persuation in advertising
...ipulate the social values in accordance to change the behavior, actions as well as beliefs of the users (Personality Theory in Persuasion and Advertising, 2004). Persuasion therefore, is aimed at promoting and selling ways to meet people’s psychological as well as emotional desires. According to a famous psychologist, Abraham Maslow these needs are the basic psychological needs like food shelter and clothing or security and safety need as well as belongingness and love needs, esteem and self actualization needs. Another interesting means to persuade the consumer via advertising is to create new desire and exploit the prevailing old needs with the introduction of a new product in the market. For instance, exploiting the needs of emotional security or persuading people to purchase the products advertised for achieving maximum security like security alarms. Influencing people of the rising rate of crimes demands one to install security alarms of latest technology and the existing alarms are less affective now. So in this way marketing and advertising companies try to persuade psychologically. Another example for emotional needs and persuasion is to directly hit the gratification and self esteem of a person by producing catchy slogans of their products to make the consumer feel special. An example is the slimming pills advertised by various pharmaceuticals to persuade women that with out any diet control and exercise, just using these pills specially produced to bring back obese women into shape and give them a sexier look. Therefore, these persuasive tools of marketing exploit some times consumers, by promising them something special that will transform their lives (Personality Theory in Persuasion and Advertising, 2004). Using symbols to add value to the product is another tool to persuade the consumer. For example, some new brand of whisky is to be introduced and advertised in the market, to add more value some handsome and aggressive celebrity character is chosen to make people of the impression that strong and hard men drink the same brand. In this way the consumer gets emotionally derived towards the product and feels that if they purchase that product they will also achieve some ideas and values as well as feelings. However in this kind of advertisement there is no such information about the quality of drink or what so every product is advertised. Only the emphasis is on the person who uses that very product and the meanings hidden behind the symbol is presented in such ads. Therefore, these advertising authorities, in order to persuade the consumer and to achieve high marketing goals, uses certain values such as love, friendship, neighborliness, pleasure, happiness, and sexual attraction as a very effective persuading instrument (Understanding Persuasion, 2002). Therefore, it comes to our understanding that persuasion does effect our buying behavior. The reason is the very tools used as during marketing and advertising to persuade the public. Not only the needs and demands of the public are kept in mind while making a product but also the psychological aspect and the social environment of any consumer society is taken as an important aspect. The producers are always dependent on the consumers therefore, they have to meet the demands and standards of the society while at the same time the consumers that are emotionally driven to buy products are very much persuaded psychologically and this of course affects the behavior of the buyers in the society. Persuasion affects the society’s buying behavior more when the persuasive messages are presented via electronic media. The audience psychologically and emotionally not only gets persuaded to buy the product but also adopts the style, trends and behavior in its life style as a change. For instance, if a few celebrities advertise some product, the people feel pride to use it and psychologically persuaded at the first instinct. They believe that if their favorite celebrity uses it then it’s an honor for them to purchase that product. In this way not only the buying behavior of the society is affected but also the sellers gain more profit. So it’s just the means to persuade the audiences, which can playa role in changing the behavior of the buyer. Persuasion ways applied to persuade the consumer to buy The advertising industry does extensive surveys to identify consumers buying patterns and researches these single or multiple events leading them in their course of action. Based on these findings they conclude what makes a person tick. For example if a Company wants to promote a Perfume they could have a commercial as follows: A beautiful lady walks up the stairs to her office, and as she passes all not to mention her gorgeous body and sexy red dress that is almost transparent notices her fragrance. A man spills his coffee in his lap while another drops his files in the hall. Still as she so elegantly flows the Courier bumps into the wall just the missing the door, all the girls look at her with awe and envy at the same time as they wonder why she gets all the attention but as she sits at her desk and reaches in her purse they notice the bottle of perfume she sprays on herself with a smirk and a wink. In essence the media is using sex to sell the perfume causing every woman to want that kind of attention and effect on all men. So this is the kind of persuasion that causes people to act in the way they do (Personality Theory in Persuasion and Advertising, 2004). While advertising and marketing any specific product the company has to keep a few things in mind. First of all the needs and desires of the people, then the psychology of the public, cultural influence as well as the likes and dislikes of the people. For this purpose they usually do a survey in the market and analyze the demand of the public on any certain product. For instance if we take cosmetics, the shades of lipsticks vary from season to season as well as the kind of lipstick too, like some times glossy lipstick is in while sometimes matt. Similarly if we take an example of the style of shoes, kind of shampoos like in the market there are varieties of varieties of every companies shampoo. Another example is of a perfume, the taste of a person is represented by the choice of fragrance he/she uses. Moreover, there are basically two ways to persuade the buyers. These are 1) Psychological persuading. 