advantage is deftly removed.

Automobile dealers have come to understand the ability of a personal commitment to build its own support system, a support system of new justifications for the commitment.