I’ve always been fascinated by the strange relationship between the observer and the observed.
In that corner of quantum physics known as the double-slit experiment, light behaves like a wave of infinite possibilities—until someone observes it.
Once it’s watched, it suddenly behaves like a particle, collapsing from many potential realities into a single, measurable one.
That idea has always stayed with me: that maybe the world isn’t what it is, but what our perception collapses it into.
Each of us lives in a slightly different version of reality, built from attention, memory, and expectation.
Lately, that fascination has started to merge with how I think about marketing.
It actually began one evening on TikTok, when I stumbled across a local influencer doing riddles with people in town.
You know the kind—“You’re a Pulse bus driver; two people get off, ten get on; what’s the driver’s age?”
Everyone gets it wrong because the mind is too busy solving the wrong problem.
And that’s when it clicked for me.
These riddles aren’t just games—they’re miniature psychology experiments.
They reveal how our brains filter reality, make predictions, and miss what’s right in front of us.
And if that’s not marketing psychology, I don’t know what is.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that marketing and physics share something profound:
what people see is never the full picture—it’s what their brain decides to see.
That’s what led me to explore how misdirection, framing, priming, and cognitive sets quietly guide what consumers notice, believe, and choose.
The Brain Is the Real Battleground
In Eswatini’s crowded market, everyone’s shouting. Billboards, radio spots, influencer posts—each fighting for the same few seconds of mental space.
But here’s the truth: our brains don’t absorb everything. They predict what’s worth noticing.
The mind is efficient to the point of arrogance—it edits the world before we experience it.
That’s why a bright yellow MTN billboard stands out instantly, while a muted government poster, though equally visible, fades into the background.
The brain has already decided what’s relevant before we even look.
That’s what psychologists call cognitive steering—the process of guiding perception without forcing it.
And it’s at the core of how brands shape their realities.
1. Misdirection — Where the Eyes Go, the Mind Follows
Magicians do this best: they move your attention so skillfully that the truth becomes invisible.
Marketers use the same principle every day.
A flashing “Limited Offer!” or a ticking countdown timer isn’t random decoration.
It’s attentional design—steering the eye toward urgency instead of price.
It’s not manipulation; it’s storytelling.
Because people don’t respond to everything you show them—they respond to what you highlight first.
For Eswatini brands, the key question becomes: what deserves the spotlight?
Before you speak, decide what you want people to see before their mind drifts.
2. Framing — How Meaning Changes Shape
Two identical truths can feel completely different depending on how they’re framed.
“90% fat-free” feels healthy. “10% fat” feels guilty. Same numbers, different emotion.
That’s the power of framing—it doesn’t change facts; it changes context.
A bank that says “Own your future” is no longer selling savings—it’s selling empowerment.
A telecom that says “Stay connected to those who matter” isn’t talking about data—it’s talking about belonging.
In Eswatini, where trust and personal connection still shape buying behavior more than algorithms, the frame often decides which brand feels right.
3. Priming — The Mood Before the Message
Before logic enters, emotion has already voted.
That’s priming—when subtle cues like color, rhythm, and sound trigger emotional readiness.
A perfume ad doesn’t start with a price—it starts with atmosphere: warm light, soft music, elegant motion.
It primes you for prestige long before you think about cost.
The same happens online. Rounded buttons and warm tones feel safe; sharp edges and cold blues feel efficient.
The consumer’s brain is already halfway to “yes” before the offer appears.
4. Cognitive Set — Breaking the Old Mental Script
Here’s the biggest challenge: once people “know” your brand, they stop seeing it.
It’s called the Einstellung effect, or mental lock-in.
We’ve all experienced it—a brand we think we’ve already figured out.
The moment we assign it a label (“cheap,” “serious,” “for older people”), every new message gets filtered through that assumption.
That’s why surprise is one of the most powerful tools in marketing.
Old Spice broke its stereotype with absurd humor.
A serious Eswatini bank could do the same by showing warmth and human moments.
A familiar retailer could borrow luxury aesthetics just to reset perception.
Sometimes you don’t need a new story—you just need to tell the old one in a new voice.
So What Does This Mean for Us?
We can’t win attention by being louder.
We win it by designing how people interpret what they see.
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Misdirection captures the eye.
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Framing gives it meaning.
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Priming sets the mood.
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Cognitive Set decides whether they still care.
Together, these shape how consumers move from seeing to believing.
The Bigger Realization
As I kept unpacking these ideas, something deeper began to surface.
Most of what we call choice in marketing isn’t really choice at all.
It’s guided perception—the same kind of illusion that makes a riddle work or a magician’s trick succeed.
Consumers don’t simply choose between products; they choose between realities carefully framed for them.
And once you understand that, marketing stops being about persuasion and starts becoming about designing perception consciously.
That thought became the starting point for this new series:
The Illusion of Choice — how perception, psychology, and context quietly decide for us before we think we’ve chosen.
In the next part of this series, we’ll look at how the Observer Effect—the simple act of being seen—changes what a brand becomes.
Because in the end, people don’t buy what they see.
They buy what their brain decides to notice.