2) Emotional persuading. According to Mills, we are persuaded every second day so the emotional brain here plays an important role in making decisions. Our rational brains concentrates on arguments that are logical as well planned and are supported by evidence. On the other hand emotions approach us on the first instinct. These are the most powerful persuaders. It is noticed that people buy emotionally on the first hand and justify their decision after buying any product, which was a result of emotional persuasion (Blass, 1999, 955-978). In order to attract the consumers, sometimes companies drastically lower the price of certain items. In this way buyers who cannot afford the same product for a higher price can buy them, at the same time be introduced by the new model of the same product. The regular buyers might buy the products in stock and also get a hand on the new models too. So in this way the company due to its advertising campaign persuades the audiences to buy their products and also maintains the quality with earning handsome profit. Furthermore, advertisement persuades the consumer to buy products by means of introducing gift packages like adding a toy with any product to attract young mothers or kids. In this way the buyer feels they are getting two things in the price of one but this is not necessarily done, the price of gift might be added with the actual product. Another means could be putting discounts on various products like “Buy 3 get 1 free” this kind of discount usually is applied on the fast food franchises, or buy 2 products of the same brand and get one free of choice from the same brand. Therefore, the cultural environments of the society as well as the very psychology of the buyers are the targets of the advertisers to persuade. They persuade the public by keeping in mind their psychological standards and emotional desire as well as the social culture. The logics do count a lot at the same time. For instance if a company has a brand name like Mercedes that is counted one of the luxury car business since a long period, it has maintained its trust and standard and for them it is easy to attract the public. While for a new emerging company it is a challenging task to persuade the audiences against any other potential product buyer. The buyers are asp spending money; they are getting a product on exchange of money so they also observe the difference in quality of the product as well as the price. They will always go for the product that’s not only suits their pockets but also fulfills their need and demand. So the most difficult task is to sway the customer on the good quality and durability of the product by a very confident manner. The customer should believe that the product is in the best of their self- interest. This not only develops trust on the customer but also makes him feel satisfy that they are buying quality products that suit their need as well as pocket. The tool use to persuade and achieve the confidence and trust of the buyer is to give a few side effects of the product or highlight a few deficiencies along the qualities and the uses of that very product. Nonetheless the comments or suggestions of the customers should be respected and give due importance while launching any other product by the same brand. This strengthens the trust ad confidence of the costumer and do not let them switch the company for any product of the similar nature as well as opens more challenges ion the market. Today all big marketing companies to persuade the audience to buy their products use this tool (Personality Theory in Persuasion and Advertising, 2004). Due to the growing competition in the market, the selling techniques have been advanced too. Now the two trends are mostly used to persuade the audiences, these are: selling personally and selling non-personally. Where personally selling is concerned, the seller and the buyer are into direct communication and interaction. In this way the seller has direct access to persuade the customer as well as the buyer has the opportunity to ask questions or details about the product. Another important reflection about the product in regard to persuasion in advertising is the body language and face expression of the seller. If the seller is very active and bold in actions and confident in his words while explaining about the product then the buyer is emotionally as well as psychologically persuaded. On the other hand of the seller has a tired and bored expression then the buyer will not be attracted towards the product. At the same time, the seller can easily read the buyers expression and convince where he does not agree. So in this way the seller gets more chances to persuade the customer. Though it is easy to persuade by selling personally but at the same time it is expensive as it just a labor-intensive and can deal with only one buyer at a time. Moreover, the advantage of giving more time to one buyer demands more and more time especially in large products like selling a care or stereo can take days and computer and airplane sales might take years so in this way a company cannot afford engaging one salesmen for one product. Therefore, such means to persuade is usually applied on handy stuff. Is there a difference between men and women when it comes to persuasion in advertising? The principle objective of advertising is manipulating our desires so that the products of these companies become close friends to us. Therefore, advertising not necessarily crates any difference between men and women to be persuaded to buy any product. Basically the difference is not in technique to advertise but in fact is in the target product and how it influences the gender. Men and women are creatures of the same species and have similar effects based on their wants, needs and desires. Companies spend over $ 200 billion a year on advertising and commercials, the reason is to influence the consumers to buy their products. For them consumer