I no longer own a cassette player (do you?) but I still hold on to the cassette tapes that shaped my teenage years and my taste in music. While I haven’t listened to them in a while, I know exactly where there’s a tiny sound glitch in Metallica’s Unforgiven, just like I know I never fully “owned” Pink Floyd’s Hey, You because I taped it from a radio show and I missed the intro.
I hold on to them because they made me feel likeI owned the music I used to listen to. Of course, I never had any copyright claims over it, but what I did have was a sense of pride in showing off my collection. It’s also why I now own vinyls and a record player: they’re a logistic nightmare to listen to compared to Spotify or YouTube but the sound and the feeling of ownership give me the happies and, more importantly, renew my commitment to the artists.
This matters more than we think because:
We live in a post-ownership world that we’re still adapting to
Music used to come on cassette tapes, CDs, and DVDs. Software started out on floppy disks and movies started on videotapes. In the SaaS world, we own far fewer songs, movies, books, and software solutions.
We still pay for these things but we don’t own them anymore. They can be taken from us at an algorithm’s whim and that makes us a bit uneasy.
The upside to zero physical or legal ownership is obvious: eBooks and audiobooks are cheaper than their physical counterparts. Movies and TV shows got commoditized by Netflix, Disney, and Hulu, so it’s much cheaper to binge-watch everything you want. You don’t need to think about your Sunday movie night ahead of time so you can stop by Blockbuster and rent a movie. You can now decide on the spot.
I can no longer lend my music to my friends, nor can they borrow a book if my bookshelf is entirely digital. But interestingly enough, it’s precisely this dematerialization that led to the birth of the sharing economy and collaborative consumption.
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I may not be able to lend you my mix tape (remember those?) but I can create a Spotify playlist just for you.
Spotify knows that.
How Spotify and EasyJet rock psychological ownership
As physical ownership gets removed from the equation, it makes room for another type of ownership, the psychological kind. The kind that smart marketers have already started to capitalize on.
Spotify Wrapped has turned into a massive yearly event. At the end of each year, Spotify creates a recap of your entire activity within the app and encourages your to share it on social media.
In 2021, a whopping 60 million people did and that doesn’t include screenshots, a very popular way to share Spotify Wrapped. This is psychological ownership at its finest.
Since the users are attached to their history, they get a sense of pride out of sharing it and out of offering their social media followers a glimpse into their personality. In turn, Spotify gets 60+ million brand ambassadors without paying them a dime.
In fact, they get much more. The data they churn out to create Wrapped is extremely valuable to advertisers — Spotify is mostly powered by ads, so this is a big plus. Better yet, they get quirky campaign messages like the one below out of it:
“Dear person who played ‘Sorry’ 42 times on Valentine’s Day, What did you do?”
EasyJet understood the assignment and created their own version of Spotify Wrapped:
They capitalize on one of the strongest emotions: our attachment to memories. Just like in Spotify’s case, this can backfire. The people who listened to sad songs on repeat were going through something at the time and they may not like to be reminded about it. Similarly, not every trip you ever took was a fun one — there are definitely some you’d rather forget.
However, what both Spotify and EasyJet know is that we feel a certain ownership of our past and of our choices. By pairing this up with their services, they get you to feel ownership over their brand as well — the psychological kind, they’re not distributing free shares (sadly).
What goes into psychological ownership?
When you put “psychological” in front of anything, something is clear: it’s about feelings. You feel like you own something, even though you legally don’t. The most common example here is feeling that you own the cubicle in your workplace.
My favorite example is about pubs and restaurants: I have “my” table in a few of them. When that table is taken by someone else, I feel robbed just as I would if someone stole an actual, legal possession of mine. Ever had that feeling?
On the other hand, I feel absolutely no attachment to the Uber car I rode in yesterday. I barely remember it.
So why do you feel attached to your Spotify history and your social media profiles but not to the Uber cars you ride in?
Consumer research has a four-pronged answer:
1. The IKEA effect or investment of self
The more time you put into something, the more you feel like you own it. While IKEA furniture can be a pain to assemble, it also offers a sense of fulfillment when you’re finally done with it.
Akin to the IKEA effect, you spend a lot of time listening to music on Spotify, traveling with a certain airline, or polishing your social media profile. You’re invested now.
2. Control or a sense of agency over a product
In all the examples above, you have some degree of control over the outcome. You build your Wrapped song by song, you choose your next destination, you pick your social media profile pics, and so on. Of course, all within the boundaries of the platform.
Still, even with this limited control over what you can do, you feel like a part of the game, a small but important cog in a huge machine.
3. Familiarity
Remember my restaurant/pub example above? When talking to my friends, I often refer to them as “my wine bar” or “my restaurant”. I know them so well that I don’t need to look at the menu; I have it memorized. Oftentimes, the bartender doesn’t need to ask me what I want, they already know my go-to order.
Since I invested so much of my time, I’m intimately familiar with these places, just like I am with the social media platforms I use daily. This is also why whenever a platform changes something in the UI, most users hate it.
It doesn’t even matter that it offers an objectively better experience. Loyal users feel robbed of their feeling of control and familiarity, so the knee-jerk reflex is to protest against it.
