Explanations for the persuasiveness of television advertising Flashcards
Explain the Hovland Yale model of persuasion
This proposes a variety of factors influencing the acceptability of persuasive messages e.g. The source - Ads use celebrities, seen to be liekable and attractive, or “scientists”, seen to have expertise
The content - the information given to indicate that the product advertised is better than alternatives. This may include science or technical information
The person receiving the message - Early research suggested that people with lower self-esteem are more easily persuaded, but later research is contradictory. “Self monitoring” may be important; high self-monitors seem to be particularly impressed when the person in the ad has status attractiveness and popularity.
Explain what Mcguire argued
Based on the principles of the Hovland-Yale model, that an effective advert is one that has successfully passed through several stages of a decision making process (Success = a decision to buy the product advertised)
The role of the advertiser is to maximise the likelihood of a “Yes” at each stage.
Exposure - the advertiser must ensure maximum chance that members of the target audience will see the ad
Attention - advertisers use tricks to get our attention e.g. loud music, comedy
Comprehension - the target audience must understand the information in the ad
Retention and the decision to buy - the opportunity to buy the product advertised generally comes some time later, so the advertiser need to make sure that the message is memorable. Packaging and in-store ads serve as reminders. Price also affects decision to buy - something at £2.99 is perceived as a better buy than £3.
Explain the behavioural theory
Associative Learning has been used by advertisers on TV. Advertisers present images and stories which create a positive feeling in the viewer. The expectation is that by repeatedly presenting this positive stimulus with their product, the two things will become associated and therefore influence purchasing choice. For example, an advert for washing powder might attempt to create good positive feelings by using image of blue skies, fields of buttercups and fresh air. The hope is that when we wander supermarket aisles, these feelings will be triggered by seeing the product, increasing the likelihood of our selecting it before competing products.
UCS UCR
Blue skies, buttercups, fresh air -> Positive feelings
UCS + CS UCR
washing powder -> Positive feelings
CS CR
Washing powder -> Positive feelings
Advertisers use a number of things to create positive associations including music and celebrities.
Advertisers also use Social Learning Theory to persuade viewers. They often have celebrities modelling thier product. The hope is that by seeing someone we admire or aspire to be like with a product we will desire the product ourselves in order to be like the model. However the famous face has to fit, for maximum persuasiveness e.g. we are more likely to be influences by formula one driver being used in car advert or a TV chef being used to sell kitchen utensils than someone who has no connection with the product.
Evaluate the behavioural theory
- Behavioural theories are over-simplistic. They simplify human behaviour (in this case being persuaded by TV adverts) down to on possible explanation - learning this therefore ignores the role of other factors in persuasiveness e.g. attitudes.
- Behavioural theories are also reductionist; they explain complex learning in terms of simple stimulus-response connections.
- Behavioural theories are criticised for seeing human behaviour as mechanistic, that we simply respond to stimuli. They claim that behaviour is determined and that we have no free will over our choices. We may feel that we are making choices about whether or not to respond to advertisements, but this is simply an illusion.
- Behavioural principles have been used in TV advertising for a long time and do work, hence they are still used. This suggests the explanation of why TV persuades us has some validity.
Explain the cognitive theory
The cognitive theory suggests that we are persuaded the TV programme or advert grabs our attention and makes us think about the messaged that are being sent as well as making us remember the information. (all cognitive processes). There are many factors which will affect whether the item attracts our attention:
- Relevance - advertisers make their product stand out to grab our attention. So they will make sure that nothing gets in the way e.g. the music, images, slogans etc.
- Affect - the advertisers draw our attention to pleasant things as this has been shown to attract attention more and aid memory. Although unpleasant things can also be used to good effect e.g. anti-smoking campaigns, driving speed adverts.
- Surprise - we attend to things that our surprising much more than anything else. Surprising information can make memories long-lasting.
- Salience - the larger and more unavoidable a message is the more likely we are to process it’s content.
- Prominence - The advert has to be show in the right order and the right time to grab our attention.
- Visual Cues - The use of colour in adverts is important. Gorn et al - found that people prefer adverts with pastel colours for feeling relaxed and more vibrant colours for excitement and stimulation. Therefore the right colours must be used to achieve the desired effect. Visual images are also used in adverts as they do not require much mental effort and are relatively easy to remember and associate with the product.
- Aural Cues - the use of music in an advert can attract our attention and help us remember the advert. It doesn’t even matter if the music is annoying sometimes we still remember it for this reason.
Evaluate the cognitive theory
- This is a plausible explanation, certainly cognitive processes are involved in helping us to remember adverts and be persuaded by them.
- The cognitive explanation however is only focussing on one possible reason for being persuaded by television - attention and memory, it ignores other factors in persuasion and it is therefore over simplistic.