could be any, men or women. But yes if the product is something specific for the use and interest of women, like their clothing, cosmetics shoes or purses or any home appliances, kitchen appliances, women undergarments or so on, then definitely women would be the principle buyers of such products. On the other hand it is same with men, if any product were specific for males then definitely they would be the principle buyers. Where another category of the products is that which does not stand in any specific category of use. These are used by both thus depend upon the need, price, quality, durability and warranty of the company as well as the taste and the interest of the buyer. For instance these could be computers or any other electronic devices, cars or any other stuff that is in the general use. A classical example is that when an ad campaign for financial services group was launched by an ad agency in Boston during the 1999 Super Bowler. As the Super Bowler is one of he biggest sources for the audiences especially male audiences, it gave a lot of profit to the company and persuaded a large number of football purchasers (Alwitt, 2000, 41-53). The marketing techniques of the companies is to do thorough research in the market to determine the interest and values of their consumers related to their product and then advertise their products to satisfy the demand of the audiences. So in this way both genders who so ever are interested and feels the desire of that very product buy’s that. Basically the initial thing that the companies sell is the idea and services about their product and once they achieve to persuade a large amount of consumers, then they launch the actual product in the market. So this product for the consumers should be a bundle of values including the social, psychological as well as economic or what other value are important to the users, in order to persuade them to buy that very product. Lets take an example of a car, if only the function of a car would be transportation as an important value for the purchaser, then the manufacturers would made only motorized boxes on wheels and the consumer would be satisfied with that. But this is not the only important value for them. The introduction of a new model every year and the types, new appearance as well as the very functions of the car is also a part of the important values of the consumer. For instance some users prefer small cars over huge while others don’t, the color and the inner space as well as the petrol consuming capacity is another important factor that adds to the value of the consumer (Antonides & Raaij, 1999, 10-15). Moreover the social status also adds another value to the car for instance, a clunker shows a lower status then a Rolls Royce, or a sports care shows the very nature of a person that he is fun loving and very active socially. So not only the transportation is the interest and value of the users but also many other things are the area of interest to the buyers while buying a car and this applies likewise to other products too. Therefore the important thing is the approximate proportion of an individual’s interest and values towards a specific product, not the gender aspect. In order to understand the manner in which advertising mechanisms function, it is also important to study those who are targeted by it. In other words, this directly refers to the shoppers who are convinced under through advertising mechanism. Shopping trends is an area of immense importance in contemporary times, and it must be asserted that focusing on this area from a marketing perspective is essential because of the fact that the potential to boost sales lies in recognizing shopping trends in customers or potential customers (Antonides & Raaij, 1999, 10-15). While addressing the potential that lies in attracting shoppers towards a particular organization’s products, one might also need to assess the various influences that motivate individuals to become shoppers. While doing so, it also must be remembered that the 20th century has been a volatile one in which there have been so many changes that keeping track of them requires a great of time and concentration. This refers to changes such as the development of mall environments that have surged in the past few years. However, while referring to shoppers and consumer behavior, it must also be remembered that this last century is one in which there have been particular events from which the attention of people in general needed diversion. Analysis: The changes that took place during this century have set the stage for the present balance the world hangs in regarding consumerism. These changes are ones that were results of war and post war times alike, as they each contributed extensively to what society has been offered since then. The same kind of trend continues today in a globalized world; people are governed by what they are offered by legalized institutions. In particular, products available to consumers greatly influences the way that contemporary man thinks and acts, and shop windows are an example of these influences. Considering such an influence, an example of the way that an individual may be governed by the items s/he consumes is demonstrated in the way that one acts while wearing a top-quality dress suit. The suit represents a formal occasion. Hence, a man in a suit might, on most counts, will tend to display behavior relevant to the outfit. Clearly, it can be seen from the above example that consumer behavior can be influenced by the products available, and hence, what is available on display in windows of shops can propel window shoppers’ ideas. Having said this, there are particular questions that come to mind regarding the influence of shop windows on consumers. However, shop windows are not alone the only mechanisms used to attract customers. This is true to say because of the fact that there are other means such as billboards and television (Alwitt, 2000, 41-53). Also, with the introduction of ‘humor’ advertising and ‘shock’ advertising, one can clearly make out the differences. Each of these tends to attract customers of different mind sets and have been successful to a s...