Psych 586: Psychology of PersuasionAdvertising

Professor: Icek Aizen

Office: Tobin 625

Email: aizen@psych.umass.edu

Tel: 545.0509

USA Today’s “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.

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.

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: McDonald’s and other fast-food chains. Consumerism: Promotion of spending. Advantage to large companies with big advertising

budgets … ?

Pepsi Campaign (ca. 1990)

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1992

Pepsi-Cola Plans Big Effort To Exploit ‘Uh-huh’ ThemeAs 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."

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.”

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 person’s life style.

Lannon & Cooper: Cultural context – advertising is effective if it reflects the shared meaning in a social group or society.

Models of Advertising Effectiveness: Price of Product

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Models of Advertising Effectiveness: Advertising Weight (Number Ads, Advertising Budget)

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

Peripheral Route?

Central Route?

Subliminal Persuasion? Democrats See, and Smell, Rats in G.O.P. Ad

Sept. 2000: Republican TV commercial criticizing Al Gore’s prescription drug plan: “bureaucRATS decide” …

Theories of Buying Behavior

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

Theory of Buyer Behavior(Howard & Sheth, 1969)

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).

Theory of Planned Behavior Applied to Buying Product X

BehavioralBeliefs About

BuyingProduct X

NormativeBeliefs About

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Correlation Between Brand Attitudes and Buying Attitudes (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1980)

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BuyingAttitude TowardBuying in Next 3

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Ford .82* .58*

Volkswagen .78* .59*

Chevrolet .75* .30*

Mercedes .28* –.01

Jaguar –.04 –.31*

Correlations Between Attitudes and Buying Intentions (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1980)

Intention to Buy Intention to Buy inNext 3 Years

BrandBrand

attitudeBuyingattitude

Brandattitude

Buyingattitude

Ford .58 .63 .45 .73

Volkswagen .62 .74 .58 .44

Chevrolet .46 .72 .29 .73

Mercedes .09 .53 .01 .51

Jaguar .00 .45 –.11 .44

Mean Attitudes Toward Ad and Toward Brand(Madden & Ajzen, 1991)

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Postmessage Attitudes Toward Edge Disposable Razors (Petty, Cacioppo, & Schumann, 1983)

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Postmessage Intentions to Buy OMEGA 3 Pen

(Huddleston, 1985)

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?!!?

Century Buick

Ford

Dodge Intrepid