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PERSUASION POWER OF MEDIA
AND CONSUMING BEHAVIOR
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The main aim is persuasion but first aim is
taking attention

Yale professor Carl Hovland and his
colleagues (1949) systematically studied
on what makes a message persuasive?
Persuasion

Media and persuasive messages
◦ “America’s Liberation of Iraq” vs “America’s
Invasion of Iraq”

Propaganda / Education
◦ When we believe in the persuasion we call it
education, when we don’t “propaganda”
What Paths Lead to Persuasion?

Central route to persuasion
◦ When people are motivated and able to think about
an issue they focus on arguments
◦ If arguments are strong and compelling persuasion is
likely.

Peripheral route to persuasion
◦ When strength of the arguments doesn’t matter
 Ex: Advertisements (e.g. the use of celebrities)

More indirect ways of persuasion:
◦ In a mall, hearing German music might lead
consumers to German wine, whereas, others
who heard French music reached for French
wine (North & others, 1997).
The Elements of Persuasion

The communicator
◦ Credibility
◦ Attractiveness and Liking

Credibility: perceived expertise and
trustworthiness
◦ Ex: Fast Talking
 In a study by Miller and colleagues (1976), people
who listened to tape-recorded messages rated fast
speakers (about 190 words per minute) as more
objective, intelligent, and knowledgeable than slow
speakers (about 110 words per minute).

Attractiveness and Liking
◦ Physical
◦ Similarity: we tend to like people who are
similar to us.

Psychology is at the heart of
advertising
◦ Manipulation
◦ Persuasion
◦ Decision making

However, the two fields are
independent from each other

PSYCHOLOGICAL APPEALS
(ATTRACTIONS) IN ADVERTISING
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Informational Appeals
Emotional Appeals
Patriotic Appeals
Achievement, Success, and Power Appeals
Humorous Appeals

THE EFFECTS OF ADVERTISING
◦ Perceptual/Cognitive effects
◦ Behavioral/Attitudinal effects

Perceptual/Cognitive Effects
◦ Sensation vs Perception
◦ The first step of perception is attention
(remember Hovland’s model)
◦ The other steps include information
processing.
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Comprehension
Evaluating the message
Encoding the information
Retrieving the information
Decision making
Behavioral output
◦ A controversial subject: Subliminal
perception / subliminal advertising
 depends on Iconic Memory
 We are able to recall more than we consciously
perceive
 However, perception and recalling does not
guarantee persuasion

Subliminal Advertising:
◦ Traditional advertising vs internet
advertising (pop-ups, spam e-mails)
◦ Using sexual appeals as tools of classical
conditioning
◦ Moore (1982) found that subliminal
information affects the emotions about the
product not the behaviors

Attitudinal /Behavioral Effects
◦ Looking beyond cognition
 Buying as a behavior must be considered
 Individual differences in attitudes toward selling
products
 Gender, age, ethnic differences
 Current self / ideal self / possible selves

Consumer behavior is directly related
with how the advertisement is created.
◦ called Rhetoric Effects

Product Endorsement:
◦ Using celebrities to promote advertised
goods

Main function of celebrities in
advertisements:
◦ Creating trust toward the product

Creating unique characters for brands
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Intertextual advertising

Product Placement:
◦ Product is placed within the movie or
show (Ex: Truman Show)

ADVERTISING, CHILDREN AND
ADOLESCENTS
◦ We don’t born as consumers but grow as
consumers
◦ Even infants are targets of advertisements
 Brand loyalty starts in early ages

Consumer Behavior Across Development
◦ Infancy and Toddlerhood
 Infants feel desires and display preferences for
certain types of tastes, odors, images, colors and
sounds.
 Toddlers between 18 and 24 months are capable of
asking for products by name and also can recognize
products in the store that they had previously seen
on TV.
◦ Consuming behavior is directly related
with cognitive maturation.
◦ Therefore, it’s becoming more and more
complex in time.
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Preschool times:
◦ Children develop a general sense of likes and
dislikes
◦ They show preferences for specific branches.
 Ex: Mc Donalds
 Robinson and colleagues (2007) demonstrated that when
covered by McDonald’s packaging, healthy foods (i.e. carrots
or milk) were tasted better to preschoolers

Parent-child conflict during store visits
peaks during this stage of consumer
behavior.
◦ Temper Tantrums
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Early and Middle Childhood
◦ Children start to make independent
preferences
◦ They can persuade the parents more
effectively
◦ However, they are not aware of persuasive
intent of advertisements
◦ END RESULT is being more vulnerable to
marketing campaigns
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Adolescence
◦ Adolescents understand that the
advertisements are done to persuade the
people to buy the things.
◦ However, knowing does not guarantee a
parallel behavior.
◦ The role of peers
 Attempts to “fit in”
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Modern Children and Consuming Culture
◦ Materalism: refers to the importance that
people place on their possessions to define
themselves
◦ Materalistic youth are buying more goods and
also are influenced more by marketing
promotions (Chaplin & John, 2007)
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Numerous correlational and experimental
studies have shown that youth become
increasingly materalistic as they watch
more and more advertisements.
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The effect of family relations:
◦ In comparison to less materalistic youth,
materalistic children and adolescents tend to
have materalistic parents and ineffective
parent-child communication.
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Is materalism related with low selfesteem?
◦ Objects as compensating values
◦ Social significance of products: Adolescents
recognize how their possessions influence the
way their peers perceive them.
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The values are changing:
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Having lots of money
Helping other people
Having lots of fun and good times
Helping to reduce hunger and poverty in the
world
◦ Being popular or well-liked
◦ Helping to make the world a better place to
live.