Persuasive Advertising - J. Scott Armstrong [19]
Exhibit B summarizes some key areas of conditions.
Exhibit B Key areas of conditions
Objectives
– Relevant
– Comprehensive
– Explicit and challenging
– Measurable?
Product
– Comparative advantage?
– High or low-involvement?
– Utilitarian or hedonic?
– Pro-social?
– Search, experience, or credence?
Target market
– What interest groups?
– Familiar with product?
– Consistent with attitudes?
1 Effectiveness awards by the New York Chapter of the American Marketing Association.
2 The IPA awards in the United Kingdom are based on quantitative assessments of the effectiveness of advertising campaigns. For more details see the Glossary. I refer frequently to the IPA awards because they are outstanding with respect to the quantitative analyses that award-winning agencies have taken to assess the effectiveness of their campaigns and to rule out alternative explanations.
3 For advice on how to forecast, I recommend one of my favorite books, Principles of Forecasting (Armstrong 2001).
4 “Coke pushes pay-for-performance model,” Advertising Age, April 27, 2009.
5 Much research has been conducted on the effects of involvement on consumer behavior as formulated by Petty and Cacioppo (1984) in their Elaboration Likelihood Method (ELM).
6 Incidentally, the ball costs 5 cents, the machines will produce the widgets in five minutes, and the lake will be half covered in 47 days.
The principles
advertising needs principles … not opinions.
Rosser Reeves, famous advertiser, 1961
The development of principles is a long-held tradition in advertising. Many great advertisers have shared their wisdom in this way. In 1871, George P. Rowell, the founder of Printer’s Ink, described his “Principles of Advertising,” including such advice as “Honesty is by all odds the very strongest point … in an advertisement.” N. C. Fowler followed with three books on advertising principles; the last one, Fowler’s Publicity (1897), contained over 1,000 pages. While Fowler based his principles on common sense alone, some have endured, such as the value of simplicity, the importance of truth, the need for good taste, and the use of free samples.
The 194 principles in this book are organized to help advertisers design persuasive campaigns. They start with strategy-related considerations: information, influence, emotion, and mere exposure. General tactical principles follow: reducing resistance, gaining acceptance, crafting the message, and attracting attention. The book then deals with principles that are specific to various media. These include still media (e.g., magazines, newspapers, and the Internet), and motion and sound media (e.g., TV, radio, and the Internet). Exhibit C shows the organization of the principles in this book.
Exhibit C Categories of persuasion principles
Strategy
1. Information
2. Influence
3. Emotion
4. Mere exposure
General tactics
5. Resistance
6. Acceptance
7. Message
8. Attention
Media-specific tactics
9. Still media
10. Motion media
The principles under each of the three major categories (Strategy, General tactics, and Media-specific tactics) are presented in an order that reflects a natural progression in the design process. They begin with the more general issues and move to the more specific.
While Persuasive Advertising is designed to be read from cover to cover, it also serves as a reference. To aid in using the book, each of the ten sections summarized in Exhibit C ends with a checklist of principles. Key concepts are listed in the Subject index to help you find principles relevant to a specific problem. Similarly, a Names index might help you to track down studies or sayings. The Glossary provides explanations of key terms used in the book. Finally, you will find a “persuasion principles map” on the last page (page 388).