PROPAGANDA FOR CHANGE is a project created by the students of Behaviour Change (ps359) and Professor Thomas Hills@thomhills at the Psychology Department of the University of Warwick. This work was supported by funding from Warwick's Institute for Advanced Teaching and Learning.
Vince Gilligan, creator of Breaking Bad, said that his goal with Walter White was to turn Mr. Chips into Scarface. Take a regular person, like you—assume you’re regular for a second—and then make you nice and evil, like a witch in a gingerbread house. Is that really even possible? Could you become another Walter White? In this post at Psychology Today, I describe some of the psychological reasons that make this easier than it looks. Most importantly, they almost all apply to work in the persuasion and influence literature.
Saturday, June 29, 2013
A humorous and excellent message about heart disease and women from the American Heart Association (actress: Elizabeth Banks).
This advertisement by Hovis, a UK brand of flour and bread, was
released in 2008 and used powerful storytelling to evoke strong emotions in the
viewers by documenting the 122 years of British history since the brands
launch.
Storytelling as an influential technique is used very effectively
in the advert in which it tells the tale of a boy buying a loaf of bread and witnessing
key moments of British history as he makes his way back home. Evidence for this technique
comes from Harris (2008), who demonstrated that higher levels of story in an
adverts message can lead to higher levels of response in Self-referencing processing measures as well as likability and ad-induced
brand interest.
The advert by taking the viewer through time in British history illustrates
how ‘Hovis’ has always been a British
product and has been there for its consumers in both good times and during
hardship. This association of their brand with British history inspires
feelings of patriotism in the consumer and will encourage them to buy domestic goods,
in this case, Hovis bread. Research by Han (1988), found that ‘patriotic
emotion’ had a significant effect on purchase intent, in his study 212 consumers were asked to evaluate 2 categories of
domestic and foreign-made products, 116 TVs and 96 automobiles. It was found
that patriotic emotion led to purchase intent being greater for domestic
products than foreign-made products.
Han, C.
M. (1988). The role of consumer patriotism in the choice of domestic versus
foreign products. Journal of Advertising Research, 28(3), 25-32.
Harris,
M. A. B. (2008). Getting carried away: Understanding memory and consumer
processing of perceived storytelling in advertisements. Dissertation
Abstracts International Section A: Humanities and Social Sciences, 68,
3197-3197.
This Spanish beer ‘’Estrella Damn’’ advertisement uses the story of a
young man in an idyllic and enviable holiday to discretely introduce the
product. As the man travels through amazing sites and meets beautiful friends,
the act of drinking an ‘’Estrella Damn’’ beer is highlighted as the perfect connection
between all events and people. The attractiveness technique can be observed not
only in the main character of the storyline and the women that surround him (DeBono
& Telesca, 1990); but also in the storyline itself, set in the beautiful context
of Serra de Tramuntana in Mallorca (a world
heritage site).
Also
an unforgettable background song makes the viewers’ remember the advertisement and
thus the product.Alexomanolaki,
Loveday and Kennett (2006) show in their study that music is indeed a competent
method of facilitating implicit learning and recall of the advertised product.
In order to test this hypothesis they carried out a series of experiments with
both musicians and non-musician subjects.
In the experiment an unknown advert was
included along three other adverts and in the middle of a television show. The
target advert was produced in four different audio versions: jingle; music and voiceover;
instrumental music; and sound effects and voiceover (which functioned as the
control version). Later, an overall memory test for the television show, an indirect
and a direct memory test fort the product were completed. Results from the indirect memory test show that all
groups selected more words that were related to the target advert; meanwhile
the control group chose more amount of neutral words. The experiment concluded that both
musicians and non-musicians, under non-attentive conditions, have reinforced
perception of the advert because of the music. DeBono, K.G, Telesca, C. (1990). The Influence of Source Physical
Attractiveness on Advertising Effectiveness: A Functional Perspective, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, pp.
1383–1395.
Alexomanolaki, M., Loveday,
C. & Kennett, C. (2006). Music and Memory in advertising; Music as a device
of implicit learning and recall, ICMPC-ESCOM, pp. 1190-1198.
Created by: Charlotte Hoyland Margaret Olaniyan Deborah Willis Reference: Vanden Auweele, Y., Rzewnicki, R., & Van Mele, V. (1997). Reasons for not exercising and exercise intentions: A study of middle-aged sedentary adults. Journal of sports sciences, 15, 151-165
Created and edited by: Hafsa Imran Junaina Pribhai Piya Samtani Actors: Junaina Pribhai as victim Guneet Kahai as father Shiv Goel as boyfriend Piya Samtani as sister References:
Women's College Hospital. (1995). Canadian women's health test. Toronto.
Very often we see people begging in the street. Very
different ways of begging can be observed, such as playing instruments, using
kids/animals/ disabilities, plain begging or in some cases humor. In the link
above we can observe several examples of begging using humor to attract
attention and increase possibility of a donation.
An empirical study from Geuens and Pelsmacker (2002)
provides evidence that using humor in persuasive messages does increase
positive affect towards the advertised product. There were
510 participants in this study and both humorous and non-humorous advertising
stimuli were used to show that humor has a positive impact on the attitudes of
both high and low Need For Cognition-individuals, but that attitude formation
takes place in different way. In individuals low in NFC a direct effect of
humor on attitudes is found, while for individuals high in NFC and indirect
influence via biased cognition is found.
Eight fictitious advertisements were made in four
different products: paper handkerchiefs (low in involvement, informational
product) insurance (high in involvement, informational product) a snack (low in
involvement, transformational product) and holidays (high in involvement,
transformational product). Two versions were used: humorous with slogans and
pictures, and non-humorous just with slogans. Perceived humor, need for
cognition and attitudes towards ad were all measured. Need for cognition didn’t
exert any influence on number of positive ad cognitions but high
NFC-individuals did have more negative cognitions towards ad. Use of humor had
a positive impact on all affective responses increasing the number of positive
cognitions towards ads and decreasing the number of negative ones.
