Message Less Important Than Emotion in Advertising

Research by Dr Robert Heath, from the University of Bath's School of Management published in the Journal of Advertising Research two years ago found that the amount of emotional content in television advertisements affected viewers' opinions of the product, regardless of the intended message. High levels had a positive impact; low levels had no effect even if the advertisement was factual and informative.

Working in association with the research company OTX, Dr Heath analyzed levels of emotional and rational content in 23 current TV advertisements screened in the USA and 20 in the UK. Researchers then asked 200 people in each country for their responses towards the brands advertised. Advertisements with high emotional content resulted in a significant positive change in attitude. Advertisements with low emotional content showed no real difference.

Dr Heath cites the 1992 UK Renault Clio campaign as an example of successful emotional advertising. This model of car was promoted by a series of advertisements featuring "Papa and Nicole" described as "philandering French people".

Robert Heath commented:

"The launch of the Renault Clio was an outstanding success, despite the ad failing to communicate the main message of small car convenience and big car luxury. The success suggests that it was some aspect of the emotional appeal of the scenario portrayed that influenced viewers."

These findings question "the assumption in most advertising models that it is the communication of the factual message that gives advertising its persuasive power. It seems to be the case that those who want their advertising to build strong relationships between the consumer and the brand would be well advised to focus more attention on the emotional metacommunication - the creativity - in their advertisements, than they do on the rational message communication."

The author argues that advertisements inducing positive emotional reactions appear to be more effective and may also reduce peoples' awareness of being influenced by marketing. This poses a problem for advertisers seeking to communicate factual information.

Dr Heath, author of The Hidden Power of Advertising, said:

"It has been believed in the advertising industry for some years that the creative idea gives the brand a competitive edge, and that the claims in advertising are often there just to allow the brand to set up a dialogue with the consumer. Our research findings seem to indicate this is true. In advertising, it appears to be the case that it's not what you say, but the way that you say it, that gets results."

Why You Won’t Be the Person You Expect to Be

Self-Perception, Past and Future: The Times’s John Tierney discusses new research showing that people tend to “underestimate how much they will change in the future.”

By JOHN TIERNEY

Published: January 3, 2013 417 Comments

When we remember our past selves, they seem quite different. We know how much our personalities and tastes have changed over the years. But when we look ahead, somehow we expect ourselves to stay the same, a team of psychologists said Thursday, describing research they conducted of people’s self-perceptions.

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They called this phenomenon the “end of history illusion,” in which people tend to “underestimate how much they will change in the future.” According to their research, which involved more than 19,000 people ages 18 to 68, the illusion persists from teenage years into retirement.

“Middle-aged people — like me — often look back on our teenage selves with some mixture of amusement and chagrin,” said one of the authors, Daniel T. Gilbert, a psychologist at Harvard. “What we never seem to realize is that our future selves will look back and think the very same thing about us. At every age we think we’re having the last laugh, and at every age we’re wrong.”

Other psychologists said they were intrigued by the findings, published Thursday in the journal “Science”, and were impressed with the amount of supporting evidence. Participants were asked about their personality traits and preferences — their favorite foods, vacations, hobbies and bands — in years past and present, and then asked to make predictions for the future. Not surprisingly, the younger people in the study reported more change in the previous decade than did the older respondents.

But when asked to predict what their personalities and tastes would be like in 10 years, people of all ages consistently played down the potential changes ahead.

Thus, the typical 20-year-old woman’s predictions for her next decade were not nearly as radical as the typical 30-year-old woman’s recollection of how much she had changed in her 20s. This sort of discrepancy persisted among respondents all the way into their 60s.

And the discrepancy did not seem to be because of faulty memories, because the personality changes recalled by people jibed quite well with independent research charting how personality traits shift with age. People seemed to be much better at recalling their former selves than at imagining how much they would change in the future.

Why? Dr. Gilbert and his collaborators, Jordi Quoidbach of Harvard and Timothy D. Wilson of the University of Virginia, had a few theories, starting with the well-documented tendency of people to overestimate their own wonderfulness.

“Believing that we just reached the peak of our personal evolution makes us feel good,” Dr. Quoidbach said. “The ‘I wish that I knew then what I know now’ experience might give us a sense of satisfaction and meaning, whereas realizing how transient our preferences and values are might lead us to doubt every decision and generate anxiety.”

Or maybe the explanation has more to do with mental energy: predicting the future requires more work than simply recalling the past. “People may confuse the difficulty of imagining personal change with the unlikelihood of change itself,” the authors wrote in “Science”.

The phenomenon does have its downsides, the authors said. For instance, people make decisions in their youth — about getting a tattoo, say, or a choice of spouse — that they sometimes come to regret.

And that illusion of stability could lead to dubious financial expectations, as the researchers showed in an experiment asking people how much they would pay to see their favorite bands.

When asked about their favorite band from a decade ago, respondents were typically willing to shell out $80 to attend a concert of the band today. But when they were asked about their current favorite band and how much they would be willing to spend to see the band’s concert in 10 years, the price went up to $129. Even though they realized that favorites from a decade ago like Creed or the Dixie Chicks have lost some of their luster, they apparently expect Coldplay and Rihanna to blaze on forever.

“The end-of-history effect may represent a failure in personal imagination,” said Dan P. McAdams, a psychologist at Northwestern who has done separate research into the stories people construct about their past and future lives. He has often heard people tell complex, dynamic stories about the past but then make vague, prosaic projections of a future in which things stay pretty much the same.

Dr. McAdams was reminded of a conversation with his 4-year-old daughter during the craze for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the 1980s. When he told her they might not be her favorite thing one day, she refused to acknowledge the possibility. But later, in her 20s, she confessed to him that some part of her 4-year-old mind had realized he might be right.

“She resisted the idea of change, as it dawned on her at age 4, because she could not imagine what else she would ever substitute for the Turtles,” Dr. McAdams said. “She had a sneaking suspicion that she would change, but she couldn’t quite imagine how, so she stood with her assertion of continuity. Maybe something like this goes on with all of us.”