Being top-of-mind, creating brand awareness, and striving to influence consumers’ purchasing decisions are among the primary goals of marketing.
Brands that strive to be everywhere you turn continue to think about how to maintain their existence; but where is the final destination of this matter? Where is marketing’s nirvana?
Can marketing infiltrate dreams? Can we successfully insert a product into a consumer’s sleep, into their dreams?
I can almost hear you saying, Are you crazy?. You might even be thinking, I’m crazy. But what I’m saying might not be as far-fetched and impossible as you think. I find this marketing idea more realistic and accessible after dreaming of myself using an iPhone Air, despite not being part of its target audience. (or who knows, I might actually want one).
“Dreaming” in a marketing term
Your dreams are directly linked to the processing of the sensations, emotions and memories you experience throughout the day. While sleeping, your mind reorganizes the material accumulated during the day and can reveal it to you again in unexpected ways and images in the silky sanctuary of sleep.
From a marketing perspective, it’s crucial for a brand to leave an emotional mark. Strong emotions trigger recall, so it’s possible for amplified emotions to seep into dreams. Seeing a brand or product in a dream indicates that the product carries a high emotional or cognitive load.
The products you encounter everywhere you turn, the snippets of brand identity you see, the videos you watch, the music you hear, and even the ambient scents you smell; especially if they’ve managed to integrate into your pre-sleep routine, make it easier for your brain to process and absorb these stimuli.Therefore, a combination of good timing and exposure increases the likelihood of dreaming about the most recent things you saw in the waking world.
That’s why there’s a high probability that you’ll see in your dreams the events and people in the videos you see while browsing Instagram or TikTok before going to sleep.
The powerful phenomena and symbols that generate dreams include fear, excitement, warmth, and even nostalgia. Images and stories that arouse your emotions are easier to reappear in your mind during sleep, and they are easier to occur when the mind is not already occupied with something else.
When you tell someone your dreams, you usually mention symbols, and dreams often speak in symbols; in fact, dream interpretation books focus on explaining the meaning of the symbols seen in dreams.
An easily remembered and simply crafted, highly memorable logo, a pleasant melody or a scent that doesn’t bother you when you smell it are likely to reappear in dreams in short, clear repetitions.
