The INTENSIFY / DOWNPLAY Schema
BENEFIT-SEEKING BEHAVIORS


Protection

PROTECTION

If people HAVE a "good," they seek to keep it.

Some persuasion appeals primarily to our natural human desire to protect the various "goods" we already have.

Advertising
Many products are sold as a means to maintain, to take care of our clothes, our cars, our homes, our existing possessions. Thus, ads stressing care and maintenance are usually targeted at an audience of older adults: people who already have things to protect. Key Verbs: keep, save, protect, maintain, guard, safeguard, take care of, retain, hold, support, sustain.

The "Haves" are the primary target audience: not only the rich, but also the caretakers -- home owners and homemakers, parents, car owners, pet owners, business owners and managers.

  • Products related to protection of existing possessions include: soaps*, cleansers, detergents, waxes, oils, lubricants, brakes, mufflers, lawn mowers, and garden tools.**

  • Pet foods and supplies, for example, stress in their ads that the pet owners should be good caretakers.

  • Some cosmetics (oils and lotions for skin care, hair care, tooth care, baby care) stress bodily protection.

  • Various food-packaging products (plastic and foil wraps, bags, containers) stress food protection.

  • Some conservative financial investments (savings accounts, bonds, certificates of deposit) are designed to protect assets.

  • Services related to protection of existing possessions include: car tune-ups, lawn care, home repairs (such as painting, plumbing, carpentry) and the related tools, appliances, and products used (paint, faucets, replacement windows, kitchen cabinets, carpeting, roofing, siding, insulation, furnaces, air conditioners, water heaters, refrigerators, washers, dryers).

  • Business services (phone services, package delivery services, fax and copy machines, computers) stress their value as a means to keep customers,and to keep up with their customers.
* "Soap operas," for example, were the mid-day radio and TV programs designed originally for an audience of female "homemakers," sponsored by the various laundry soaps, house-care, and clothes-care products.
** Sports programs, with a predominantly male audience, have many such "caretaker" ads for home repairs, tools, lawn care, and life insurance.
Such "Goods" that we want to keep or protect can be tangible or intangible.

Product-centered ads usually focus on tangibles, such as a specific brand of product or service (Dutch Boy Paint, Midas Mufflers); or a kind of product to do the specific job. Most ads here stress efficiency: "it really works." Because explicit claims for tangibles can be measured, some regulations do exist to get such ads to live up to their claims.

Audience-centered ads usually focus on intangibles which relate to our desires, our hopes and dreams. For example, people want to get and keep the intangible feelings of security, success, happiness, virtue, wisdom, popularity, of being loved and admired. Implicit suggestions for intangibles cannot be measured. Because no specific claims are made explicitly, such ads are very hard to regulate.When products involve the buyer's effort or hard work, ads often stress simplicity: "easy to use."

Protection ads often stress these audience-centered intangibles: the emotional good feelings of pride of ownership, security, satisfaction, contentment, duty, responsibility, and joy which will result from "doing a good job" or in taking care of one's possessions. Pet care ads, for example, often emphasize the feelings of love and responsibility of the human caretakers. House and car care ads stress responsibility, wisdom, pride of ownership. Financial investment and savings ads will associate the product with images of mature adults, wise and content, retired in comfortable surroundings. However, some ads will use a negative scare-and-sell approach emphasizing fears, problems which the product can solve.

Political Rhetoric
Some persuasion appeals primarily to our natural human desire to protect the various "goods" we already have. While most commercial advertising tends to be desire-based, focused on acquisition (offering the individual many goods), much political persuasion seems to be fear-based, related to a society's need for protection against a threat.

Government is often seen primarily, in such conservative rhetoric, in its role as the peacekeeper in a society: as providing protection from --and prevention of -- both external enemies (Homeland Defense issues) and internal criminals ("Crime in the Streets" issues).

In domestic political persuasion, during good times of peace and prosperity, the incumbent party campaigns on their record, on their achievements, saying "keep the good: "Don't change horses in the middle of the stream." "Don't rock the boat." "You never had it so good."

Maintenance, in domestic politics, is not a glamorous issue. Politicians are much more likely to get credit for creating a new highway than for repairing an old one. But, maintenance is essential to maintain and to repair the things a society already has created: the infrastructure (bridge and road repairs, pipelines, water pumping and filtration). Here, the persuasion problem for politicians is to demonstrate the need for maintenance, often by dire warnings, and by creating disaster scenarios.

Key Verbs in Protection appeals in political rhetoric: defend, save, protect, keep, maintain, guard, safeguard, take care of, retain, hold, support, sustain.

PROTECTION: If people HAVE a "GOOD," they seek to keep it.