Advertising Tricks On The Human Mind

Advertising tricks on the human mind – Mitchell 11E (Word count: 1029)

We are but mere victims of advertisements. It is nearly impossible for a seller to achieve global recognition towards his/her merchandise without the use of advertisements. They are in fact, essential for the prime success of a product. The 21st century as we know is an age transformed with creative and diverse media platforms that allow each ad to be unique and innovational. Having this said, prominent use of advertisements have affected the way we humans think.

The main purpose of an advertisement is to persuade people, thus the sort of impression it leaves on our minds towards the product greatly depends on the ad. Should an advertisement fail to capture our interest, we wouldn’t bother checking it out. It shapes a product’s image.

Presently, advertisements are shown on both paper and electronic platforms. It is vital for the advertisement to appeal to target customers, for it ultimately decides the product’s triumph or downfall. As customers, we are exposed to all kinds of alluring ads and for the most, end up investing in that product based on the blind trust on the ad. This can either go both ways; firstly, the product actually lives up to our expectations or secondly, is just another tricky instance of advertising with a disappointing product. Has this ever happened to you?

Ever looked at a fresh, delicious, juicy pizza picture and purchased it only to find a-day-old, and humid slice handed to you? This sort of incident, I’m sure has occurred once to everybody and is the price we pay for blindly trusting images. the product actually lives up to our expectations or secondly, is just another tricky instance of advertising with a disappointing product. Of course, if a product based on its false advertisement disappoints us, it could give the company a poor image. However, this has not stopped advertisements from letting us down.

I observed that price provides quality and satisfaction. No matter how compelling a product seems to be on a picture, if it is “affordable”, it is likely to disappoint us one way or another. Whereas, an esteemed company which places premium quality on its products and spares no expense is less likely to provide us a letdown product. Some people like to pay premium prices for premium products, whereas some prefer value for money, even though it is not a top-of-the-line product.

The human mind is a very gullible organ, and sellers depend on that emotional factor in order to thrive at our expense. Advertisements are tricky, and good ads are sure to trigger some sort of emotion within us, whether that may be rational, emotional or moral appeals. Rational appeals are targeted at business people, and connect on a level of logic and reasoning. This type of advertisement will be used on people who are analytic, conscious and not easily deceived.

On the emotional aspect, there are both negative and positive appeals. Positive appeals affect our positive emotions, such as joy, love and humor whilst negative appeals play on our guilt, fear and shame. Such emotional appeal is commonly used in ads that relate to alcohol, life insurance, cigarettes, and charity ads; and for the most part, actually works. These emotions are triggered in our mind and create an impulse for us to take some sort of action.

Another effective, common technique used in advertising is the use of product popularity; also known as bandwagon, where the product is shown to be so in trend that we are compelled to at the least, try out the product. A good advertiser will only provide information that would appeal to us. This is sensible, because an advertiser wouldn’t specify its product defects. Besides, the more near flawless the product seems to us, the more persuaded we are. They simply provide us all the goodness the product has to offer, not the features it’s missing out on. This technique works on some unsuspecting customers. As humorist and columnist Will Rogers once said, “Let advertisers spend the same amount of money improving their product that they do on advertising and they wouldn’t have to advertise it.”

Curiosity, interest and excitement are amongst the things that we feel when a new product is being introduced. If an advertiser successfully employs these into an advertisement, chances are people will opt for the product. Furthermore, advertisements play on the human trait of never-ending satisfaction. It takes a certain strong-willed person to be able to withstand a good advertisement. For instance, words and phrases such as “slimmer”, “more powerful”, “tastier” will be used in an advertisement effectively to assure us that what we have is not good enough, and that we should purchase their improved product.

Using clean, shiny pictures and catchy phrases provides a presentable, approachable look to its product and gives a sense of quality to it. Sometimes, advertisers use stereotypical notions to encourage the consumption of a product. A famous example is the Marlboro cowboy man, a masculine and bold figure that promotes smoking. Though we know that smoking is harmful, with such an enticing figure such as the Marlboro man, we are manipulated into thinking that it’s cool and masculine to smoke, and thus we men be influenced to smoke.

Although the human mind works in many ways, most people will fall for the carefully planned, emotion-tapping advertisement. Ads may play on our guilt, happiness, grief, passion, and anger, and drive us crazy and bold enough to invest in the product out of curiosity or whatever it may be. Many techniques are used in an advertisement to ensure that our mind is meddled with, which is proven to be an effective way of encouraging people to purchase products. We may or may not know of this, it’s a good thing that most people do their research before purchasing with the big bucks, its more likely the little things that we purchase that disappoint us more, and yet in some cases it’s the pricey ones. As customers, we are entitled to proper information, and we should get what we pay for, not more and certainly not less. We allow ads to affect us emotionally and persuade us to favor the product shown because we want to believe in the existence of such an amazing product. Without advertisements however, we would not acknowledge the existence of many great product. Besides, everybody loves a good advertisement.