You are bombarded by advertisements every day. Just how many ads you see is up for debate. One oft-quoted number released by market research firm Yankelovich estimated that a person living in a city 30 years ago saw as many as 2,000 ad messages a day (on everything from billboards to TV), versus the present rate of 5,000 a day. That doesn’t mean, of course, that we actually notice all of those ads.
While most of us recognize that advertisers are trying hard to entice us to spend money, it’s easy to forget how they do this. By increasing our awareness of their tactics, perhaps we can better resist impulse buying.
With that in mind, here’s a roundup of methods advertisers use to prompt consumers to open their hearts and wallets.
1. Appealing to our greed and other vices. You probably like to think of yourself as having unimpeachable character. That said, Robert Barrows of R.M. Barrows, Inc., an advertising and public relations company in San Mateo, California, points out that some advertisers will write ad copy that appeals to all or any of the seven deadly sins — lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride.
Think about car companies that suggest your neighbors will drool over your new wheels (envy); the restaurants that promise you lots of food for your dollar (gluttony); or perfume and aftershave commercials promising irresistibility, and you start to see what he means.
2. Exciting our emotions. If you find yourself particularly excited or happy about a product or service, then an ad may have tapped into your emotions. That’s because advertisers try to press your “core emotional hot buttons,” says Michele Harris, president of Smarti Solutions, which helps businesses hire advertising agencies.
These emotional hot buttons can include:
— Hope. A brand, she says, “can play on consumers’ feelings of inadequacy and tap into the anticipation that they can look better, feel better, be better …”
— Trust. That’s why you see so many spokespeople pushing brands. “If a celebrity is — allegedly — using the product, it creates confidence and an implied sense of reliability,” Harris says.
— Pleasure. Not too surprising here, but still, as Harris explains: “We live in an age of instant gratification. Anything that can make the consumers’ life more enjoyable is an easy sell.”
— Excitement. Act now, before it’s too late! There’s a reason ads tell you to hurry up and buy. “Massive markdowns, super sales and limited availability tactics draw in consumers, play on spontaneity, impulse purchases and the thrill and rush of getting a good deal,” Harris says.
3. Suggesting everyone else is doing it. You wanted to be the cool kid in school, right? Of course you did. Well, advertisers know that.
“One of the most common ways is to make you think you are missing out by not having whatever it is they are advertising. There is a lot of psychology involved and it isn’t a simple equation,” says Callum Beattie, a partner at Honest Agency in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. “Good advertisers factor in the product’s attributes, where it is in the life cycle, what societal attitudes are, the specific profile of their target and the list goes on.
4. Using attractive people in advertising. Ever notice how people in an ad for a candy bar or a fast-food restaurant are often super attractive and don’t really look like the sort of person who often eats candy bars or burgers slathered with bacon? Sure, you have. Well, remember: The brand is doing that for a reason.
“An example of this would be an athletic wear company marketing to a wide audience by placing fit, attractive athletes in their advertising. It tugs at people’s desire to be fit, attractive athletes themselves, and the product becomes appealing as a result,” says Chad Reid, a communications graduate student and the director of communications for a software firm in Oakland, California.
5. Employing repetition. It may be annoying, but you know how some advertisements will repeat the same thing over and over? There’s a reason, Beattie says.
“If you tell someone they need something enough times, you are going to start thinking you need it,” says Beattie, who does take issue with the idea that there is a lot of trickery going on.
“I really don’t think there are many tricks per se in advertising,” he says. “Selling products and services is really about filling real or perceived needs, and there is an argument to be made that perceived needs are real needs. People who use tricks aren’t advertisers, they’re grifters.”
Fair enough, and generally speaking, Beattie is right. But this next trick can be a bit underhanded.
6. Glossing over cost. Hey, this product hardly costs a cent. You can probably think of many types of products and services like that, where an ad, for instance, doesn’t mention that the shipping and handling costs are more expensive than the product itself. But, generally, those instances won’t haunt you for years to come. But when you’re buying a car or a house, that’s another story.
You’ll find offers that sound too good to be true frequently in the mortgage lending space, says Tim Nguyen, co-founder and CEO of BeSmartee, a new search engine for mortgages.
Nguyen says that zero closing cost loans promise you that the mortgage won’t cost you anything out of pocket, which is true enough — you won’t have to write a check at your closing — “but this isn’t entirely honest,” Nguyen says. “There’s a great deal of expense that goes into processing and underwriting a mortgage loan and someone has to pay for it and that person is you.”
Bottom-line, Nguyen says, these loans will cost you far more throughout the life of your loan than if you had forked over the closing costs at the start.
7. Making you laugh. When you see, read or hear a funny ad, it’s not coincidence — not only do these ads grab your attention, but they make you less cynical about the ad.
“I advise my retailer clients to appreciate the disarming power of humor in ads,” says Bruce Sanders, a Vacaville, California-based consumer psychologist, retail consultant and author of “Sell Well: What Really Moves Your Shoppers.”
He adds: “Even if consumers don’t fully understand a joke — such as a pun based on a product’s name or features — the consumers still enjoy the wordplay. In fact, a joke that isn’t immediately understood can be especially effective in making a sale.”
Why is that? “Research finds the shopper’s mental energies are taken with trying to figure out the humor, and this distracts the customer from thinking about reasons not to buy,” Sanders says. “Humor heads off mental counterarguments. The consumer is too busy chuckling to challenge the sales pitch of the ad.”
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7 Tricks Advertisers Use to Make You Spend Money originally appeared on usnews.com
