Steve Martin

and what lessons can we learn from it? The psychological research is clear: Placing a memory aid on store displays and the actual packaging of their product—for example, an image of the Energizer Bunny with the text “Keeps going and going and going…”—would do much to correct consumers’ faulty memories as well as product choices that they made based on those incorrect memories. And that’s exactly what the company eventually did, with great success

’ memories, subjected to hundreds of thousands of these associations in the course of modern life, aren’t up to the task—at least not without the assistance of point-of-purchase cues that revive the desired connection

It’s for this reason that any major advertising campaign needs to integrate the essential images, characters, or slogans of the ads into the in-store product displays

and product packaging the consumer sees when making a purchase choice. Although changing the display and packaging to match the central features of the media campaign may be more expensive in the short term, it’s essential.77

This strategy

Alternatively, the campus could give away items that have the campaign’s logo imprinted on it, such as Frisbees

Students in that case would be likely to take them back to their dorm rooms or fraternity houses where they would be more likely to see the memory aid. Ironically, this strategy might even be more effective once the students get some alcohol in them, as some research shows that simple persuasive messages tend to be more successful when people are drinking

All in all, using memory aids will assure that your message doesn’t fade at the finish, but keeps going and going and going

The theft rate when the mirror was present? Only 8.9 percent.80

In a similar vein, one of us conducted a study examining

how focusing people on themselves and their own image makes them act more consistently with their values