Would you plan cremation for your children?!

Here is an awful example of association. Definitely, viewers fail to link the concept that a young girl will grow up soon with the concept of planning cremation. The topic of death can be considered as one of those people would like to avoid. Seeing an advertisement relate death with a growing-up young girl enhance uncomfortable feeling of audience.

However, it could be improved by using proper 

'landscaping

'technique. The cognitive biases towards decoys was first identified by Tyszka (1977). Figure 1 displays that by including a decoy in a choice set makes other options appear superior in comparison and thus increase the likelihood to be chosen

Figure .1.

The study by Pratkanis and Aronson (2001) investigates persuasive tactic by establish a favourable climate of influence. They presented object A which is better on A-ness and worse on B-ness than B while object B is exactly the opposite. Participants were asked to choose either A or B. With the present of subject D as a decoy ( with more A -ness than B but less than subject A, and same level of B-ness as compared to subject A), the probably of selecting A over B has been increased. Thus including decoy within in recommendation can be consider as effective persuasive strategy.

In this particular campaign, St Louise could recommend  option A as "direct cremation", option B as "traditional bury funeral" and option D as "cremation with services " which  is environmental -friendly as option A against option B, still less cost effective compared with option A.

Reference

Pratkanis, A.R.,& Aronson, E. (2001). Age of propaganda (2nd en.). New York: Holt.

Tyszka, T., 1977, ' The Principle of Choice in Conditions of Total and Partial Ignorance', Polish Psychological Bulletin 8, 137-144.