The psychology of advertising (chapter 1) - Fennis & Stroebe (2010) - Article

When an identified sponsor uses a form of paid communication to inform or persuade audiences about a product or idea we call this advertisement. The first type of advertisement is outdoor advertisement. Archaeologists have found certain advertisement signs from ancient civilizations such as Egypt and Mesopotamia and ancient Rome. These signs were from traders and they wrote on their sign what they had in their store to sell and what the price of that product would be. During the Industrial Revolution, advertisement became more common and this was obviously because all the goods that could be made quickly and more easily needed to be sold. Markets were first local, later on they were regional and nowadays they are global. Without advertisement, we wouldn’t be aware that certain products exist and thus we would not buy these products. Without many buyers the production of that product will decline. Advertisement seems to channel the needs of people by reshaping them into wants for specific products and manufacturers can supply us with these products which will in turn satisfy our needs.

The side effect of advertisement is the growing importance of the consumer brand (like Adidas and G-star). During the Industrial Revolution many companies were able to produce a lot of products and they therefore had to design a certain sign on the product as to show that it was their product. Consumers could recognize their product choice against other alternatives by these label names or signs. The Unique Selling Proposition (USP) was created and this means that the brand was differentiated from the competition. The Depressions years and World War I and II temporarily slowed down production, but after those periods came the economic bloom and even more people enjoyed new products. With the intervention of television, advertisements could reach more people. Nowadays the Internet is an advertisement medium.

So first clay tablets were used as advertisement medium, later on it became poster bills and billboards. Newspapers and magazines are also popular advertising media and they display advertisements of known products and unknown products. Even though we now have the television and Internet, the newspaper is still a big advertising medium. The television still seems to be the most important advertising medium. Even though the Internet is a big and popular medium, it seems to be a complementary medium instead of a substitute medium.

When we look at commercials from the past, we might remember the good old days but we might also think that the language use was weird. It seems that advertisements used to be different than they are now. Researchers, however, don’t agree completely with this statement. Researchers show that advertisements from 1800 and today’s advertisements use the same approach: informational or argument-based appeal. These advertisements tell people what they can buy, for what price and where they can buy it. This is also called the ‘tell’ approach and it is a more subtle form of the ‘hard-sell’ or ‘reason-why-approach.’ These hard approaches had a set of persuasive arguments to convince people to buy the product. In the early 1900s a ‘soft-sell’ approach was developed. This approach used emotions or a affect-based appeal to influence the feelings of consumers rather than their thoughts. This approach was used in that time, because people thought that human beings acting according to their instinct and emotions and non-rational processes. Nowadays, the ‘hard-sell’ and ‘soft-sell’ approach are both used.

Advertisement and functions

Sometimes we might think that a world without advertisement is better. There are no terrible salespersons and no annoying commercials that interrupt movies we watch on the television. But without advertisement, there would maybe be no television, magazines or radio. These media depend on advertisements for their existence. There would be fewer good sports matches, because they largely depend on commercial sponsorships. Also, without advertisements we wouldn’t be much informed about what products are out there. Advertisement seems to be a part of our society and it has certain functions in it. These functions will be discussed in the next part.

The first function of advertisement is facilitating competition amongst firms. Firms can communicate with consumers through advertisement and through this firms can compete with each other for the attention of consumers, preferences of consumers and financial resources of consumers. The second function of advertisement is to inform consumers of new products. When one firm has developed a new product that is cheaper but as good as the product of another firm, they have to tell consumers about this. The way to achieve this is through advertisement. The competitor may lower his selling price and the two firms will compete against each other. The third function of advertisement is the funding of mass media in the world. Newspapers, radio, television and certain Internet sites would not exist without advertisement. Some countries (like Great Britain, the Netherlands and Germany) also have public service broadcasting because they do not want to depend fully on advertisement. These public services are financed publicly rather than commercially. The fourth function is that the advertisement industry is an important employer. Worldwide more than 300.000 people work for advertising related industries. Without advertisement there would be fewer jobs, less competition and less economic activity.

