Week 7 - "mindless" influence of advertising

Question 1

“mindless” influence definition

Answer 1

Influence through the manipulation of symbols and the psychology of the individual, and via superficial processing

Question 2

4 Strategies of Influence

Answer 2

Pre-persuasion - Take control of the situation and establish a favourable climate for your message (choosing the context and audience)

Communicator characteristics - Establish a favourable image of yourself (source credibility) eg Cheryl Cole and hair care products, she always has good hair

Message Characteristics - Construct and deliver a message that focuses the audience’s attention and thoughts on exactly what you want them to think about

Emotional Influence - Arouse an emotion and then offer a way of responding to the emotion that just happens to be the desired course of action

Question 3

Devices/Techniques : pre-persuasion and communicator characteristics (3 aspects)

Answer 3

Transfer - using the authority, sanction, or prestige of something or someone respected/admired to gain audience acceptance eg you like/trust Jennifer Anniston so sky advert aims to transfer those feeling to their company and forget the link so you like/trust sky

Plain Folk - presenting oneself as an average person who can understand and empathise with the audience (because if similar experience/background) eg it’s hard to connect with a billionaire

Granfalloon - Exploiting shared category membership eg targeting students

Question 4

Devices : message characteristics (4 aspects)

Answer 4

Testimonial - Offering personal opinion or endorsement (either ones own or from a trusted/admired source) Can be combined with plain folk

Card stacking - Emphasising one side of an issue and repressing another (exploits confirmation bias) eg army recruitment brush over warfare and focus on skills, training etc

Bandwagon - Creating appearance of mass endorsement or consensus of opinion eg ‘over 99 billion people served this year’

Message length = message strength

Repetition - mere exposure effect

Question 5

Devices : emotional influence (4 aspects)

Answer 5

Name calling - Linking a person, idea or object to symbol or words that have a negative emotional charge eg ‘silly whopper that’s a big mac box’

Glittering generalities - Linking a person, idea or object to symbols or words that have a positive emotional charge

Euphemisms - Using bland or mundane words the describe a person, idea or object, with the goal of removing a negative emotional charge, good for embarrassing topics eg bloating not farty

Fear appeals - Exploiting risk aversion