The Psychology Behind Advertisements
Introduction
Advertisement are seen everywhere in our daily lives. From television, to billboards, to social media, and even within games there is always advertising. The goal of these advertisements are to get you, the consumer, to buy the product or service. As studies have been conducted, more knowledge has been gained on how to appeal to the audience using psychology. This is becoming more relevant than ever before as advertisements are being personalized towards specific individuals
in everything they do. Do you wonder why the ads you see on Facebook and Instagram are so appealing to you? Because they are meant for you! They have been personalized to draw you in and get you to take a closer look. Media has become a huge part of our lives throughout the pandemic and it's a perfect opportunity for companies to shove more advertisements in front of our faces.
Background/Context and Argument
Advertisements are personalized in many different ways. These can be broken down into evoking emotions, using memorable scenes and sounds, and appealing to the different values of the consumers.
According to the University of Southern California, the different emotions that can be drawn out are fear, love, pleasure and vanity. Fear is a primal instinct and it can make a viewer extremely uncomfortable. An advertisement can present a product or service that acts as a solution which in turn makes the fear go away. This can be seen in commercials that urge people to quit smoking. The damaged bodies of smokers are shown which causes a fear in people of becoming like that themselves. Similar to fear, love is also a primal instinct. These products help people connect with each other. The quantity of these advertisements spike around holidays like Christmas and Valentines Day which are celebrations of family and being together. An example of this type of commercial can be seen in flower and chocolate advertisements which show people happy together giving each other gifts. The third emotion that is tapped into is pleasure. If a viewer sees someone having fun because of a product, they are likely going to have a pull to get the product themselves so they can enjoy it too. This is seen in commercials like the Tostitos Salsa commercials where many are enjoying the tasty snack together. The last emotion is vanity, which is caused when advertisements make you feel good about yourself. The advertisement is trying to make you feel that you deserve the product and you are cheating yourself by not getting it. This is seen in many car commercials where they all manage to be the perfect fit for you.
Image from: https://us.pandora.net/
Image from: https://www.chevrolet.com/commercial
Another technique used to real viewers in is by targeting a specific audience. One method as described in the 2019 Furnham article is using a television program to prime the mind for the advertisement. An example of this is putting a beer commercial within the viewing of a program that contains the consumption of alcohol. In addition to this priming technique, actions like sex, humor, and violence can all be used to attract attention. Furnham explains how sexual content increases the attention of viewers but has the opportunity cost of the integrity of the brand. While sexual content is a great way to grab attention, it lacks in causing people to actually buy the product. Humor is appropriate and applicable to people of all ages. It is believed that "15 to 40 percent of television advertisements consist of humorous materials to some extent" (Furnham, 2019). Since a vast majority of people enjoy humor, this content will make them laugh and will cause them to remember it. They will also associate the product with having fun. Violence is also used in commercials due to the increased attention of viewers. Advertisements with violence are typically shown in programs that already contain violence in order to remain appropriate for the audience. It would not be appropriate to put a horror movie commercial in the middle of a children's cartoon show.
Image from: https://www-sciencedirect-com.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/science/article/pii/S0268401217306837
One of the biggest components of advertisements is appealing to the values of the consumers through personalization. In the 2019 article, Setyani et al. concluded "Information is valuable only when it is relevant and needed. Therefore, the higher the perceived personalization level of the advertisement, the higher the users’ perceive informativeness will be." The personalization of advertisements can be broken down into 4 different categories. These categories are perceived informativeness, perceived credibility, perceived creativity, and perceived entertainment. Perceived informativeness is based on the information given to the consumer during the advertisement. This is measured off of the individuals ability to take in the quantity and quality of the information presented. Perceived credibility is determined by the consumers' trust in what they are seeing. When an advertisement is from a university or scientific institution, it appears more credible. A viewers perceived creativity is dependent upon the advertisement's capability of giving the brain something different from the ordinary. This is appealing to most viewers. The last category is perceived entertainment, which is very similar to perceived creativity. The consumer is more likely to interact with the advertisement if it entertains them while they watched it. These values are all very true to any consumer, but the intent behind them is solely to instigate an impulsive buy.
Conclusions
These are only the surface of many ways you can be manipulated by the media. These are basic techniques used by corporations to get a consumer to actually spend money on a service or product. Something that is even easier is getting a consumer to believe something. This doesn't cost the consumer anything. This becomes dangerous when people misuse the media to spread false information and turn people against each other. This is why it is our responsibility, as scholars, to be informed about the media, how it effects ourselves, and the impacts on the society around us.
Bibliography
Furnham, Adrian. “Advertising: The Contribution of Applied Cognitive Psychology.” Applied Cognitive Psychology, vol. 33, no. 2, 2019, pp. 168–175., doi:10.1002/acp.3458.
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Setyani, Virda, et al. “Exploring the Psychological Mechanisms from Personalized Advertisements to Urge to Buy Impulsively on Social Media.” International Journal of Information Management, vol. 48, 2019, pp. 96–107., doi:10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2019.01.007.
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“Thinking vs Feeling: Psychology of Advertising: USC Online.” USC MAPP Online, 2 Apr. 2020, appliedpsychologydegree.usc.edu/blog/thinking-vs-feeling-the-psychology-of-advertising/.
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