As I was going through my large stack of Christmas catalogs, I noticed that many of them feature cute puppies on the front page.
Christmas catalog puppies are awesomely cute and totally irresistible!
After a few catalogs though, I did begin to wonder …
What do towels, chocolates, clothes, and furniture have to do with puppies?
It turns out that puppy catalogs are a common marketing strategy based on the psychology principle of association.
When we see Christmas gifts and items, that are placed in close proximity to something positive, such as a cute little puppy; we will naturally attribute that positive puppy feeling onto the gifts as well.
That is why many commercials feature beautiful women dancing and drinking beers. What do those beautiful women have in common with beers? Not very much, except that the advertisers understand the psychological principle of association.
This positive association happens subconsciously, so that we are not even aware of its effects on us. In fact, now that I think about it, I leafed through the puppy Christmas catalogs first. It is likely that when I decide to purchase gifts, I would choose one of the brands featured in a Puppy Catalog.
Another side effect of this marketing strategy is probably why we buy puppies during the Christmas season. We have more free time during the holidays, we are already in a fuzzy Christmas mood, and we are looking for someone to share our holiday cheer with. Then, we get bombarded with pictures of cute puppies.
Hmmm, when did I get both my dogs? … December.
The human mind is absolutely fascinating!
