Since it first appeared advertising has never been just a means of providing information about a certain product or service. Neither did it employ plain persuasion in order to gain new customers. The point is that people don’t like being told what to do. They want to make decisions by themselves. And this human psychology peculiarity is successfully used in modern advertising which offers numerous techniques to appeal to a potential customer’s mind and make them want to buy/try a product instead of trying to persuade them to do so.
Let’s review the most effective of the advertising techniques.
Association
This technique links a product being advertised to something desirable for the target audience, which encourages an emotional response in customers that is consequently associated with the product, making it more attractive . For example, children products ads usually feature playful smiling kids, sport equipment ads show successful sportsmen, cosmetics is typically advertised by the extremely good-looking celebrities.
Weasel Words
This technique lets advertisers make claims about their product that differentiate it from the rest but without solid data behind the claim if you take a close look at it. Among the most common weasel words are “fights”, “helps” (not actually stops something undesirable), “better”, “improved” – no quantity is indicated, “virtually”, “up to” – create an impression, but no real meaning, etc.
Promotions
Ads offering discounts, rewards, gifts, games with prizes etc are working to improve customer engagement with the brand. They create excitement around the offer, adding urgency with the help of time limits, limited product quantities etc.
Bandwagon effect
This technique plays upon the typical human desire to belong to a group. They demonstrate how lucky are the people who are already using the product advertised, their innumerable quantity and how much a person is missing out on by not going for the particular product.
Repetition
This technique is effective only when used in the right doses, otherwise it can have an adverse effect. In short, it means repeating what advertisers need for people to remember. For instance, virtually every advertisement repeats the name of the brand more than once, which is helpful for building brand awareness. In order not repel audience by too frequent repetition, the effective ways of using this technique include combining visual and audio repetition (e.g. announcing the name of the brand and showing it on the screen), using several variants of visual ads that differ, but carry the same message etc.
What is important about the advertising techniques it’s the fact that their effectiveness is proven by years of experience and is going to work for your benefit in the years to come.
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