Psych 586: Psychology of Persuasion Advertising

1
Psych 586 Psychology of PersuasionAdvertising

• Professor Icek Aizen
• Office Tobin 625
• Email aizen_at_psych.umass.edu
• Tel [phone]

2
USA Todays Ad Meter

• The Super Bowl's annual adfest has become the
  biggest marketing event of the year as
  advertisers tap in to the biggest TV event of the
  year.
• USA TODAY created the Super Bowl Ad Meter in 1989
  to gauge consumers' opinions about TV's most
  expensive commercials.
• In 2007 USA TODAY assembled 207 adult volunteers
  in Phoenix and McLean, Va., and electronically
  charted their second-by-second reactions to ads
  during the Super Bowl.
• Fieldwork Phoenix and Shugoll Research chose the
  volunteers, who used handheld meters to register
  how much they liked each ad.
• A computer continuously averaged the scores.
• Scores are the highest average for each ad.

3
Bud Light Super Bowl Commercials

• The star of the No. 1 ad in 2007 A refrigerator
  stocked with Bud Light with the ability to
  disappear to keep unwelcome guests from grabbing
  the brew. The fridge disappears via a revolving
  wall that, unbeknownst to the fridge's owner,
  spins it into the adjoining apartment.
• For the guys next door, it becomes the "magic
  fridge" an idol to be worshipped.

4
Power of Advertising Overwhelming?

• Body Image Super-thin models, heroin look.
• Sources Magazines, TV shows, movies, fashion
  shows.
• Cigarette use by teens Marlboro Man, Joe Camel.
• Obesity McDonalds and other fast-food chains.
• Consumerism Promotion of spending.
• Advantage to large companies with big advertising
  budgets ?

5
Pepsi Campaign (ca. 1990)
6
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1992
Pepsi-Cola Plans Big Effort To Exploit Uh-huh
Theme As soon as Pepsi-Cola introduced Ray
Charles as the spokes-singer for its Diet Pepsi
brand, growling, "You got the right one baby,
uh-huh!" it seemed the decision had indeed been
the right one. Consumers immediately took to the
infectiously cheerful advertising created by BBDO
Worldwide, ranking the campaign among the most
likable and memorable of 1991. The phrase entered
the vernacular, appearing on a line of licensed
clothing and on cans and bottles of the soft
drink.
There was just one uh-uh amid the uh-huhs Diet
Pepsi's market share ended the year as flat as
day-old cola, according to Beverage Digest, an
authoritative industry newsletter. It ranked
fourth among America's leading soft drinks in
1991, with an 8 percent share, unchanged from
1990.
So, eager to translate Diet Pepsi's advertising
success into sales, Pepsi executives are planning
one of the industry's most extensive, and
expensive, marketing blitzes ever on behalf of
the 28-year-old brand. Beginning during CBS's
telecast of the Grammy Awards on Feb. 25, Diet
Pepsi will embark on an elaborate series of
events intended to convince America that this
April is "National Uh-huh Month."
7
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1992
Is Heartbeat Campaign Selling Cars? It is one
of the best-known advertising campaigns in the
country and yet the product it sells has
experienced a slide in market share since the
effort began four years ago. The television
commercials of Lintas Campbell-Ewald's Heartbeat
of America campaign for Chevrolet are famed for
slow-motion shots of parents frolicking with
their children and the insistent thump of the
Listen to the Heartbeat of America
song. Although print ads are often less
memorable than television, both Heartbeat
executions have scored consistently high in
consumer recall. The Heartbeat campaign scored
No. 3 in Adweek's America's Favorite Print
Campaigns, behind Ford and Pepsi-Cola. Yet
Chevrolet is losing ground. According to Ward's
Communications Inc., a leading trade publisher,
Chevrolet's share of the American car market in
1986, when Heartbeat began, totaled about 15
percent. By 1989, it declined to 13.6
percent. Bob Garfield, a columnist for
Advertising Age, took notice of the gap between
the campaign's visibility and Chevrolet's sales.
I may be the only person in the hemisphere to
think so, he wrote recently, but my view is
that Heartbeat is simply a glitzy, stylish,
somewhat sexy, extremely catchy, painstakingly
cultivated archetype of puffery because
Chevrolet is not the heartbeat of America. He
added, It's a declining entry level car brand,
and it desperately needs to communicate quality
and value, not some fading vestige of ubiquity.
8
Practitioner Theories

• Initially, assumption that people respond
  rationally to advertising. Main promise of
  product basis for advertising copy.
• Doubt about ability to change preferences by
  rational argument, led to psychoanalytic
  approach products associated with unconscious
  desires. Copy has to address these unconscious
  forces.
• Ogilvie Brand image set of associations to
  product that places it in relation to a persons
  life style.
• Lannon Cooper Cultural context advertising
  is effective if it reflects the shared meaning in
  a social group or society.

