In the early 1900s, Ivan Pavlov made some revolutionary discoveries about learned responses and classical conditioning and how it can create powerful reactions to otherwise neutral stimuli in animals. Can the same information we learned from this experiment possibly be applied to modern-day humans?

Pavlov’s experiment focused on the salivation of dogs. He saw that every time his assistant--always wearing a white coat-- entered the room, the dogs would begin to salivate in anticipation for food. Even if the assistant came in without any food in his hands, the dogs would still salivate because the notion of food was associated with the white-coated assistant.

Wondering if this mechanism works with more than just sight, Pavlov tried sound. He played a metronome for a couple minutes before the food came out, and within a couple days, the dogs would start producing saliva whenever the metronome was turned on even if no food came. Doesn’t all of this sound familiar?

We, as humans living in this modern, busy world filled with all kinds of companies vying to get our attention and our money, are just like the dogs in some respect. Whether we know it or not, we have also been conditioned to react in certain ways without even thinking about the implications or how we came to become like this.

Advertisements are the capital offenders in this formula, and I will readily say that they have their hold on me as well. Using catchy tunes or the most popular songs that we know and love, advertisements present things we probably don’t need or items that aren’t especially attractive to make them look more appealing. They make their advertisements so in tune with what we as a generation like that they make people want things that they have never wanted before.

Take this Target commercial, for example:

I’ve never, ever been into swimsuits but this ad makes me want to buy every single one of them and take a vacation for several months. The peppy, upbeat music automatically makes me associate anything shown with partying and having a fun time. This ad also gives us a feeling of excitement for summer, a time that is usually always pleasant in people’s minds. The colors of every object featured are perfectly planned out, making the colors contrast to make it more visually appealing.

Fun fact: Cyan, the color used for the majority of objects in the ad, has been seen one of the most popular colors for this generation, and it, along with orange, are the most common colors for advertisements to use, like in movie posters, for example.

Then the model herself looks like she’s having the time of her life throwing Target’s hottest new swimsuits out of her suitcase, which makes us automatically think that we will have just as much fun as her when we get these clothes.

But commercials don’t discriminate when it comes to conditioning--children are actively involved too. Take a look at another Target ad:

The pastel backgrounds appeal to younger children in that they are calming colors that don’t necessarily startle kids or metaphorically yell at them. They are dancing around and blowing bubbles, which is, for every age, associated with having fun.

After this advertisement, kids are taken to Target and automatically, when they see the clothes, they are reminded of that catchy song or blowing bubbles--two factors that were already positive in their minds. Seeing the clothes even without the music or the dancing makes them want them because they have associated all the fun things in the ad with the clothes. This is extremely similar to Pavlov’s dogs in that they salivated almost immediately once they heard or saw something that they had associated with food.

Here’s another that is directly related to food:

First off, we have the classic M&M characters that we are very, very familiar with. They’re in countless commercials already, and all of them have made us laugh at one point in time, so there we already have them in the positive sphere. Then the celebrity appearances--two artists that we know and love-- add to the star power, making us want more. The song they sing is incredibly catchy, and that’s enough for me to remember it. The song was also played on the radio, which benefited the M&M brand because even though the candy specifically was not mentioned in the song, we are still made to recall the chocolatey snack when we hear it.

It goes the other way as well, because the other day when I was shopping, I saw the stand of M&Ms and I began to hum the song, and it quickly became my favorite for a time. Whenever we hear the song, we think of M&Ms, just like how the dogs think of food when they hear the metronome.

As you can see, the media has conditioned us to react in certain ways after they bombard us with stimuli in the comfort of our own homes. They make us subconsciously recall feelings we have about something else and apply it to a product so intensely that we cannot see the product in any other light than the one it has been advertised in. I would be lying if I said that those chocolate commercials--you know the ones--didn’t make me crave every chocolate item I had in the house. But ironically, when I finally get my hands on that one chocolate bar that is supposed to be the dessert equivalent of nirvana, I find that it’s only alright and my stomach ends up hurting afterwards. Some nirvana that was. So the next time you see a commercial that makes you want something, stop and think about Pavlov’s dogs. Break out of the classical conditioning rut!