Now You Really Can Be Like Mike

One of the influencers of behavior outlined in Dr. Cialdini's book "Influence: Science and Practice" (other posts referring to Cialdini found here, and here ) is the concept of "Liking."  People like respond to the requests from people they like or they think are similar to them in appearance and action.  This is one reason we have so many "celebrity" spokespersons.  The "I want to be like Mike" ad campaign is probably the most obvious and in your face.

Well now there is a new technology that takes this one step further.  Now you can have what they have.  From the reveries web site....

"As reported by Walter S. Mossberg and Katherine Boehret in The Wall Street Journal (11/8/06), Like.com “displays recent photos of about a thousand celebrities (mostly female) with a focus on their purse, jewelry, shoes or watch — but not their clothing.” Click on the image, of say, Halle Berry, and up pops a web page where you learn the brand name and price of the item, along with the brand names and prices of similar items and links to web pages where the items are sold."

Think of the ways that could be used in the incentive industry - now the catalog presents images of the rich and famous and the participant picks the one they most identify with.  From that choice the participant would then choose shoes, watches, etc. and the catalog presents items that celebrity has been seen wearing (or having.)  Now we've really got an incentive catalog that will drive participants to earn their award currency.  They not only get an award - but one that Mike was seen with.

After all, we all want to be like Mike.

UPDATE:  10 minutes after I posted this I ran across this post in Fast Company for a site that allows you to find out about the stuff you see on your favorite TV shows.  This is getting weird.