Persuasive Advertising - J. Scott Armstrong [71]
Another danger is that provocation can overwhelm the message. Consider the ad that showed a person who had doused himself with gasoline and then set himself on fire with the caption “Why kill time when you can kill yourself?” The ad was for a watch (Pricken 2002).
This principle is based primarily on received wisdom. Use with care.
Checklist 3 summarizes the principles related to emotions.
Checklist 3 Emotion
3.1. Emotional focus
3.1.1. Do not mix rational and emotional appeals in an ad.
3.2. Trust
3.2.1. Sign an ethical standards statement for each ad.
3.3. Self-expression
3.3.1. Show how the product allows customers to express their personalities.
3.4. Guilt
3.4.1. Lead people to think about their standards.
3.4.2. Evoke self-awareness.
3.4.3. Encourage people to anticipate their guilt if they ignore reasonable advice.
3.4.4. Focus on victims similar to the target market.
3.5. Fear
3.5.1. Consider using a threat related to likely or severe consequences that can be avoided.
3.6. Provocation
3.6.1. Provoke customers only when it attracts attention to a selling point.
1 The text of this ad is available on a Google search for “West of Laramie.”
4. Mere exposure
What if an ad provided a brand name but gave you no information about the brand? Would that make you more likely to purchase it? This section deals with exposure of the brand name or product, with no explicit message. Researchers refer to this as “mere exposure.” The practice goes back hundreds of years in advertising. Companies pay to put their brand names on events, clothing, stadiums, and buildings, with the expectation that the exposure will create positive feelings about the product.
Mere exposure is primarily useful as a reminder. It is difficult to believe that it could be cost-effective for unknown products—unless the unknown product is competing in a low-involvement area in which people know little about the competing products. The September 27, 1976 issue of Newsweek magazine described such a situation: John Adams, an unknown politician with the same name as an early U.S. president, announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination in New Hampshire’s congressional election. Adams, an unemployed taxi driver, made no speeches, issued no press releases, and spent no money. “I did absolutely no campaigning,” he said. “With a name like mine I didn’t figure I had to.” He won the primary. The New Hampshire Republican party chairman said, “When people went to the polls, they saw four names they didn’t recognize. I guess they picked the one that sounded familiar.”
Is it worthwhile to spend money on mere exposure? A review found 233 studies on corporate sponsorship, only one of which examined how sponsorship affected behavior. The relationship was weak (Walliser 2003).
When considering mere exposure, prepare a forecast of the return on the investment. This advice may have been overlooked by the United States Postal Service (USPS) in their $40 million campaign to sponsor Lance Armstrong’s cycling team between 1996 and 2002. The Inspector General of USPS conducted a retrospective estimate of the value of this sponsorship. The sponsorship brought in only $700,000 of revenues (and much less in profits). In other words, the expenditure on Lance Armstrong represented a loss to USPS of over $39 million (Wall Street Journal, July 23, 2004).
4.1. Brand name
When the brand name carries information and emotion, it may be cost-effective to advertise only the brand name to remind people of the product.
4.1.1. When there is no need for information, consider advertising the brand name
If the merchant can make his name or brand to be the habitual, recent, and
vivid associate with his class of goods … his success seems assured.
Walter Dill Scott, 1912
Here is the complete text of an ad used in the 1890s: “Coca-Cola.”
After reviewing research starting as far back as 1876, Zajonc (1968) concluded that “repeated exposure of the individual to a stimulus is a sufficient condition for the enhancement of his attitude toward it.”
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