Psychology of Advertising

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

"Participatory Observations" and Mood Modulation on Social Media

The "Uses and Gratifications Perspective" is a conceptual structure focusing on the kinds of benefits or utilities audience members report they derive from the media they use. This approach originated with early radio audience research done by Herta Herzog in the late 1930s. She studied why people listen to radio programs.

Since then, this perspective has been applied in turn to each new electronic medium. There is a litany of "uses" and "gratifications" including such as "escape," "surveillance or news," and "value reinforcement." Each new electronic medium has the potential to refine or add to our understanding of a vast field of audience benefits.

When it comes to Facebook, a somewhat recent and highly popular new electronic medium, what are the possible new benefits that users may derive?

Here is a typical kind of posting with follow-up comments found every day on Facebook.

Commonplace happenings are posted and can become the basis for a wider commentary. For a few moments, readers may smile and then add their own responses to what may become an evolving spontaneous narrative.

A simple posting becomes a "participatory observation" with its own narrative structure. This does seem to fit in the broad uses and gratifications category of "value reinforcement." Yet, the lightness of humor appears to bring a unique flavor to this benefit that we might call "Mood Modulation."

For more perspective on the Psychology of Advertising, please see Advertising and the Arc of History.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Emotion and Social Media

Emotional response can play important roles in the motivation to elaborate (think) and the motivation to share.

One of the most admired pieces at this year's Cannes Film Festival was a short social media film called "We Miss You" produced for the World Wildlife Fund.

The film's director, Hanna Maria Heidrich, won the Best Film School Young Director Award. The film was also awarded a Best European Branded Short and Special Jury Award.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Hello There

Electronic media reach across time and place to bring more people closer together than ever before.

This new commercial from TalkTalk, the British broadband company, takes a wonderfully strategic and creative approach to remind us we still need to "reach out."

Friday, May 13, 2011

Viral Involvement

MTV Brazil is bursting balloons to celebrate its 21st year.

MTV always strives to be on the right-hand side of the Wundt Curve. This is a conceptual basis for calibrating human response to creativity to identify the realm of pleasing realization.

In this day and age no organization can be what it was yesterday. Now you have to burst a lot of balloons to stay ahead of the game.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Thoughts, Feeling and Action

Good advertising invites people to think. It is even better when the invitation to think evokes corresponding emotion.

From childhood onward, we learn to associate situations with specific physiological responses. These felt physiological responses are given labels. We call them emotions.

When we feel certain emotions, specific action tendencies may also arise. We may be attracted, or pushed away. That is the basis for employing the Cognitive Theory of Emotion in connection with persuasion.

This 1986 commercial is an effective demonstration of The Cognitive Theory of Emotion. We observe, we think, we feel, we are surprised, and we think again.

As a public service, this commercial places the brand, the Norwegian Red Cross, on the high plain of thought leadership when it comes to caring, altruistic behavior. It enhances its position as the kind of organization people want to support.

This commercial also reminds us of Edward Scripture's original condensation of the field of Psychology as "Thinking, Feeling, and Doing." Scripture's title for one of the original Psychology textbooks (1895) might serve as well for the field of Advertising. Better advertising should invite the audience to think and to feel.

This perspective is worth remembering as we move from the age of the "telephone" to a new frontier of communication capabilities.

Friday, March 11, 2011

Advertising and Polydactyl Cats

Polydactyl cats have a genetic mutation that gives them more than the usual number of toes on their paws.

What if the extra toes became opposable thumbs?

Would these cats turn pages of books and begin to read?

And, would they begin opening milk bottles for themselves?

In the past week, this commercial for Cravendale Milk has garnered over 1 million YouTube viewers.

It directs viewers to become followers and learn more at The Milk Matters website.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Creating Creativity

Easter is just around the corner, four weeks away. This means we will be seeing Cadbury's annual delightful mixed metaphor advertising of rabbits, eggs, and chocolate.

It all started, once upon a time, in the magical creative department of Young & Rubicam, New York.

This early 1980s commercial was the first of the "clucking bunnies."

It demonstrates a fundamental principle of creativity. You can't have a new idea, if you only have one idea. It is the collision of metaphors that gives this work its enduring charm and meaning.