Persuasive Advertising Techniques

Would you agree if I say that companies, or rather advertisers use strategies to persuade people into buying certain products? It's not an unknown or unnatural concept; it is true and it happens all the time. Persuasive advertising techniques are what that keeps a company in the eyes of people, those who make a decision about purchasing or rejecting certain products. Advertising has now become a multi-billion dollar industry which has only one goal in mind: persuade people to buy the products they are offering. Spending millions of dollars, countless hours, and enormous effort, the industry has come up with the best strategies for people, just like you and me, into doing exactly what they want.

When we talk about persuasive techniques in advertising, what I mean are the tools which help advertisers gain the attention of public. Whether it is specifically towards an age, race, sex, or religion demographic, these tools help in engaging people's minds, triggering specific emotions, and altering their thoughts. Combine them together, in the end, the companies have what they desire: sales, clicks, or votes. As a consumer, who wishes to spend as little as possible, yet get more in return, it is in our best interest that we understand the creative advertising techniques used by the advertisers.

Advertising and Persuasive Strategies

These advertising techniques and strategies can be through different spectrum: television, radio, direct mail, newspaper, magazine, websites, and social media pages. Effectiveness of these advertisements depend on which creative advertising techniques are being used and understanding which can work the best. The techniques used need to influence the behavior of the chosen demographic the advertisers are trying to target.

Now if we look at the word "persuasion", what does it mean? The goal of this word is to "convince" someone to incorporate that particular persuasive statement and "adopt" the new attitude as a part of their core belief system. From a company's point of view, in order to make sales, this is a perfect plan. But what about the general public? What can we do to differentiate "what is good for us" from "what is good for the company"? I don't mean to say that all advertisers are bad or they lie and take advantage of people. But we should be able to tell the subliminal messages in advertising, distinguish between what's good and bad for us. The key is "how to identify persuasive techniques in advertising" and "how we can stop being made a fool of". Below are a few techniques and strategies which are most commonly used.

The Bandwagon Appeal: Here, a commercial highlights on the idea that, since everyone uses this product, so should you. Many viewers purchase the product so that they also fit in with the general concept or they just assume that "since everyone else is using it, it has to be good". This is nothing but a propaganda technique.

Celebrity Association or Testimonial: One of the oldest trick in the books, using a celebrity testimonial to promote the product. Viewers who respect, look up to those celebrities in the advertisements, and buy the product.

Emotional Appeal: Such techniques are used to play with the emotions of the viewers. Emotions like fear, sadness, excitement, or happiness are implicitly or explicitly drawn to get people to buy the product. Concentrating on sentiments by showing images of parent-child moments or cute animals, advertisers tend to distract the viewers and try to eliminate their rational thinking.

Humor: These kinds of commercials concentrate on making the viewers laugh. At times, the information of the product is not enough. But the idea behind this is to get the commercial stick to the viewers' minds in a positive way and influence them into buying it.

The Anti-Bandwagon Appeal: These techniques try to take a different route, getting the viewers to think differently, celebrate their own style and individuality, and rebel against what everyone says, does, or buys. The word "individuality" is what they're hinting at and that's the subliminal advertising message we sometimes see and believe in.

Slogan: We all know this one; a memorable phrase or slogan used in commercials and campaign. Viewers remember them, associate with it and the product, and the next time they're out shopping, they're tempted to buy it. These catchy slogans become a part of our everyday life and language.

Glittering Generality: Glittering generalities are creative advertising techniques which are filled with words that have positive connotations attached to them. Words like "good", "healthy", "low fat", "sensational", or "tasty" are all examples of glittering generality.

Product Comparison: Product comparison uses product comparison more often these days. Comparing two products which are in competition with one another, and trying to show that the other product is inferior.

As a "homework" and to better understand these strategies, watch random television programs for 30 minutes and try to note the instance of creative persuasive techniques in advertisements. When you actually look back on the amount of persuasion is attempted in advertising, that too in such a short time, it is incredibly astonishing.