The
T-Mobile ‘Life’s for Sharing’ advertisement is based around a flash-mob in the
middle of London’s Liverpool Street Station, and automatically targets a large
audience by depicting people of varied age, ethnicity and social class coming
together for the performance of an impromptu dace.
Most
apparent, is its use of ‘association’- a landscaping technique whereby the
linking of two events transfers positive or negative feelings associated with one
onto the other. The mobile company parallels itself with the co-operative and positive
flash-mob experience, hence persuading its audience to feel the same way about
their services. The ad focusses on the peoples’ happiness upon being involved
in the dance, with the camera often zooming into smiling faces, and relies
heavily on popular, catchy music to engage its audience. Gerald Gorn conducted a
study based on Pavlov’s ‘Classical Conditioning Theory’ whereby he asked
participants to choose between an exposed (conditioned stimulus) and unexposed (a
possible alternative) neutral product based on their reaction to the music(unconditioned
stimulus) played. He found that when the product was paired with agreeable
music, the participants were far more likely to choose the product exposed to
them than to ask for an alternative; showing how positive feelings towards one
object can produce the same feelings for another object.
The company
practices the ‘soft-sell’ technique effectively, portraying the advert as a
celebration of unifying experience and waiting to reveal its name only at the
very end of the dance, and the accompanying slogan, ‘Life’s for Sharing’
succinctly captures and magnifies the message given through the advert, and
aims to promote itself as a provider of not only service, but of social
consensus. As said by R.Baron, “Messages that do not appear to be designed to
change our attitudes are often more successful…than ones that seem intended to
reach this goal.” (Social
Thought and Social Behaviour 629) and this idea is
further supported by Walster and Festinger’s (1962) findings through their ‘blind-listening’
experiment, where by students were seen to be more influenced by things they
overheard as compared to things they were told.
The
advert also plays on its audience’s emotions for maximum effect.
Baron, Robert
A. "Social Thought and Social Behaviour." Psychology- 5th edition.
Delhi: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2008. 616-657.
J.Gorn, Gerald.
"The Effects of Music in Advertising on Choice Behavior: A Classical
Conditioning Approach." Journal of Marketing, Vol. 46, No. 1 (Winter)
(1982): pp. 94-101.
Walster E. and Festinger, L. "The effectiveness
of 'overheard' persuasive communications." Journal of abnormal and Social
Psychology 65: pp395-402.
This is a well-described and new perspective on an ad posted a few days ago, which highlighted some other aspects of the message.
ReplyDelete