How do adverts emotionally manipulate us into buying products?

1.) Sexual imagery If we see images that show some skin our bodys natural response is to release hormones and our subconscious will link this positive feeling to the product thats being advertised. This is the reason why adverts show slightly sexual images even though the product has nothing to do with it. 2.) Cause marketing The adverts link the product to help a better cause. For example Galaxy Chocolate has partnered with global AIDS charity (Red) aiming to raise 750,000 to help prevent the transmission of HIV from mothers to their babies. However as the pie charts of the American NFL Breast Cancer Awareness Merchandise depicts, that only a very little percentage goes to the people that actually need the help and it is only another marketing tool to generate profit. 3.) They use our insecurity about the way we look Advert (especially of beauty products) define how a women or a men should look like. For example encouraging women to look like those perfect looking Victoria Secret models or men like the models on the front cover of Mens Health. They make us feel inadequate and persuade us that we won t be attractive in the eyes of the opposite gender if we dont look as perfect as the models on pictures. Therefore they pomise us we will look like the models if we buy their product. Health.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U

4.) Adverts confuse us with scientific-sounding high order lexis (jargon), fake-statistics or making claims about a product that are not actually true to make us believe their product is the best on the market. For example in 2012, Nokia released an advert for their new Lumia phone where their the phone could take better pictures and videos with the OIS technology. However it turned out that the advert was a fake and Nokia only responded by stating the advert showed a simulation of what was possible, not actual footage of the phone's OIS capability.[footnoteRef:1] [1: http://www.cracked.com/article_19485_5-outrageous-lies-companies-are-legally-allowed-to-tell-you.html]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbF7TgX9gy8

5.) People prefer realistic adverts. Therefore nowadays adverts became more amateurish and less scripted. Also they tend to use everyday real people. 6.) Adverts also manipulate us by creating new needs and trends. For example 120 years ago no one among the average women cared if they had dirty hair. However during the 20th Century adverts changed womens hygenical trends by persuading them that shiny and clean hair is essential in a real womans life.

7.) They use social media like Facebook, to pop up in our everyday life. This is quite successful because it is a more personal way of products trying to approach us (also it is a much cheaper advertisement than television advertisement).

Adverts also attempt to alter our mood and perception[footnoteRef:2] by manipulating us through our senses. However according to Martin Lindstroms book Brand Sense, some 83% of marketing budgets are focused on the eyes[footnoteRef:3]. Smell and sound are an addition to visual tools like television adverts or posters. For example: [2: http://disinfo.com/2012/08/how-advertisers-manipulate-us-through-scent-and-sound/] [3: http://disinfo.com/2012/08/how-advertisers-manipulate-us-through-scent-and-sound/]

8.) Adverts use of colors because we associate different type of colors with different emotions. Brands convey with the help of colors their main features. For example blue stands for trust, integrity and communication [footnoteRef:4]. Therefore many social networks like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn uses blue. [4: http://www.businessinsider.com/branding-and-the-psychology-of-color-2012-12?op=1&IR=T]

9.) They can also influence us with powerful scents[footnoteRef:5] that trigger an emotion in our brain. Therefore brands use smell to manipulate our emotions in association that we link to a brand. (The sense of smell, has a direct connection to the emotional brain, unlike the other senses, according to Andreas Keller, research associate at The Rockefeller University.) [footnoteRef:6] Brands Abercrombie & Fitch stores are well known for the unique smell of their stores. [5: http://news.distractify.com/culture/ways-advertisers-manipulate-us-into-buying-their-products/] [6: http://disinfo.com/2012/08/how-advertisers-manipulate-us-through-scent-and-sound/]

http://www.shopify.com/blog/14193377-how-retailers-manipulate-sight-smell-and-sound-to-trigger-purchase-behavior-in-consumers

http://www.cracked.com/article_19485_5-outrageous-lies-companies-are-legally-allowed-to-tell-you.html

http://news.distractify.com/culture/ways-advertisers-manipulate-us-into-buying-their-products/

10.) Three quarters of the adverts use music to serve the overall promotional goals in one or more of several capacities. There are six basic ways in which music can contribute to an effective broadcast advertisement: 1) entertainment, (Good music can contribute to the effectiveness of an advertisement merely by making it more attractive. Good music can contribute to the effectiveness of an advertisement merely by making it more attractive.) 2) structure/continuity (Good music can contribute to the effectiveness of an advertisement merely by making it more attractive.), 3) memorability, 4) lyrical language, 5) targeting, and 6) authority establishment.http://www.musiccog.ohio-state.edu/Huron/Publications/huron.advertising.text.html

10.) Adverts try to distract us with cute thing like babies, children or pets. Cute things can win peoples heart more easily, thereby it is easier for the advert to manipulate people into buying a product and stay more memorable.

11.) Adverts try to cover with humour if the product is generally bad for the audience to consume and therefore companies have no positive reasons why consumer should buy it. For instance junk foods like Skittles or Doritos are very unhealthy for people. Humour also helps to grab peoples attention and make adverts memorable.

12.) Sometimes adverts try to bring back the feelings of the good old days for example David Hasselhoff Thirsty for Love Cumberland Farm: www.youtube.com/watch?v=jH7INQHTglc. Bringing back the good old memoires is likely to bee hugely successful among an elderly target audience.

13.) To sell products more easily adverts use a time-limit, in other words the offer ends soon so consumers should hurry up buying it. This is usually a successful tactic because it puts people under a great emotional pressure as nobody wants to loose out on a great offer. Therefore limited time availability can manipulate people quicker into buying products. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHocwJII8iI

14.) Apparently if we watch the same channel for 3 hours we will probably see the same advert ten times. This is called the 3/7/27 Branding strategy which says that seeing something 3 times make us realise a product exists, seeing it for another 7 times make us associate the advert with a product and seeing it for another 27 times make us trust and believe the advert. Therefore adverts are repeated to burn the image of the product in to our mind.15.) They make the products look breath taking and amasing on screen even though they dont look that good in real life at all.