The results from this experiment could be also relevant for begging, as the
humor would increase the positive response towards the person and hence the
possibility of the passerby giving money.
Reference
Geuens,
M. &De Pelsmacker, P. (2002). The
role of humor in the Persuasion of individuals varying in need for cognition. Advances in Consumer
Research, Volume 29, pp 51-55.
This is a scene from the 2004 film Troy in which Achilles motivates and persuades his soldiers to defend the honour of Greece.
Firstly, he uses the pronoun 'we' to include himself amongst his soldiers even though he is their leader. Using 'we' has been found to bring the speaker closer to the audience and therefore increase the speaker's credibility and how engaging they are to the audience (Fuertes-Olivera et al., 2001).
Secondly, he uses a metaphor to describe himself and his warriors as 'lions'. Bowers & Osborn (1966) conducted a study to explore whether metaphors are more effective in persuasive messages at changing attitudes than literal speech. They used persuasive speeches as stimulus materials and participants heard two speeches, one containg metaphors and one completely literal. They were then tested on their attitude change towards each of the speeches as well as describing which one they favored more. The researchers found that participants the metaphorical speech brought about more attitude change (in the direction suggested by the speech) than the literal speech. Participants also favored the metaphorical speech more.
Finally, he calls his warriors 'brothers of sword'. This speaker technique of liking the audience to yourself is the similarity altercast. This allows the audience to positively identify with the speaker thus increasing the speaker's credibility in the eyes of the audience (Hecht, 1984).
References
Bowers, J., & Osborn, M. (1966). Attitudinal effects of selected types of concluding metaphors in persuasive speeches. Speech Monographs, 33, 147-155.
Fuertes-Olivera, P., Velasco-Sacristán, M., Arribas-Baño, A., & Samaniego-Fernández, E. (2001). Persuasion and advertising in English: Metadiscourse in slogans and headlines. Journal of Pragmatics, 33, 1291-1307.
Hecht, M. (1984). Persuasive efficacy: A study of the relationships among type and degree of change,
Mermidons , My brothers of sword , I would rather fight beside u than the army of thousands Let no Men forget How menacing we are , WE are Lions , U know whats their Waiting Beyond that beach , Immortality take it , ITS YOURS :)
Saturday, March 23, 2013
Another interesting example of Pictorial analogy template :)
This is the story of a woman escaping North Korea from brainwashing and torture. Found it informative for Lecture 5, the one on brainwashing. Really short as well, which is a bonus :)
http://www.ted.com/talks/hyeonseo_lee_my_escape_from_north_korea.html
Here the shop is offering the customer not only an xbox 360 but also a game, all for one price, this is an example of product bundling. Product bundling is a marketing strategy that involves offering several products for sale as one combined product. Bundling offers benefits to the customer and the business. Business benefits:
When effective, a product bundling strategy can significantly increase profits on individual sales and over time. Selling multiple products or components in one package means a greater initial return on the costs of acquiring a customer. Some companies use bundling as a way to package less popular products with hot selling items. You can also create longer-term opportunities for add-on sales when you get multiple products in a customer's hands.
Customer benefits:
Customers often prefer to achieve a cluster of satisfactions through one purchase. People buy products to solve problems or address needs. If a customer has multiple needs and your product bundle addresses most or all of them, this is convenient for the customer. They can make one stop instead of multiple stops. Additionally, customers often experience economies of scale when buying a bundle of products. If they have a need for the individual components in the bundle, they typically understand that the total price is lower when the products are purchased as a bundle.
In an study done by Burger (1986) using 426 participants, one of the seven experiments looked at whether by offering the participant one deal, then later offering them a better deal, in this case by adding an extra product, increased sales. He found that by offering an extra product he was effective at convincing the participants to agree to the offer.
BURGER, J.M., 1986. Increasing compliance by improving the deal: The that's-not-all technique. Journal of personality and social psychology, 51(2), pp. 277-283.
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Now we can all look like a Victoria’s Secret Model.
It’s getting to that time of year again, after Easter, when
everyone starts their summer ‘diet plan’. Like a New Year’s resolution, there’s
a surge of exercise DVDs to help us get that summer body we’ve always dreamed
of and best of all, we can achieve it in just a few weeks by following said DVD
exercise plan. But how do these DVDs sell so well, when we could just take the
stairs instead of the lift, walk to the shops rather than drive and eat our 5 a
day?
Many celebrities have started producing exercise DVDs such
as The Pussycat Dolls, Martine McCutcheon, and even now the Victoria’s Secret
DVD. Many persuasive techniques can be seen in these DVDs to encourage us to
buy them, and let’s be honest, probably never use them.
Firstly, the high status- admirer altercast, and the
physically attractive-admirer altercast are both used. These work with
particular reference to exercise DVDs as people who buy them are conscious of
their appearance. The high status-admirer altercast works because people tend
to admire celebrities and have a desire to be like them. Weick, Gilfillan and
Keith (1793) found that orchestras made fewer mistakes when the music was
attributed to a high status composer.
Flattery is also a major part of exercise DVDs. Throughout
the ‘workout’ the instructor tells you how well you’re doing, and pushes you to
do just ‘one more set of crunches’. Hendrick et al (1972) found that flattery
increased compliance with a request to complete a 7 page questionnaire,
compared to control condition. Throughout the DVD you’re constantly encouraged
by the idea that at the end of this you’ll end up looking like a Victoria’s
Secret model, unfortunately, most of us probably won’t stick it out long enough
to see it if works.
