e1.
Don't expect ads to be rational, logical arguments.
Some people want to limit advertising only to
expository writing, to "information transfer."
That would mean listing only such basics (item,
location, size, weight, price) as commonly seen in a Parts Catalog
or in the Classified Ads of newspapers, often without any
alluring descriptions.
But, persuasion is different from exposition.
Persuaders are not simply interested in informing you about
something. They want you to respond in some way:
to buy their product, to do something, or to believe something.
The biggest mistake you can make in analyzing ads is expecting
them to "make sense."
Don't expect ads to be rational, logical arguments. Most ads are nonrational.
e2.
Ads primarily use the association
technique.
The association
technique links three elements together:
(1) the product, service, or idea, with
(2) something already held favorably by, or desired by
(3) the intended audience.
Emotional appeals are the easiest attention-getters to recognize.
Millions of combinations of emotional associations are possible,
simultaneously.
If you watch ads carefully, you can usually spot at least a
half dozen emotional appeals going on,
at the same time, in the background, with the characters and music.
e3.
Most ads appeal to our hope and dreams.
In TV ads, we see lots of pretty girls, cute kids, sweet babies,
cats and dogs, nature scenery, "good times" with friends and family,
sports heroes, smiling young lovers, fluttering flags.
Examine the 24
common kinds of positive claims, suggestions and implications, which
associate such"good things"which people already like,
with the product being adverised.
e4.
Some ads appeal to our fears and nightmares.
The association technique
can also be used, in reverse, by negative associations of
(1) something suggested by an ad with
(2) something already
feared or hated by
(3) the intended audience.
These are called "scare-and-sell"
ads in which the feared problem is emphasized.
Then, the product is offered as the solution.
Most of these problem/solution ads
are in the categories of prevention
(avoid the "bad"), protection
(keep the "good"), and relief ("get
rid of the bad").
Such ads often show dramatized scenes of "horror stories"
(accidents, tire blowouts, stalls on lonely road, burglars, fires, headaches,
upset stomach) followed by the product's claim to prevent or to relieve the
problem.
Often, the "problems" (dirty floors, spotted shirts, bad
breath, split hair-ends, pimples) emphasized in ads may seem trivial to us:
simply inconveniences or minor annoyances.
However, this problem/solution pattern ("anxiety
arousal and satisfaction") is commonly used and quite effective in
many ads.
Any or all of the 24 categories (see above) of positive associations
can be reversed. Instead of selling hopes and dreams, this kind of negative
association emphasizes our human fears and nightmares.
Emotional
appeals are the dominant tactics of ads.