I came across this advert after I searched ‘bad
advertisement’ on Google. As you can see, Dettol tried to link an extreme
situation with an outcome of not using their product. However, this scenario is
too dramatic, unusual, and even unethical, which may mislead the youth and the
advert itself is not so effective. One improvement would be to use credible
source to stress the importance and effectiveness by using this product.
Chaiken and Maheswaran (1994) conducted an experiment on the
effect of source credibility on attitude judgment with reference to the
heuristic-systematic theoretical framework. Participants
were told that they would read and give their opinions about a new telephone
answering machine, and then they read a booklet that conveyed the task
importance, source credibility, and message type manipulations. Finally, they
completed a questionnaire on their attitudes towards this telephone machine. As
shown in the figure below, under low task importance, heuristic processing of the
credibility cue was the sole determinant of participants’ attitudes, regardless
of argument ambiguity or strength. When task importance was high and message
content was unambiguous, systematic processing alone determined attitudes when
this content contradicted the validity of the credibility heuristic; when
message content did not contradict this heuristic, systematic and heuristic
processing determined attitudes independently. Finally, when task importance
was high and message content was ambiguous, heuristic and systematic processing
again both influenced attitudes. These findings suggest that source credibility
affected persuasion partly through its impact on the valence of systematic
processing, confirming that heuristic processing can bias systematic processing
when evidence is ambiguous. Therefore, the effect of credible source is
considerable in heuristic processing on which most commercials aim to exert an
impact.
In the case of Dettol, a statement by a biological professional
or a leader of health campaign (maybe accompanying with a statistical figure)
would be a more effective way to promote their products.
Reference:
Chaiken,
S., & Maheswaran, D. (1994). Heuristic processing can bias systematic
processing: effects of source credibility, argument ambiguity, and task
importance on attitude judgment. Journal
of personality and social psychology, 66(3),
460.
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