"Feel Good" ads are common with standard products and big corporations.

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f1. "Feel good" ads are those ads which do not have a specific call for a response: to buy something, to do something, to take action, or to vote.
f2. Standard products often use simple repetition and association techniques.
f3. Corporations often use "image" ads for public relations.

As this term is used here, "feel good ads" can describe the many different ads ("warm fuzzies") and sponsorships which generate good will, or create a feeling of warmth and pleasantness, so that we know and like the product or the company.

Since ancient Roman times, rhetoricians have stressed that a key purpose of an introduction (the exordium - the lead-in) is to ingratiate the speaker with the audience.

Even today, that's why so many speakers and preachers start with a pleasant story or a little joke to warm up the audience, to get them in a good mood, or to humanize the speaker so that we like him, that we feel empathy with him.

(The function of a "Master of Ceremonies" also helps us know and like the various speakers being introduced, so the speakers don't have to brag about themselves or tell about their own accomplishments.)

In advertising, any individual "feel good" ad must be put into a wider context, as a small part of a larger ad campaign.

For example, most ads targeted at kids not only seek an immediate response (kids or their parents buy something, now), but also to build long-term good will for "later" because kids will grow up to be adults. Note how often kids will say "When I grow up, I'm going to get a ...."

People buy from people they know, and like.

People believe in people they know, and like.

"Feel good" ads could be analyzed as part of the overall confidence-building process (trust me), or as a specific marketing tactic ("soft sell"), or in the wider context of command and conditioning propaganda.

But, here we focus on two major uses of "feel good" ads in product advertising and corporate advertising.

Creating a sense of urgency is common in some, but not all, ads

Consumer products sometimes use "soft sell" ads, with no urgency appeal or immediate response sought. Yet, ultimately, they are conditioning us for a response: to buy some product, later.

Standard products (such as food, colas, cleaning products, gasoline, and other useful consumables with repeat usage) and established retail stores have been around for a long time, and plan to be around in the future. For example, only three soap companies in the USA produce about 50 different brands of slightly-different soaps and cleansers ("parity products"). They know from experience that only a small increase (perhaps from 2% to 3%) of the "market share" in this huge market can be expected.

Urgency is not needed here. But, it is important to have long-term name recognition and constant repetition of the brand names and logos.

Moreover, it's important to establish trust, good will and favorable associations toward the brand and company so customers will know them and like them.

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f3. Corporations often use "image" ads for public relations.

No consumer products are directly involved in "corporate image" advertising. For more, see: Corporate Image

Such ads are also known as "good will" advertising, "institutional" advertising,"public relations," PR, and are related to many kinds of "sponsorship" and "partnership."

Such feel good ads are designed to develop favorable public opinion to be on their side for their corporate policies: such as less government regulations, corporate tax breaks, offshore oil drilling, ethanol, "multiple use" forest management, or specific weapons systems. Consider ADM (Archer-Daniel-Midland), for example, a major lobbyist in agriculture politics. Their industry used to be reviled by both farmers and consumers as the profiteering "middlemen" in-between; that specific corporation, ADM, previously had to pay the highest penalty fees for its violations of price-fixing laws. Now, ADM sponsors the prestigious Nighty News on PBS with their low key, soft focus, feel-good, corporate image ads.

Most of the time, corporate ads simply use the association technique simply to link the corporation with "good things" ("warm fuzzies") which the audience already likes. In the glow of such pleasant associations (images of family and friends, home and country, patriotic appeals), these ads make us feel good about these corporations (or "family of companies" as they like to say), distracting us from any problems.

For example, the Superbowl 2006 ad voted "best" by viewers was the Budweiser image ad which showed American soldiers arriving back home from the Iraq war, walking through an airport to the smiles and applause of other passengers, then a graphic and a voice-over saying "Thank You." That's a feel-good ad linking their beer with our common good feelings of appreciation and patriotism. Budweiser often uses feel-good ads before Christmas and New Year's Eve, showing their beautiful Clydesdale horses pulling a old fashioned sleigh through the woods: jingles bells and a simple "Seasons Greetings." Often, in this (accident-prone) party season, a low keyed "drink responsibly" or a "designated driver" suggestion. In 2007, Budweiser again ran 10 ads ( estimated cost of $2.6 million each) during the Superbowl.

Consider the environmental issue, for example. No one wants to be the "bad guy" here, the villain, the polluter. Thus, the major oil and chemical companies -- the basic sources of pollution -- publicize their "care" for the environment, or that their policies are the best solution to the problem. "Environmental do-goodism, " one writer noted: "It's Getting Crowded on the Environmental Bandwagon."