Persuasive Advertising - J. Scott Armstrong [144]
Ads should present only information that is absolutely necessary, and should do so in an organized and simple manner. For example, web design experts stress simplicity. Nielsen (2000, p. 22) said “go through all your design elements and remove them one at a time. If the design works just as well without a certain design element, kill it.”
A lab experiment found that complex ways of presenting prices (e.g., “$469 plus 8 percent New York State sales tax) can take customers five times longer to process compared with being shown the total price (Estelami 2003). Tests using supermarket customers found that most of those who had a high-school education or less did not know how to compute the best buy for grocery products when given the prices and sizes of competing products (Capon and Kuhn 1982).
7.9.1. Use a single relevant theme—or two in some situations
A theme that is relevant to the product can help customers understand an ad. One example: focus on quality. A single theme is advisable, but creative approaches might allow for a second theme to be used in an ad. Similarly, you might consider a story to tie the ad together.
Cravendale introduced a filtered milk in the United Kingdom. Its milk tasted fresher because it was filtered rather than pasteurized. It also stayed fresh much longer. The company combined the two themes: “Cravendale milk tastes so good it is never around long enough to prove it can stay fresh longer.” This was an IPA award-winning ad for demonstrated effectiveness (Hoad 2005).
“Serious fun,” another IPA award winner, advertised that students should have a good time while engaged in learning at the University of Dundee. With this campaign, Dundee enjoyed the highest rate of increase in applications among eight Scottish universities (Hoad 2005).
If there are many strong arguments, consider a campaign that uses a series of simple themes. When the Korean automaker Daewoo introduced its cars in the United Kingdom in 1995, it identified 17 benefits that were new to the market (e.g., three years of free servicing and free courtesy cars). Daewoo created four themes, one for each commercial: “direct sales,” “hassle free,” “peace of mind,” and “courtesy.” This led to a TV campaign that won an IPA award for its demonstrated effectiveness (Duckworth 1997).
In our WAPB analysis, 82 percent of the 480 print ads used a single theme.
Evidence on the effects of a using one or two themes
Our analysis of quasi-experimental data provides support for simplicity:
Print ads with single relevant theme had better recall. Our WAPB analysis found 30 pairs of ads in which one ad used a single theme related to the benefit or selling point, while the other did not. For example, an Anso Carpet ad that focused solely on the carpets’ stain-resistant quality was recalled three times more than another Anso ad that also described other attributes, such as textures, colors, and static protection. Recall for the single-theme ads was 1.16 times higher than for the other ads.
In a small-scale lab experiment, subjects were shown travel brochures. When information about features was provided as part of a story, subjects had a more favorable view about the vacations than those who saw only a list of these features (Adaval and Wyer 1998).
Turning to non-experimental data, recall was about 6 percent better and persuasion 10 percent higher for TV commercials that used a continuous narrative than for those that used multiple vignettes or disjointed and unconnected narratives (Walker 2008).
7.9.2. Avoid irrelevant information if strong arguments exist
Do nothing to merely interest, amuse, or attract.
Hopkins 1923
Irrelevant information distracts. Eliminate non-essential words, phrases, sentences, and illustrations, especially when the ad contains strong arguments.
Evidence on effects of using irrelevant information
Experiments support this principle of avoiding irrelevant information: