Persuasive Advertising - J. Scott Armstrong [147]
Our analysis of quasi-experimental data on print ads supports the use of informative illustrations:
Print ads with illustrations that supported the basic message had much better recall. Our WAPB analysis found 43 pairs of print ads for utilitarian products in which one ad had illustrations reinforcing the basic message, while the other did not. For example, a Dodge ad that showed a picture of four doors alongside the claim, “New thinking. New solutions. And new doors. Four of them,” had a much better recall score than that of another Dodge ad that did not have relevant illustrations. Recall for ads with supportive illustrations was 1.54 times better than for the other ads.
We also analyzed non-experimental data in WAPB. In comparison with the industry norms for each print ad, the average persuasion score for the 117 ads with illustrations that supported the message was 10 percent higher than the comparable score for the 43 ads where the pictures did not directly support the message.
Irrelevant “surrealistic visuals” and “graphic displays” in TV commercials harmed recall, comprehension, and persuasion. Ads with directly relevant settings were more persuasive than those with irrelevant settings (Stewart and Furse 1986). Similar findings were found in an extension on new commercials with respect to recall, comprehension, and persuasion (Stewart and Koslow 1989).
7.10.2. Show the product
A 1984 TV commercial for Sony Trinitron TV opened with an empty sofa with the back of a TV set in the foreground. Through a series of cuts, a man’s life was shown as he watched TV. First he was a baby, then a child, a young man, a father, a grandfather, and then an old man. Finally, all that was left were his pipe and shoes … and the same TV. The superimposed words were, “Sony Trinitron. Designed to last.”
Show the product in the illustration, if it is feasible to do so. Pictures of the product can help to show features such as size and color that are important to customers. Focus on the product within an illustration by its placement, ample surrounding white space, size, lighting, or spot color. An illustration of a packaged product may aid customers in finding the product on crowded shelves.
If possible, show the product in use, such as a wine ad showing people enjoying a dinner with friends.
This principle is sometimes violated. For example, when the Infiniti automobile was introduced to the U.S. market, its ads did not show the car, but instead showed serene images, such as birds, rain, rocks, and trees. Infiniti car dealers were not pleased. Experts concluded that the ads did not sell cars. Comedian Jay Leno commented that “Nobody’s buying the car, but rocks and trees were up 40 percent.”
The use of relevant illustrations has grown over time. An analysis of ads in the top ten U.S. magazines for each of the first eight decades of the 1900s found that 53 percent of ads in the first decade of the 1900s showed the product. This jumped to 89 percent in the 1970s. Over the same time, the use of irrelevant pictures dropped from 18 percent to 4 percent (Pollay 1985).
In our WAPB analysis, we found that of the 480 tested full-page print ads by leading U.S. firms, 85 percent showed the product in the illustration.
With respect to the settings of ads, Stewart and Furse (1986) found that 65 percent of the settings in TV commercials were directly related to the product, such as showing a place where the product could be used.
Evidence on the effects of showing the product
Lab experiments support this principle on showing the product:
Inclusion of product/brand in the illustration led to better recall in an experiment on Yellow Pages ads. Twenty unfamiliar