Halo effect: first im­pres­sions and their role in marketing

‘You never get a second chance to make a first im­pres­sion ’. There is more than just a grain of truth in this proverb. In psy­cho­logy, this is called the halo effect. It is a kind of cognitive dis­tor­tion where people are unduly in­flu­enced by a (false) first im­pres­sion.

Cognitive dis­tor­tion always affects several factors: per­cep­tion, memory, thoughts, and judgment. These dis­tor­tions are all sys­tem­at­ic­ally occurring mistakes or mis­judge­ments people make, which can be reliably re­pro­duced in studies. In the case of the halo effect, the first im­pres­sion of a person or thing is so positive that this image is slow to adapt to the reality of the situation afterward, and sometimes it does not change the situation at all.

The halo effect was first observed in 1907 by Frederic L. Wells. However, ‘halo effect’ was coined by the American psy­cho­lo­gist Edward Lee Thorndike to describe the phe­nomen­on. Its origin in psy­cho­logy clearly shows that this kind of cognitive dis­tor­tion is useful for marketing and sales. After all, many practices in marketing are based on psy­cho­lo­gic­al prin­ciples. Therefore, the use of psy­cho­logy in sales processes is an important sub-topic of in­dus­tri­al and or­gan­isa­tion­al psy­cho­logy.

The halo effect also has an enormous influence on the in­ter­ac­tion between people, making it difficult for us to make judgments ob­ject­ively. However, the more you know about types of cognitive dis­tor­tion such as the halo effect, the more likely it is that you will be able to avoid making an incorrect judgment, such as when selecting employees, suppliers, business partners, and so on - in short, when choosing to work with someone.

It is quite simple to explain how the halo effect works. Let us say you have just met a person, but you have too little in­form­a­tion to make a reliable judgment about them. However, you will use these few im­pres­sions to establish an idea of their per­son­al­ity as quickly as possible so that you can behave ap­pro­pri­ately. Generally, the process of assessing and eval­u­at­ing another person occurs com­pletely sub­con­sciously.

Anyone who is aware of the processes that take place during the sensitive stage of getting to know a person is at an advantage. For a favorable first im­pres­sion, the time you get the in­form­a­tion (as soon as possible) is just as important as the value (as positive as possible). The halo effect can be long-lasting. Even if you have a negative ex­per­i­ence later, such as in a part­ner­ship of any kind, it will often be over­shad­owed by a positive first im­pres­sion. The halo effect thus describes an essential aspect of social capital.

Through concrete examples, we can see how effective the halo effect is. For example, studies show that more at­tract­ive people are auto­mat­ic­ally perceived as being smarter even though there is no cor­rel­a­tion between ap­pear­ance and in­tel­li­gence. Heavier-set people are seen as being gentler, but once again, there is no cor­rel­a­tion between the two. Ad­di­tion­al examples can be observed in sectors such as education or media. Teachers perceive more at­tract­ive students as being more competent, and the friendly news­caster seems more in­tel­li­gent.

The first sig­ni­fic­ant analysis conducted on the halo effect provided an excellent example il­lus­trat­ing the im­port­ance and danger of this kind of cognitive dis­tor­tion. When the American psy­cho­lo­gist Thorndike examined the as­sess­ment performed on soldiers, astound­ing findings came to light. Soldiers with par­tic­u­larly good posture were sig­ni­fic­antly more likely to have accurate marks­man­ship in the as­sess­ment reports even though, in practice, this was often not the case. The officers per­form­ing the as­sess­ment had sub­con­sciously concluded their eval­u­ation based on a dis­tin­guish­ing char­ac­ter­ist­ic. Other para­met­ers of the eval­u­ation are found to be positive because good posture is observed as highly important in the en­vir­on­ment where the as­sess­ment took place.

In marketing, you often only get one chance to make an im­pres­sion on potential customers, so it’s a good idea to make the most of it using your knowledge of the halo effect. This applies to both sales through direct personal contact and indirect contact via websites, ad­vert­ise­ments, and other ad­vert­ising means.

When har­ness­ing the power of the halo effect, a single carefully chosen positive per­son­al­ity trait is needed to put the entire person or product in a par­tic­u­larly positive light. The effect gives the person or product a kind of ‘halo’. You should thus choose this char­ac­ter­ist­ic very carefully to achieve the desired effect. When it comes to personal contact, es­pe­cially in B2B sales and B2B marketing, it may be useful to work with a unique ‘halo’ for each potential and existing customer to make the best first im­pres­sion. This positive first im­pres­sion can then be leveraged during later ne­go­ti­ations. You can also leverage the appeal and success of a product to increase the value of the rest of the product range, and improve sales across both e-marketing and e-commerce. Experts refer to this as the ‘Brand Halo Effect’.