Biochemistry - The Science Of Advertising

The Science Of Advertising

The world of advertising succeeds greatly when people understand how the human brain works and how it can be influenced. Advertising agencies started using psychologists and other behavioral scientists to help get into the minds of consumers. They use hidden symbols to trick consumers into buying products that they neither want nor need. Previous methods, for example, subliminal persuasion have turned out to be nonsense. Psychologists are trying to learn more about the art of persuasion through the use of science. One ad that was effective on customers, was that of a frozen cylinder of sausage rolled toward the audience until it filled the whole screen. Even though the voice-over was horribly ridiculous, the image was mesmerizing and viewers couldn't take their eyes off of it. When researchers analyzed their psychological response, it revealed that the sausage ad caused a dip in viewers heart rate, immediately after the dip their learning was changed. This teaches researchers that grabbing the viewers attention is first and foremost, then making the verbal pitch. Many studies have shown that if companies would take advantage of the basic research psychologists are doing on vision and perception, they could improve sales and avoid many advertising problems. A big issue in advertising is when companies make the common mistake of showing rapid-fire images. The way that the brain works, it just can't process things that quickly. Many people think that whatever we see that is flashed at us is automatically coded it in the brain, but in reality, the brain takes things in gulps. It takes a bit of information, digests it, then goes back and gets more.

Better timing is one of the things that really improves the increases customers, this also helps the viewer grab the brand name in the advertisement. A technique that was first introduced by Coke and Pepsi in the 60s, ended their ads in a series of images with the brand name. A common thing in advertising is also logos, the brain can process these faster than they do words. A very well known example of this technique is the Nike "swoosh".

Basic psychologists on the brain's lateralization, helps us understand more specific ways to advertise. They found that placing faces on the left side of the screen captures the reader's attention better than it does on the right side of the page. Text is most likely more successful on the right side of the face, and the brand-name on the bottom right of the page. Advertisers don't have any training in how the brain works, so these ideas that hired psychologists bring really help companies. Psychologists are often hired by the government to help make ads to help make more effective health promotion campaigns. Places like the NIDA and CDC are both big promoters of using psychologists in advertising to help improve their public education messages. Through all of this research, they have failed to identify what encourages viewers to accept information. A common technique is the "role model theory" in which they focus on a belief and target it, this lets the viewer know what they should be feeling. Good ads are creative but great ads change minds.

Advertisements can be very dramatic and trigger a good response in viewers, but sometimes this can cause the viewer to exhibit behaviors that the ads don't want to encourage. One ad, in particular, showed babies of various backgrounds and ethnicities, then showed a stamp come down on then labeling them with a racial or ethnic slur. This ad was trying to discourage racism, but the way they went about it in such a blunt way, may actually be teaching kids these inappropriate terms. A better way to advertise is to use high contrast and texture changes encourage the audience to really get fixated on the ad. Other psychologists claim the key to advertising success is "visual fluency". This is the interaction of visual perception and emotion. People like things that are easy to look at and understand. Another technique that most people already know is repetition, the more people see something the more like it and remember it. This increases visual fluency. All the strides made in the last 20 years were major to the improvement of advertising. Next time you see an ad on a web page, television, or even the annoying ones they show on YouTube before showing a video, see if you recognize any of these tactics and know that that is the company smartly tricking your brain into buying their product.

Sources: http://www.apa.org/monitor/oct02/advertising.aspx