Advertising Can Sell You?

You can imagine the thousands of dollars big advertisers spend each year to learn how to best sell you (and the many millions) on their particular products. They want to understand your persuasion psychology. Do you have sufficient defenses against their sophisticated techniques? This topic wants you to test some of the rather basic facts about the psychology of advertising with you on these True-False items.

1. ___Catching your attention and focusing it on their product is very basic.
2. ___ Factors like motion, sound intensity, vivid color, and color contrast are used to grab your attention, regardless of your intentions.
3. ___ The advertisers know what basic needs (s3x, power, pride, social recognition, success) are powerful activators of most people.
4. ___ They are usually successful in linking up their product with your need satisfaction.
5. ___ Motivations of which you are unconscious actually influence your buying behaviour.
6. ___ The vast majority of persons buy only those things they truly need for a good life.
7. ___ Negative appeals to fears should never be used by reputable advertisers.
8. ___ Ploys that go, "You deserve our product," are not very effective.
9. ___ The advertising industry credits itself with raising the standard of living.
10. ___ Advertising is designed mainly for suckers and push-overs.

Some of the Quiz items today will raise some disagreement, but scoring key reads:

Items #4, 6, 7, 8, 10 should be False, all others, True.

The first two questions point up the very basic requirement of capturing your involuntary attention first with eye and ear-catching vivid stimuli. But advertisers know they cannot hold your voluntary attention without tying into your needs, motives, and interests very quickly. Thus, they spend a great deal of research money learning how best to accomplish the linking to their products.

#4 is false, however, because they usually don't sell you, or many other individuals. They only need to sell a reasonable number out there in their audience - usually not more than 25% or 30%.

They have learned very well that appeals to unconscious motives (#5), to fears (reasonable ones) such as death, rejection, failure (#7), and the indirect, pamper-yourself approaches, are usually highly effective and not too offensive. Advertising is created for the masses of John Q Public, not just for the suckers. It is usually quite successful, apparently has helped raise standard of living. But has it been in the direction we truly wanted to go?