4. Self-object congruity
This knotty-sounding term (we’re working with a research paper here) refers to the fact that “the object and the self share meaningful associations in memory”. Simply put, we choose brands that match our self-image best.
When we use them for long enough, we get all the things above, plus an overlap between our own history and that of the platform that stores our music, books, memories, or photos.
Boaty McBoatface: when customers feel like they own the brand, brand ambassadors are born
In 2016, a British government agency suggested allowing the internet to name a $287 million polar research ship. This sounded like a good idea in the beginning. Until the internet delivered in its usual way and the clear front-runner became R.R.S. Boaty McBoatface.
The ship ended up being named RRS Sir David Attenborough but an accompanying drone used the name voted by the public. Despite the (understandable) change, the research ship got more visibility than any other similar project because the public was invested in it. They checked the agency, intimate knowledge, familiarity, and self-investment boxes. In the process, people learned a bit about polar research too and that can’t be a bad thing.
My question to you is this: your clients pay for your product or service, but do they feel like they own it? Are they invested in it?
If they are (or if you manage to get them there), if they think about your product as an extension of themselves, they become brand ambassadors and more:
“Companies that encourage psychological ownership can entice customers to buy more products, at higher prices, and even to willingly promote those products among their friends”.
Here’s how you can do that:
6 ways to use psychological ownership in your business and turn customers into brand ambassadors
OK, on to the fun stuff:
1. You only need to check one of the four boxes
Investment of self, control, familiarity, and self-object congruity are all important and it would be great to check them all. But very few products or services can do that.
Instead of forcing a square peg in a round hole, try and check just one or two of these but do it right.
2. Let users access their history (ideal for SaaS and other digital solutions)
This is the Spotify/EasyJet model in its purest form. If users can access their history on your platform, the sense of self-investment is instantly heightened.
Your users will realize how much time they put into your solution and, in turn, this will increase their senses of control, familiarity (as they browse through their history), and self-object congruity.
3. Ask for feedback and use surveys and polls to give customers a sense of control/agency
Oreo did this splendidly in 2017 by announcing a contest where customers could create a new flavor AND win $500K in the process.
You don’t have to shed that much cash, though. Simply asking for feedback constantly (and acting upon it!) will give your customers a sense of agency.
For example, my welcome email to Ideas to Power Your Future asks my subscribers what they want to read about. Most of the people who replied told me they wanted actionable marketing advice, so here we are 🙂.
Again, if you ask for their opinion, do something with that information and let them know you did.
4. Let your clients step into the spotlight
If you run a business, you probably also run a few social media profiles, a website, and/or an email list. These are all perfect places to promote your clients, not just your product or service.
When you flip the script and turn yourself into their brand ambassador, your clients feel a heightened familiarity and a better sense of self-object congruity.
I collect a ton of testimonials from my clients BUT I make sure they put them in a good light too. If you’ve ever left me a testimonial, you already know that I ask for your favorite URL to add to it and a good picture. That’s how I ask you to step into the spotlight and gain some visibility for your business too.
Additionally:
- Every time I post a testimonial on social media, I tag the author. New boost of visibility for their profile!
- Two of the three rewards in my referral program (see the end of this email) are designed to boost your visibility as well. It would have been much easier for me to send you a pin or a mug but who really needs those?
5. Spark familiarity by sharing something of yourself
How’s your About page looking? Is it all stern and talking about your team’s professional qualifications and past achievements?
If so, perhaps it’s time you leaned into the personal stuff a bit too. Don’t get too personal (that can get very creepy very fast) but do share a bit of your and your team’s life outside of work.
I did this on my About page and I had dozens of people ask me about wine recommendations or spark a conversation about music with me.
6. User-generated content is your best friend
Social proof, testimonials, and even screenshots of emails (all used with permission, of course) go beyond geting you new business and sharing the spotlight with their authors. When you share your clients’ content, they suddenly have skin in the game.
They root for you because they, essentially, root for themselves. If they bought something from you, they will stand by it and defend its quality, often exaggerating its benefits. Because we all want to be seen as winners, as people who make good choices.
A final caveat: psychological ownership can backfire spectacularly. Just like the most passionate lovers can turn into the fiercest of enemies, your most invested clients will be your harshest critics if you get this wrong. If you build psychological ownership into your audience, respect it.
Be transparent about how you use their data, how much control they have over your platform/products, and how they can personalize them. If you need data to create a Spotify-like experience, make sure you’re compliant with data privacy regulations, especially if you live within the EU.
More importantly, don’t take it away from them. If you’ve given your clients a voice in your business, keep answering and keep a two-way dialogue open.
That’s it from me today!
See you next Thursday!
Here to make you think,
Adriana
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Adriana’s Picks
- Mélanie built the ballsiest brand I’ve seen in a while: The Yes Mistress brings a touch of kink into sales. I met her 2 days ago and I’m still in awe of the brand her and Louis Grenier built.
- My favorite social media solution, Sendible, now has TikTok scheduling. Better yet, it’s one of the few platforms that doesn’t charge you extra for Twitter scheduling now that the bird app has changed its API policy. Give it a try here.
- The internet finally listened to me (yey!) and built a sarcastic AI-powered writing assistant, with vintage Clippy vibes as a bonus.
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