9
Models of Advertising Effectiveness Price of
Product
10
Models of Advertising Effectiveness Time
Campaign ends
Campaign begins
11
Models of Advertising Effectiveness Advertising
Weight (Number Ads, Advertising Budget)
Threshold
12
Change in Sales as a Function of Change in
Advertising Budget (Ackoff Emshoff, 1975)
Budweiser Beer
13
The BehaviorScan System
The BehaviorScan system, a service of IRI, is a
real-life laboratory in which manufacturers test
marketing variables within a controlled
environment for both new and established brands.
The current BehaviorScan markets are Pittsfield,
MA Marion, IN Eau Claire, WI Midland, TX
Grand Junction, CO and Cedar Rapids, IA. Past
BehaviorScan markets utilized for tests
contributing to this study included
Williamsport, PA Rome, GA Salem, OR and
Visalia, CA. The markets are large enough to test
in, but small enough to allow precise control of
testing variables and product distribution, and
virtually complete coverage of grocery store
product purchasing. BehaviorScan testing occurs
at the consumer level. Consumer purchasing
information is electronically collected from each
representative household that has been recruited
and maintained in each BehaviorScan market.
Panel members shop with an ID card which is
presented at checkouts in scanner-equipped
grocery and drug stores, allowing IRI to
electronically track over time each household's
purchasing, item by item.
14
The BehaviorScan System
For tests of alternative T.V. advertising
plans, the BehaviorScan household panels are
split into two or more subgroups that are
balanced on past purchasing, demographics, and
stores shopped over a one-year base period. This
matching procedure makes it easier to attribute
differences in the test period to the effect of
the treatment rather than to preexisting
differences between groups or to an interaction
between the test variable and pre-existing
differences. After a suitable period of time
(usually a year), the test is ended and the
results are analyzed using analysis of covariance
to remove any consistent influence of
uncontrolled factors (e.g., competitive and test
brand promotions), so that the impact of the test
treatment can be seen more clearly.
15
The BehaviorScan System
Using split cable technology, commercials can be
substituted at the individual household level,
allowing one subgroup to view a test commercial,
while the other views a control ad, or enabling
one subgroup to receive heavier advertising
weight than the other. In all of the
BehaviorScan markets, cable is the most viable
way of receiving an acceptable television signal.
In each market, IRI maintains permanent warehouse
facilities and has an in-market staff to control
distribution, price, and promotions. Competitive
activity in all categories is monitored and a
complete record of pricing, displays, and
features permits the covariate adjustment of
differences that occur across stores.
16
The BehaviorScan System Major Findings (Lodish,
et al., 1995)

• T.V. advertising alone is not enough.
• There is no simple correspondence between
  increased T.V. advertising and increased sales,
  regardless of whether the increased spending is
  compared to competition or not.
• Higher levels of trade display correspond with a
  reduction in the ability of T.V. advertising to
  positively affect sales.
• There is no strong relation between measures of
  T.V. commercial recall and either persuasion or
  sales impact for established brands.
• New brands or line extensions tend to be more
  response to T.V. advertising than established
  products.
• Higher boosts in prime time T.V. advertising are
  correlated with larger increases of sales for new
  products, but not for established products.

17
Functions of Advertising

• Most important Introduce / inform about a new
  product (e.g., direct marketing). Helps
  companies sell their products. Benefits economy.
• Gain market share Much more difficult. Benefit
  to economy less obvious.

18
Issues in Advertising

• Continued reliance on discredited Hovland
  approach.
• Source credibility doctors, overheard
  endorsements.
• Source likeability endorsement by well-known
  personalities.
• Audience factors market segmentation by
  demographics, etc.
• Uncertainty regarding use of peripheral vs.
  central approaches (long before ELM).
• New products often introduced by central route.
• For many products (e.g., soft-drinks, difficult
  to come up with strong arguments but, example
  of 7-Up).

19
Peripheral Route?
20
Central Route?
21
Subliminal Persuasion? Democrats See, and Smell,
Rats in G.O.P. Ad

• Sept. 2000 Republican TV commercial criticizing
  Al Gores prescription drug plan bureaucRATS
  decide

22
Theories of Buying Behavior

• Some complex theories proposed, e.g., Howard
  Sheth (next slide).

23
Theory of Buyer Behavior(Howard Sheth, 1969)
24
Theories of Buying Behavior

• Simpler models (central processing is assumed).
• Brand attitude determines brand choice.
• Multi-attribute (expectancy-value) model of brand
  attitude.
• Focus on brand image, image of corporation.
• Simpler choice model Elimination by aspects
  (Tversky).

25
Theory of Planned Behavior Applied to Buying
Product X
26
Correlation Between Brand Attitudes and Buying
Attitudes (Fishbein Ajzen, 1980)
27
Correlations Between Attitudes and Buying
Intentions (Fishbein Ajzen, 1980)
28
Mean Attitudes Toward Ad and Toward Brand(Madden
Ajzen, 1991)
29
Mean Attitudes Toward Ad and Toward Brand
(Madden Ajzen, 1991)
30
Postmessage Attitudes Toward Edge Disposable
Razors (Petty, Cacioppo, Schumann, 1983)
Strong arguments
Strong arguments
Weak arguments
Weak arguments
31
Postmessage Intentions to Buy OMEGA 3
Pen(Huddleston, 1985)
Strong arguments
Strong arguments
Weak arguments
Weak arguments
Low Involvement
High Involvement
32
?!!?
33
Century Buick
34
Ford
35
Dodge Intrepid