ch 13

ethics

Advertising does not coerce consumers, defenders remind us; instead, ads and online promotions merely give people what they want. On a macro level, advertising keeps the engines of the free market economy rolling. But what if company executives who know tobacco or fantasy sports have addictive effects continue to aggressively market their products, placing the profit margin ahead of the health of vulnerable consumers? When does business bear responsibility for ads that exert harmful effects? What helps persuaders may not always be advantageous for individuals.

association in advertising

why things—material objects with no inherent value—acquire powerful meanings in consumers' eyes

Sublimal Advertising and debunking myth

there is little evidence to support the claim that subliminal ads influence attitudes or behavior =one that includes a brief, specific message (picture, words, or sounds) that cannot be perceived at a normal level of conscious awareness.

if low-involvement, how do we get their attention?

-celebrities -For low-involved consumers, number of Facebook "likes" can function as a cue suggesting that the product is appealing, with the quantity of "likes" acting as a surrogate indicator that the product is worthy of consideration.

3 theories to explain association

1. classical conditioning -pavlov, pairing one thing to a good/bad thing 2. semiotics -symbols --social and cultural meaning 3. accessibility --the more exposure consumers have to advertisements that plant the association between a product and image, the more they can quickly get in touch with their attitude when they are trying to decide which

mere exposure and why does it work and when does it work

According to the theory, all that is necessary is repetition. The more frequently an individual is exposed to a novel object, the more favorably he or she evaluates it. -cognitive: messages are easier to process and encode when they have been seen or heard before -people attribute higher credibility to messages they repeatedly receive -the pleasures that come from increased familiarity with an advertisement. According to this view, the first exposure brings an uncomfortable sense of unfamiliarity as different cognitive responses compete for attention. Over time, one settles in on a particular reaction and the ensuring calm is pleasant. - it works best for neutral products and issues -once people have developed an especially negative attitude toward a product, company, or politician, repetition cannot change the attitude.In fact, it may have the opposite effect, producing more negative affect -mere exposure works only up to a certain point. After a certain number of exposures, repetition leads to boredom/wearout

product placement

Product placements are similar to advertisements in that they are paid attempts to influence consumers. unlike advertising, which identifies the sponsor explicitly, product placements do not indicate that a sponsor has paid for the placement of a product into the media program.

five reasons why one should not expect subliminally transmitted messages to influence consumer attitudes or behavior:

■ There is little documented evidence that subliminal messages are embedded in advertisements. Claims that ads are subliminal frequently confuse subliminal and supraliminal messages. Yes, ads have plenty of sex—but it is right out there on the surface, arousing, appealing, and associated with the product. Sexual appeals are not inherently subliminal. YouTube videos that purport to show subliminal effects can be cleverly photoshopped. Why would advertisers include a sexual message in an advertisement, knowing their actions could be unmasked, publicized, and ridiculed on Twitter? ■ People have different thresholds for conscious awareness of stimuli. To influence a mass audience, a subliminal message would have to be so discreetly beamed that it reached those with normal thresholds of awareness without catching the "attention" of those who are exquisitely sensitive to such stimuli. This would be difficult, ■ There is no guarantee that consumers "see" or interpret the message in the manner that advertisers intend. (For example, "Drink Coca-Cola" and "Eat popcorn" moved so quickly across the screen that some moviegoers may have seen "Stink Coke" or "Beat popcorn." This could have had the opposite impact on some viewers.) ■ For a subliminal message to influence attitudes, it must, at the very least, command the viewer's absolute attention. not so likely to occur in the real world. People are frequently distracted or doing other things when they watch TV, or are second screening on their mobile devices, switching from one platform to another. ■ Let me be clear: it is possible that a subliminal message could be perceived on a subconscious level but soon after the picture is processed, it is apt to be overwhelmed by the more powerful images or sounds depicted in the advertisement—the obvious beauty of a mountain scene. These attention-grabbing pictures and sounds will swamp the subliminal embed. Just because a message is "in" an ad does not mean it gets "inside" consumers for very long—or at all. After all, if subliminal persuasion were this easy, subliminals would be in every ad