Nestle Cereal

This advertisement by Nestle uses ‘self-generated persuasion’. The subtle message allows for the audience to generate their own argument and reasons for eating whole grain cereals. So the audience end up persuading themselves to buy these products containing whole grain.

This has been shown by Lewin’s (1947) experiment whereby he persuaded housewives to serve sweetbreads. They were either given a lecture containing persuasive messages which informed them of why they should serve sweetbreads, or they were required to go through a decision-making process for themselves to develop reasons of their own for serving sweetbreads. The results showed that those who generated their own reasons for this choice were much more likely to serve sweetbreads compared with those who were just told about the values of serving them. This is likely to be because those who persuaded themselves through self-generated reasons had a greater degree of involvement in the decision while still feeling that they had the freedom to make the choice for themselves.

Lewin, K. (1947). Group decision and social change. In T. M. Newcomb & E. L. Hartley (Eds.), Readings in social psychology (pp. 330-344). New York: Holt.