The document discusses the persuasive power of advertising and its cultural, psychological, and social impacts. It examines how advertisers use techniques discovered by Freud and Pavlov to activate parts of the brain and manipulate consumers. The advertising business is also impacted by the agency-client relationship, budgets, and a desire to simplify messages. Various agendas within agencies can prevent complete objectivity and highly creative campaigns can create opposition. Apple's iconic "1984" ad is discussed as an example of a conflicted but historically successful advertising decision.
2. Role of Advertising in
American Society
Consumer drugs
Obesity
Values
Perceptions of self and others
Manipulation
3. Form of Mass Persuasion
Social impact
Psychological impact
Cultural impact
Various methods to “sell us
products, ideas, attitudes, candidates,
goals or states of mind.”
-V. Packard, The Hidden Persuaders, 1957
4. Beyond Surveys…
Freud suggested that material stored in the
unconscious elements of our psyches is often
responsible for our actions.
Pavlov’s dogs
Neurological studies tell advertisers which
parts of the brain are activated by exposure
to advertisements.
5. The Advertising Business
Impact on society is partially the
result of how advertising is
developed
Consider the context on cultural impact:
Agency-Client relationship
Conflicts of Interest
Budgets
Dumbed-down final product
6. Various Agendas
Operating at different levels of management within an
agency
Complete objectivity? (the one-campaign practice)
Agency people sell themselves as well as the product
Decisions based on tests
Highly creative solutions can create opposition in all
groups (agency, client, consumer)
7. “1984” by Apple
Conflicted advertising decision
that made history
Recall 78%
3.5 million sold within six
hours, $155 million over next
100 days