This advert by Harvey Nichols has tried to use humour and
jeer pressure to promote their summer sale. However, it comes across as
distasteful by suggesting that women will end up wetting themselves in
excitement. This was undoubtedly very insulting to many women who the advert
was aimed at.
The intended use of humour was aimed at increasing persuasion
for people to attend their sale event. This is supported by research by O’Quinn
and Aronoff (1981) whereby participants completed a bargaining table type task
where a ‘buyer’ and ‘seller’ had to agree on a price of a painting.
Participants were always assigned the role of the ‘buyer’. The participants received
an influence attempt from a confederate in either a humorous (where they were
told by the ‘seller’: “my final offer is $___, and I’ll throw in my pet frog”) or
non-humorous way (where they were told by the ‘seller’: “my final offer is
$___”). The results showed that humour led to a more positive evaluation and an
increase in compliance.
In addition, perhaps the creators of the advert were trying
to use jeer pressure to persuade their audience to attend the sale. This is
shown by Steele (1975) who had a confederate either be insulting, praising or
neutral towards a participant during a discussion containing a request. The
participant was insulted via name-calling and this was shown to increase
compliance for the request.
Although these two tactics seem to be effective in
increasing persuasion, it is likely to have backfired with this advert
considering the somewhat offensive way in which it was applied. Therefore, it
could be improved by using the similarity altercast and portraying these women as
being glamorous and sophisticated, which other women will want to be like, and
therefore will be likely to attend the sale in order to achieve this.
O’Quinn, K. & Aronoff, J. (1981). Humor as a technique
of social influence. Social Psychology
Quarterly, 44, 349-357.
Steele, C. M. (1975). Name-calling and compliance. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 31, 361-369.
Nice. And the O'Quinn research is very interesting.
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