Comments On An Advertisement

Aziz BAKAY

20300841

Psy 102-10

11.05.2004

In the advertisement, two routes of persuasion –central and peripheral- can be seen. However the advertisement includes both, the dominant one is the peripheral route of persuasion. It may be explained as examining the advertisement in couple ways. The persons and the visual side of the advertisement, and the affects of persuasion, which are used in the advertisement, will be discussed in terms of psychological manners.

          At first glance, the persons who are wearing formal clothes, capture the attention in the advertisement and they seem to be at the ages of 20-25. If it is happened to explain the photo, it can be seen that one teenage man holding the teenage woman’s arm and she is grabbing his tie. This brings that the advertisement is addressing to the audience who are at the age of that interval. It is an obvious fact that the product is being marketed to this special audience. In terms of the peripheral route to persuasion, which is “the case whereby people do not elaborate in the arguments in a persuasive communication but are instead swayed by peripheral cues.” (...) These kinds of side details affect the people who encounter this advertisement. Therefore, these details are considered as peripheral points. Actually these details do not represent the exact thing to be advertised, they may be efficient to use in such an advertisement. Another point concerning the individuals in the advertisement is their clothes, which might be considered as formal clothes because, the tie and black color represent formality. In this case, it is easy to claim that giving the teenagers a formal identity broadens the target group. Nevertheless, giving a formal identity could make the advertisement to address wider audience, it can create dissonance for the people who have not a formal lifestyle. Anyway, this problem is quite little even to mention about.

          The visual of the photo is prepared with quite hard work. Because the every detail is chosen with great care, it is easy to say that the peripheral cues are used perfectly. For instance, the two watches' seconds are same and the background represents a city life, which is appropriate with the formality. Also the model or the identification of the product which is “ Kenneth Cole, New York“ is again appropriate with the addressed audience’s life. The advertisement represents the audience’s characteristics quite well in the details. Although, these are considered as peripheral details, they are not the exact things to be advertised, they are to capture attention and change attribute related to the product.

          Changing attitude relies on the fact of playing to the emotions (....). This method is accepted in every part of our lives even in a football match, anyone can conduct a good communication by playing the person’s emotions about the match or the team he/she supports. Like this example, the advertisement is playing to the emotions of some audience and they become persuaded with this to change their attitude. Furthermore, the persons in the advertisement seem to be getting on well and they are in quite good mood. These people state their good mood so that this affects the audience and they are inclined to be in good mood. If this aim is achieved, the audience will see the peripheral cues more than to take the central route. This means that people will be forced in some ways to think about the effective peripheral cues more than the exact thing advertised which is the watch in this advertisement. This approach is named as “ Emotional influences on the route of persuasion” (......).

          A long lasting attitude change is performed by a careful analysis of the arguments and this will bring more consistent behavior with the argument (....). In this advertisement, people are oriented to look at peripheral cues. Therefore this makes people not to create a deep seated attitude or thought change about this issue. According to the statement above, that will create a short lasting attitude change because the advertisement clearly shows many peripheral cues for the audience. For instance, if it were showing the watch and its specialities instead of those peripheral points, it would create a more central route to persuasion with which people would have long lasting attitude change.

          Another point concerning the relations and communications between the sexes are shown in the advertisement. It is always accepted that sexual relation is something that grabs attention seriously. Therefore, the sexual elements are used in the case so that the people, whose attention can be captured easily, could give their attention to this advertisement. Unavoidably, a sexual thought occurs even in a look. In the preparation of the advertisement it is used in order to create a peripheral cue for the audience, which might take attention.

          The effectiveness of the advertisement can be discussed to reach an idea. However, it is clear that if the advertisement reaches the target group it will be successful in most cases. The many issues used in the advertisement can easily change the target group’s attitude. The playing to emotions, short lasting attitude change, giving more importance to peripheral cues in the advertisement are the facts increasing the efficiency of the advertisement.