Whether it's acknowledged or not, television has a great deal of influence on our lives.
Countless studies have been conducted that continue to indicate what we see on TV has a great deal of influence on the decisions we make and the ideas we consider important. The influence of TV advertising can be quite profound in helping to change the way we think about the world around us. How it does this is still a matter of debate.
Types of Appeals
Generally speaking, there are two basic means by which advertisers reach their audience--by appealing to their emotions, or by appealing to their intellect and needs. These distinctions can and have been broken down into a number of layers, but these are the two basic elements at play. Emotion-based appeals are built on the psychology of images in which images connect in the viewer's mind with an emotional memory or response. Intellectual appeals are built on providing information regarding how the product or service will meet the viewer's needs.
Emotional Appeals
U.S. advertisers have generally leaned toward using emotional appeals to reach their consumers.
Scientific application within the field of TV advertising has remained divided on the question of whether advertisers should focus on building emotional bonds with potential customers or on the superficial aspects of the brand. In "Journal of Design History," Thomson indicates most ad agencies in America have embraced the psychology of images to influence consumer choice. However, businesses have started to recognize a need to avoid giving the impression of snake oil salesmen offering meaningless solutions.
Fact-based Appeals
British advertisers focus on giving consumers the facts they have about products.
In "The Economic History Review," Church suggests the British market took the stance it was the marketer’s responsibility to educate a previously unthinking public about the brands and products available, effectively providing all information necessary for them to make the "correct" decision. While researchers such as Millar and Millar conclude presenting feature-based arguments is the most effective means of promoting a product or service, others like Edwards and von Hippel now insist emotion-based appeals are the best method of eliciting desired consumer behavior.
Significance
Advertising focus can set the bar of public thought.
In 1969, Louis Althusser wrote, "Rather than a strict relationship between ideology and the economic base of society, where one class imposes its values on another, ideology is a dynamic set of practices in which all groups and classes participate." When people are encouraged to make decisions about products based on shallow, surface-level features such as an emotional pull from the ads generated, they tend to apply this decision-making process to other areas of their lives, too. Communities exposed to more thought-provoking appeals tend to put more thought into other choices made in their lives.
Ethics in Advertising
Advertisers intentionally use color, line, shape and text to subliminally influence your decisions.
There is evidence that fundamental ideological approaches are transferred through the emotional techniques used by advertising companies. Roland Barthes explains how this works in his discussions of semiology--that our emotions become linked with symbolic images purposely used to encourage or discourage specific ideas. These symbolic images are combined with specific colors, lines, text and shapes to speak to a specific population and influence you to make a choice with little to no actual information.
Adding the Substance
Although emotional appeal does seem to get good results, studies by Rothschild and Hyun show the left brain (cognitive function) takes over after the initial seconds of a television advertisement. In a study conducted by Franzen, it was also found some cognitive awareness of product features was necessary for an advertisement to be effective, regardless of the degree of emotional appeal. Thus, the most effective advertisements specifically seek to influence us through hard-hitting emotional appeal as well as cognitive, logical argument.
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