Explanations of the persuasiveness of TV advertising

Term
1 / 8
Hard and Soft sell advertising
Click the card to flip 👆
Terms in this set (8)
Hard and Soft sell advertising
Hard sell = presenting factual information about product
Soft sell = using more subtle and creative techniques
Study found that both had different effects on different people, people who scored highly on a self-monitoring test (high image conscious) had more favourable attitudes to soft sell adverts and people who scored low (less image conscious) preferred hard sells
Support for hard and soft sell
Okazaki et al (2010) found that because hard sell focussed on the facts, they were more believable to the viewers, However, soft sell generates more positive emotions towards the product and the persuasion of the hard sell decreases as it irritates viewers by being direct and confrontational
Product endorsement
Fowles (1996) estimates that 20% of TV adverts uses celeb endorsement
Giles (2003) suggests that celebs provide a familiar face and is a reliable source of information that we can trust because of parasocial rels
HOWEVER, another study suggested that celeb endorsement was not regarded as overly convincing
Against product endorsement
Martin et al (2008) found that students were more convinced by a fictional fellow student when buying a camera than a celeb as people want a product that is seen as fashionable in their group, rather than a celeb
Hume (1992) found that from 5000 TV adverts, celeb endorsement did not significantly increase the persuasiveness of the advert
Children/Pester Power
Martin (1997) found a strong positive correlation between age and understanding of persuasive intent - older children could discriminate between adverts and programmes and understood the persuasive Internet of the advert and trusted them less
It is widely accepted that adverts for young children increases the degree to which they pester their parents for a product -Pine and Nash found a positive strong correlation between the amount of adverts watched and advertised items on children's letters to Santa
Against pester power
It is difficult to establish a direct link between exposure to adverts and consumer behaviour in children because so many other factors come into play, e.g peer influences and parental mediation
IDA - cultural bias
Pine and Nash (2001) found that in Sweden TV adverts aimed at under 12s have been banned and subsequently found that less items on Swedish children's letter to Santa than American children's letters to Santa - although there may be other reasons for this cultural difference, Pine and Mash suggested there was a strong evidence that it was the lack of advertising
IDA - gender bias
In adverts men are typically seen in stereotypical roles of authority and dominance (usually an expert) and when shown in nontraditional roles, e.g cooking, they are shown as incompetent - reinforces the traditional view of women as wives and as a result, these adverts promote gender stereotyping and bias