Book review: PERSUASION IN ADVERTISING
by John O’Shaughnessy and Nicholas Jackson O’Shaughnessy
Genres:
- Advertising
- Marketing
- Psychology
Review posted on:
10.11.2018
The number of pages:
232 pages
Book rating:
3/5
Year the book was published:
First edition published 2003
Who should read this book:
- Marketers, Product Managers, Business Developers, Entrepreneurs.
Why did I pick up this book and what did I expect to get out of it:
I found Persuasion in Advertising by John O’Shaughnessy and Nicholas Jackson O’Shaughnessy in the library while checking out the marketing section. The title was intriguing and when I looked at the table of content I decided to read it even though it was published in 2003, and I was worried the content could be a little out of date. Still after seeing that the authors would discuss psychology. psychoanalytic, behaviorism, cognitive approaches, and models I expect to find insightful case studies that will support the previously explained theory. I hope that the authors won’t be too academic with their theory part of the book and will try to explain the theory in a simple manner..
My thoughts about the book:
It is interesting to read how marketing and branding have evolved over the years with the help of science. Marketers have known for some time now the “basics” of our unconscious, and it’s just a matter of understanding this information, the ingenuity of marketers, and available technology that limits what they do to influence you and me. In Persuasion in Advertising, you will read a lot of theory about the human mind and behavior backed up by some case studies, which I liked. I found it very useful when they wrote about rationality, symbolism, and emotions and how to use them in advertising. Also, a great feature of the book is the key assertions at the end of each chapter. On the other hand, I disliked that they devoted not a small portion of the book to theory that was proven to be false.
If you pick up this book please let me know what you think of it in the comment section.
My notes from the book:
- People value the comfort of being accepted and value group affirmation of their beliefs and actions. Advertising that associates a product with such acceptance and peer group affirmation is more effective.
- The success of an ad depends on credibility and attractiveness. Credibility is tied to projected expertise and trustworthiness while attractiveness is tied to values projected that evoke a sense of sharing.
- Persuasion differs from influence. Persuasion is a way of influencing. People can influence the beliefs, values, wants, or actions of others without making any deliberate attempts to do so. Persuasion in contrast deliberately aims to mold beliefs, values, and actions in a direction favored by the persuader.
- Consumers often confront an ad with firm beliefs, rival loyalties, and established preferences. These are potential internal or external shields. External shields are social attachments to culture, reference groups, social class, and emotionally grounded experiences. Internal shields are people’s overall perspective or view of the world tied to beliefs, values, emotions, and expectations.
- Beliefs are important as they tell us how the world is while values are important as they point to what we want from the world. We need information on our target audiences, on their social attachments, and their overall perspectives.
- The external shields derive from the influences to which the target has been exposed, structuring his or her viewpoint and giving content to the beliefs and values characterizing his or her perspective.
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The external shields derive from the influences to which the target has been exposed, structuring his or her viewpoint and giving content to the beliefs and values characterizing his or her perspective.
The Internal shields consisting of current beliefs and values are the result of learning within “the context of social attachments”. - Values are determined mainly by consumers’ social and cultural histories and act as criteria for determining what trade-offs they will make. Values are tied to emotions, so knowing what upsets people is a guide to their values.
- Beliefs may be influenced by a preceding change in behavior, particularly beliefs on matters of taste or what is socially appropriate. If people are made to adopt a certain type of behavior, they may come to change their minds and approve of that behavior even if this runs contrary to their former position.
- People know what they hate better than what they love.
- What makes people emotional is a guide to their values. Anything associated with a negative reference group makes the task of persuasion more difficult. In contrast, positive reference groups help in persuasion.
- One way to persuade people to change is to show that what they believe or the way they act is not in line with reference group norms.
- Bad experiences linger in memory and can leave emotional scars. Good experience lingers too, but stirs fewer feelings.
- People typically “see” what they have been taught to look for. If you want them to see something new to them educate them.
- Perspectives constitute a framework or conceptual scheme within which we think. They are not “set in stone” but are constantly being modified with experience. Be sure to create new great and unforgettable experiences for your customers.
- If marketing is to persuade, it should frame all its persuasive endeavors as signaling a desire for affiliation and bonding with its target audience and avoid coercive strategies, because they undermine the offer of affiliation that is basic to all types of persuasion.
- Advertising gives new meaning to a product if it can induce self-persuasion by getting the target audience to imagine using or consuming it.
- Emotion is a major factor in persuasive advertising that aims to change viewpoints and not simply to demonstrate the logical implications of data. In the grip of an emotion, a person not only feels differently but tends to think differently.
- Advertising that resonates emotionally stands more chance of inducing a change in beliefs and values/motives/wants/desires than one based on logic alone.
- Much of our language and cognition (thinking) is metaphorically structured and there is considerable evidence showing that a metaphor can significantly change attitudes and perspectives.
- In advertising, it is not uncommon to show the whole of the manufacturing process, from the input of raw materials to outputs to customers. This is an effective way of showing the product to be authentic and gives it a richer background and identity.
- Perception goes beyond what is received via sensory stimulation as it involves interpretation influenced by a person’s perspective.
- The way people are classified tends to induce them to behave according to the category in which they are placed. In other words, people are apt to grow into the labels given to them, particularly the labels attached to them by authority figures.
- Labeling a group of people as having something in common will induce them to act as if this were so.
- The consumer is a social animal. That is why your product/service needs to have an emotional appeal and has to be socially appropriate.
- Constant price discounts are actually teaching the target audience that price is the criterion to apply when buying, and by doing so companies are turning the brand into a commodity product/service.
- Music is powerful for making an emotional evocation of the past and so is common in advertising that exploits nostalgia. Advertising that exploits nostalgia typically does so by idealizing the past as a time of pure innocence.
- A customer's choice of products/brand reflects the rejection of the other lifestyles or communities that other products/brands represent.
- Companies promote heavily in prime holiday areas because a product sampled on holiday can arouse emotional memories when recalled.
- Positive emotions arise when the benefit is greater or the relief is faster than expected. Negative emotions arise when the benefit or relief is less than expected.
- Unexpected “extras” become important when key benefits are the same for all the rival brands (quality is taken for granted by customers).
- Consumers have anchor points, standards for comparison on which they rely to form an opinion of the brand they have bought, what competing products are available, and what is reasonable with respect to price.
- Asking questions is a way of redirecting thoughts and bringing about minor changes in perspective.
- Consumers seek summary information and evaluations of others. If they had to weigh and evaluate every minor decision, life would be impossible. It is this very reliance on the views of others that offer the possibility of manipulating agreement.
- Completion techniques are a great way to understand how your customers think and what are their worries. Example for a mortgage loan: “Buying a home I worry most about…”, and “The worst thing about getting a home mortgage is….” Your customers alone will provide you with the right answers to persuade them.
- We all tend to overestimate both the intensity and the duration of future emotional hurt or joy. This means that the pleasure we anticipate before a purchase can differ from that experienced when the product is bought.
- When it comes to emotions it is often harder to forget than it is to remember.
