Psychology of Advertising: February 2012

Monday, February 6, 2012

What Advertising Can Be

On Super Sunday 2012 Fiat introduced us to the future of the muscle car.

Now, Detroit has been using sex appeal to sell cars for a very long time.

But, the metaphorical power of this wonderfully conceived and produced commercial reinvents advertising to car enthusiasts, and in so doing paves the way for the kinds of muscle cars the future may allow.

Despite all the hoopla about popularity polls, this is the 2012 Super Bowl any creative person would want to have on their reel. The commercial was done by the Dallas-based Richards Group.

Important Readings For You

Eighmey's journal articles on Internet advertising place him among the 10 most widely cited on the subject. His path-making article "Profiling User Responses to Commercial Websites" (see Journal of Advertising Research, March 1997) has been cited in more than 783 scholarly articles and books.

For a conceptual and data-driven analysis of youth values and the propensity to act on values, read Eighmey's article "Why Do Youth Enlist? Identification of Underlying Themes" in Armed Forces & Society, Vol. 32, No. 2, (January, 2006).

Read "Harlow Gale and the Origins of the Psychology of Advertising" in the Journal of Advertising, December 2007 for historical perspective.

For the big picture read "The Psychology of Persuasion: Perspectives for Theory, Research and Application in a Diverse World." A book co-authored with Osei Appiah and published by Cognella, 2011.

For 450 print ads that bring to life Advertising and American History, scroll down to the link featuring the original ad for Oreo cookies. Why not check out all the other links, too.