Nonrational Influence

Approaching advertising in a different light would be emotionally. In America, advertising can be described as hard selling. Hard selling is a campaign or advertisement that is direct, forceful and straight to the point. For example while watching an American seatbelt warning on Youtube, the commercial is simply based on the motto, “Click it or Ticket”, showing average people driving their cars and getting pulled over by officers and receiving a ticket and fine. The commercial is to the point and straight forward, showing almost no emotion. The approach that American marketing companies have used is effective by saying ‘If you don’t’ wear your seatbelt, then you will be forced by law to pay a fine’.

Every day, companies present the people with advertisements everywhere they go. Advertisements have become very prevalent in today’s society nowadays focusing in on a negative connotation. Advertisement has become an effective way for producers to display their new products. In present day, they come in forms of billboards, flyers, e-mails, and even text messages. It is widely known that companies create advertisements to persuade people to buy specific products or goods; however, it is not widely known that advertisements can make a negative impact on today’s society. The companies manipulate people’s mind and emotions, swaying people by new promotions and therefore generating a strong desire to fit into the society, that causes them to make inessential expenditures. Advertisements pose a critical impact on the American culture.

Advertisements are everywhere. From billboards, to magazines, to newspapers, flyers and TV commercials, chances are that you won’t go a day without observing some sort of ad. In most cases, companies use these ads as persuasive tools, deploying rhetorical appeals—logos, pathos, and ethos—to move their audiences to think or act in a certain way. The two magazine ads featured here, both endorsing Pedigree products, serve as excellent examples of how these modes of persuasion are strategically used.

In Jib Fowles article, “Advertising’s Fifteen Basic Appeals”, he shows us fifteen ways commercials try to appeal to people around our country. The need for sex, need for affiliation, the need to nurture, need to aggress, need to achieve, need to dominate, need for prominence, need for attention, need for autonomy, need to escape, need for aesthetic sensations, need to satisfy curiosity, and physiological needs. These needs are all how companies appeal to our needs to interest us into buying their product. These appeals can be seen in almost every

Many people would argue that they personally feel exempt from the influences of advertising. But if this is the case, then why is the advertising industry grossing over $250 billion a year? The American living in the United States is typically exposed to over 3,00 advertisements in a single day, which means that he or she will spend two years of their lives watching television commercials. Advertisements are everywhere and we cannot avoid them. We see advertisements in schools, buildings, billboards, airplanes, bust stops, and so on. Not only are advertisements selling advertisements, but they’re selling values and beliefs, sexuality, images, and the normalcy of believing who we should be because an advertisement said so. Advertisements can create environments, but sometimes these environments can become toxic when consumers buy into its toxicity. One of the biggest toxicities of advertisements is the portrayal of women in advertisements. Though standards of beauty vary over time and by cultures, it seems as though the advertising industry is still buying into “the beauty myth.” This is notion that “the quality of beauty objectively and universally exists.” Though there have been strides to break this notion and attack how advertising has objectified women, it seems as though advertisements are objectifying women more and more. In most advertisements, we are not seeing women being depicted as who they really are, but being portrayed and objectified to be someone that they

“There are over 250 billion advertisements released to the public every year with the average person seeing over 3000 ads every single day” (Kilbourne). This is an astronomical amount of information for anyone to process in a week let alone in one day. This is a prime example of Capitalism at it’s finest. Controlling the consumer in every aspect of their lives. Jean Kilbourne also talks about how “Only 8 percent of an advertisement is actually processed by the conscious mind, with the other 92 percent being soaked up by the subconscious” (Kilbourne). Thinking about those numbers really brings into perspective how much we are truly influenced by media

Advertising is everywhere, but does it affect us as much as advertisers might like? I find myself pondering if it was the commercials between my favorite TV show and the ads in my favorite magazine that encouraged me to buy Kotex feminine hygiene products. Or was it my own wants governing me to purchase. According to Jib Fowles’ article “Advertising’s Fifteen Basic Appeals”, “There is no evidence that advertising can get people to do things contrary to their own self-interests” (567). Although this discovery hasn’t stopped American businesses from spending billions of dollars annually on advertising. With this in mind, Kotex hasn’t needed to change their appeals too much, their products are a necessity for women, but obviously with their good

Most advertisements involve some sort of emotional appeal: images of charming animals, humorous slogans, delicious food, attractive models. However, advertising’s goal—to convince the consumer to purchase a product or service—does not hold the same personal connection that a child’s persuasion of a parent holds. The lack of longevity and impersonal nature weakens its effect; therefore, emotional appeals are given higher legitimacy. Regardless, one may argue that certain aspects of advertising—like images of near-perfect humans—may detriment one’s thinking and expectations. However, this is not applicable to all, as the severity to which it affects one varies, and it does not directly relate to the legitimacy of emotional appeals, as the intents of most advertisements is not to nurture feelings of insecurity and

Advertisers have tried a variety of tactics to gain their viewers attention. One tactic that seems to have struck a chord in the marketing world is the use of animals. Additionally, most people find animals captivating and part of nature (1). As a result, this has become common practice to help increase sales, creating an affinity towards a brand with the use of animals. Brand identity however is not the only reason animals are used in marketing. The use of animals in advertising encompasses a multitude of psychological aspects including behavioral, neurological, and emotional components. Thus, this study examined the use of animals in current advertisements

Each day we are bombarded with advertisements from a plethora of corporations in every waking moment of our lives. Advertising agencies have become so advanced at what they do, that often times we may not even realize we are being advertised a product. This raises an interesting ethical dilemma over a certain type of advertising: persuasive advertising. Philosophers, economists, and business professionals have debated over whether or not persuasive advertising is an immoral violation of the autonomy of consumers. While not all forms of advertising are in and of themselves certainly immoral, persuasive advertising is particularly reprehensible due to the fact that not only does it manipulate our unconscious desires of which we are completely unaware in order to sell a product, but it also routinely leads us to act against our own best interest, thus overriding our autonomy.

Advertising is a form of communication used to encourage or persuade an audience to continue or take some new action. But when advertisers produce an ad, they have many different variables that come into play if they want to successfully persuade consumers. The first most important step they have to figure out is, what type of audience they are trying to target. They then create images and intend to appeal specifically to the values, hopes, and desires of that particular audience. This is why someone would rather pick the well-known Malboro cowboy ads over the new female cigarettes of Virginia Slims. Each of these ads targets a specific audience;

you buy them this toy. Every one of our emotions is played on so that

Non-Compulsory influence is non-forceful and non-violent, it allows for freedom of choice and creates behavior compliance. Within non-compulsory influence there are multiple dimensions that consist of either an ends of influence, seeking either mental transformation or behavioral modification, or goals of influence, using either currencies of expression or currencies of power. According to Dr. Stoda, (2012), “Compliance-gaining is an activity of influence that does not seek to affect changes in mental attitudes” (p. 13). By using compliance-gaining a person is only looking to change the end behavior, however convincing creates a mind shift, a transformation of the consciousness, the persuader has a greater effect that will last.

Advertising techniques have changed and along with it, the impact they have on each individual’s mind. While there are some similarities between the different kinds of advertisements we see today, there are also many differences. Advertising has also become more unethical than it was in, let’s say, the 50s. Not all advertisements are brainless; there are a few that are even creative and fun and just pull the target audience in by

likely to discount a healthy claim because of its potential manipulative intent, however, it is not certain that a healthy promotional strategy also will be more effective