This article was very interesting to read. It describes the different ways that advertisements can tug at our emotions. Guilt appeal is a great way to get consumer's attention, and it's used quite a bit in the advertising world. A good example of this is the commercials showing the dying polar bears without ice to live on, or the cute little puppies and kittens without homes. Another classic example of this is the commercials about the children struggling in poor countries, asking you to help them with a "dollar a day." Seeing these commercials evokes an emotional response, and leads the viewer to feel guilty, something advertisers are counting on. The hope is that if you feel guilty about these poor puppies and children, you will give them money to try and help them or "save a life."
Previous research found that mothers were the most likely target and more susceptible to these types of advertising techniques, so it was mothers that were used in this research study. They actually discovered that many times commercials and advertisements that used guilt as a motivational factor to buy the product actually evoked some levels of anger in the participants. This anger acted as a mediator between the guilt and the consumer's attitudes about the product or advertisement. This anger also seemed to affect whether or not the participants reported that they would buy the product or not. Though it may sound surprising that these depressing commercials could evoke anger, think about the last time you saw the Haiti relief commercials? Or the American Christian Children's Fund? Yes, they are all depressing and raise some amount of guilt, but at the same time many Americans feel that things need to change in our own country first. The article also discusses aspects of annoyance, and how the annoyance levels of these commercials can raise levels of anger as well.
Many commercials of the commercials like this act on the principle of relatedness. This aspect is also discussed in the book (Reeve, 161, 2009). Commercials want to make you feel as though you have a connection with the people or animals shown in the advertisement. This may be why they show close ups of big puppy eyes, and probably why they send you a "personalized letter and photo of the child you're saving." The advertisements are attempting to make you feel as though these people and animals are just like you or similar to you, your pets, or your children, and this makes us feel as though we should help them. The letters and pictures that the children's fund sends to you also plays a role in feedback, because these things give you good feelings about your donation, it will reinforce the behavior and allow you to associate donating with good feelings (Reeve, 117).
Using these types of positive reinforcements once they have the consumer to a point where they have made a donation increases the chances that they will make an additional donation in the future. Making people feel good about the things they have done (donating money, volunteering) is a way to provide a reward, and eventually this reward could develop into intrinsic motivations. When someone consistently volunteers and contributes to the community, there are positive feelings associated with the outcomes. This acts as a reinforcement/reward to begin with. As they continue to participate in these types of activities, the reward may evolve into an intrinsic motivation (Reeve, 111) because they are so used to those feelings and actions that they feel a basic internal drive to continue with their good feelings and positive contributions to the community. Along with this, another aspect of intrinsic motivations is the idea of challenge. People who participate in things such as Habitat for Humanity or other volunteer programs many have had feelings of guilt in order to get them started, but then a challenge developed and lead to more intrinsic motivations (Reeve, 111).
These commercials also incorporate the idea of sociability. When we feel as though everyone is donating to these funds (when they say "over a million Americans donate daily," or things of that nature), we don't want to be the only one's not donating. We have a drive to donate just because we hear that there are many other people donating. It's almost as if these commercials are peer pressuring us into donating to their particular fund.
Many aspects of the textbook can be seen in these emotion-provoking commercials. They play off of the fact that human's levels of self-perceptions can change at the drop of a hat (Reeve, 279). When we don't act on these donations, our mind often creates a negative affect from the guilt we experience, which leads us to feel bad about ourselves and could lower our self-esteem (Reeve, 266). The main difficulty here, according to Reeve, is that raising self-esteem is motivational intervention. Adversely, the lowering of self-esteem may also be a motivational intervention if you look at the effects that these commercials have on people. Because these commercials have made people feel bad, it motivates them to donate their money in order to feel good again. Then, every time we donate money and get those good feelings, it reinforces that behavior so that the behavior continues.
There are many other aspects of psychology within these types of commercials. What are some other areas where psychology comes into play within advertisements? What about within the media in general? How do these things affect our everyday lives when we aren't even thinking about them?
I actually had to read this article last semester for Social psychology and found it very interesting. I know that advertisements try to elicit different emotions from viewers, but never paid much attention to the how or why. In another article I found about the use of psychology in advertising it states that advertising is mainly based on cognitive psychology(http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Psychology-of-Advertising&id=1393622). Attention, perception, association, and memory are the concepts most employed by advertisers. By using these concepts marketers are able to create a brand. Coca-Cola is one brand which these concepts would be easy to see. In the commercial, I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing, it first grabs the viewers’ attention with the music and bright colors. The brand of Coca-Cola is associated with young people and celebration, which this ad clearly demonstrates. So, when a person is standing in Casey’s wondering what pop to buy they might reach for a Coke because it elicited joyful emotions within them. I know for me after watching this ad that I am going to have that song stuck in my head and it will probably replay every time I buy a Coke. Although guilt in advertisements might work for some products and better for some people (like mothers) it does not work for every brand. Can you imagine a Coke commercial (or even a beer commercial) which elicits guilt? I think for those ads it might instead annoy people, which in the original article was a turn off for consumers.