These functions are societal functions. There are also two functions on the individual level. One of those is to inform consumers, the other is persuading consumers. Informing means creating knowledge and beliefs. Persuading means generating or changing responses so that the advertisement brand is seen as more favourable. The informational appeal is used to introduce a new product. Most of the products from the informational appeal are durable products. That means that those products can be used repeatedly, like refrigerators. The information about the product is usually about performance, availability, price, quality and special offers. In developed, industrialized countries (Netherlands, USA) there are more informational ads than in less developed countries (Latin America, India).

Every product has a life cycle. A product has an introduction stage, a growth stage, a maturity stage and decline stage. In the first stage advertisers must create brand awareness, during the growth stage advertisers build market share and improve the product, during the maturity stage consumers show the brand loyalty and during the decline stage new uses for the product may be conveyed. Informational appeals are also used when there are problems with a product. Sometimes advertisers are forced to inform consumers that a product needs to be returned for repair or funding. This is called product recall. Products can get bad names in that way (also in other ways). When advertisers want to restore the name of a product, people might still think that something is wrong with it. A while ago, somebody said that the McDonalds’ hamburgers are made out of worms. Although this turned out to be false, people kept making the association between McDonalds and worms because this was in their memory. The sales declined. One way in getting people to buy the product again is to persuade. Persuasion is intended to change consumer responses rather than informing consumers. In order to get positive responses from consumers, persuasive appeals will flank information in advertisements about a product. There are two strategies that can be used, alpha strategies and omega strategies. Alpha strategies increase the tendency to move towards the advertised position and influence the approach motivation. Omega strategies reduce the tendency to move away from a position and they therefore influence the avoidance motivation. Alpha strategies usually tell people that a product is only available for a short time or limited period. Omega strategies use fear and guilt and want to distract consumers.

Effects of advertising

This article will be about the psychological approach on the effects of advertisement. However, there are more approaches to advertisement. The psychological approach looks at the thoughts, feelings and actions of consumers and their behavioural and cognitive responses. Cognitive responses are thoughts and beliefs about brands and services and include brand awareness and recognition. Attitudes and preferences are also considered to be cognitive responses. Affective responses include emotions and moods that occur after seeing or during an advertisement. Behavioural responses include the intention and actual behaviour in response to advertising.

Relationships can be causal and correlational. Correlation means that when an advertisement stimulus changes, the consumer response also changes and that these changes are associated with each other. A positive correlation means that an increase in one also means an increase in the other. A negative correlation means that an increase in one means a decrease in the other. However, psychologists usually look at causality. This means that one causes the other. The usually use experiments to find causality.

Appealing source

Advertisements will be more effective if they seem to tell the truth. That is, if they seem credible. If the source is credible, people want to process the message and may be persuaded by it. That’s the reason why advertisement companies want to foster expertise and trustworthiness. Another way in making the product more appealing, is by using attractiveness. In many advertisements, attractive people are used. Sometimes this makes sense, like when you are selling make-up. Usually, however, it doesn’t make sense. Sometimes attractive women are used to sell a car. Research has showed that using an attractive person helps sell the product. This is because people think that what is attractive is automatically good. People also use celebrities to sell their product. Potential buyers will see the celebrity and will also think that this product must be good, because a celebrity is using it. Another thing that can be used to make a source more appealing is the message structure. This means the way that a message is communicated and presented. Using the best arguments first or last seems to make a message more appealing than using them in the middle.

People used advertisements with positive arguments only. Research have found that this may result in resistance. Nowadays, many companies also use two-sided advertisements in which they have positive and negative arguments. Messages do not just use argument-based appeals. They can also work on the emotions and this is the affect-based appeal. In choosing which appeal to use, companies need to look at what they are selling. Usually, electronics (like television and washing machines) are communicated with argument-based appeals. Another type of appeal is the use of fear. This appeal is called the fear-arousing communication. these advertisements can warn people for physical, social and financial risks.