Loser to lady-killer, listen up. This advert is for a Daihatsu, a functional, spacious, yet very uncool car. “Family men” needing something to drive for the school-run typically purchase it, so it definitely lacks the sexy reputation of an Audi or the flashy displays of wealth from a Lamborghini. Yet this is a very entertaining advert, as it uses humour, and taps into the sort of person that the customers of this model want to be, whilst at the same time pointing out the main desirable feature of the car- how spacious it is. They know that this car won’t fulfil all their lady-killing desires, but this advert includes them in a personal “in-joke,” whilst saying “but seriously, I can hold five children, a buggy, two suitcases, eleven lunch boxes, two dozen toys, six bricks of Lego, and your wife.” There is a huge amount of support for humour in advertising. Sternthal & Craig (1973) explained that humour works in advertising because it creates a positive opinion of the source, resulting in a positive mood in the audience, making them more susceptible to persuasion. Worth & Mackie (1987) exposed students in either a good mood or a neutral mood to either a pro-attitudinal or counter-attitudinal message comprised of either strong or weak arguments. They found that participants who were in a good mood exhibited more signs of reduced systematic processing (an advertisers goldmine), and more attitude change than those in a neutral mood. Furthermore, their responses showed less of a contrast between strong and weak messages than those in the neutral condition. This is excellent news for the Daihatsu, as it means that the humour used in the campaign may lessen the contrast between this model and a better one. Sternthal & Craig (1973) also claim that humour attracts attention, which makes the car more memorable. The availability bias therefore ensures we have this car in the forefront of our minds. Schwartz et al. (1991) demonstrated that participants who were asked to recall six examples of their own assertive behaviour rated themselves as more assertive than those who were asked to recall twelve examples. This is because the condition where they had to recall twelve examples was much harder to do. It can therefore be concluded that if a car was easy to recall due to a humorous advert, people may rate it more highly as they might assume that if it weren’t a good car, they would not have spent so much time thinking about it. Finally, Sternthal & Craig (1973) argue that humour may distract the audience meaning that they are less likely to produce counter-arguments against the message. In the example at hand, the audience could argue that they want a car that is a little sexier than the Daihatsu, however because its’ uncool reputation has been acknowledged in its own advertising campaign, it is protected by a humorous buffer. To conclude, if you actually want to be a lady-killer, this is not the car for you. However if you are ever in the position of having to sell this sort of car, or indeed yourself (e.g. want to ask someone out, but are certain they are out of your league), humour is the way forward. It creates a positive opinion of the source, a positive mood in the audience, will be memorable and therefore easy to recall, and distracts the audience from all the negatives (e.g. a dodgy haircut or the fact you live in your mum’s basement). Good luck. References            Sternthal, B., & Craig, C. (1973). Humour in Advertising. Journal of Marketing, 37(4), 12-18.             Worth, L., & Mackie, D. (1987). The cognitive mediation of positive affect in persuasion. Social cognition, 5(1).             Schwarz, Norbert; Bless, Herbert; Strack, Fritz; Klumpp, Gisela; Rittenauer-Schatka, Helga; Simons, Annette (1991). “Ease of retrieval as information: Another look at the availability heuristic”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 61 (2): 195–202.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaE7WuNEYocA few months ago my Mum and I were largely ignoring the adverts on our TV when suddenly, one caught our eye.  The video (see link above) depicted a somewhat horrible image of an individual’s teeth falling out, before then showing them spit blood after cleaning their teeth.  Mum and I both commented on the strangeness of this advert.  However, despite our initial reservations it is clear why this advert works: It utilises disgust and fear. According to the Yale Attitude Change Approach (Hovland, Janis & Kelley, 1953) this emotional factor serves as a message variable which helps to change people’s attitudes towards the product.  This method is effective because it prompts people to be persuaded via the peripheral route, as described in the elaboration-likelihood model (Petty, & Cacioppo, 1979).  When taking this route, individuals are not persuaded by scrutinising the material, but rather by a simple cue such as attractiveness, or in this case emotion. Figure 1: Elaboration-Likelihood Model (Petty & Cacioppo, 1979)Indeed, the specific emotions of disgust and fear have been shown as effective in behaviour change through numerous studies covering several domains.  For example, Evans et al. (1970) presented junior high school students with persuasive appeals regarding teeth cleaning.  They received one of five types of persuasive appeal: High fear, lower fear and positive were all followed by specific recommendations; the fourth involved only specific recommendations and the fifth involved an elaboration of the specific recommendations.  It was found that although positive communication resulted in greater information retention, high and low fear groups reported stronger intentions to behave than the positive and elaboration groups.  In addition, the high fear appeal group showed greatest reported behaviour change, measured by reported tooth brushing behaviour.  However, when assessing actual behaviour change, fear appeals were less effective.  Therefore, fear is effective in altering reported behaviour change but not actual behaviour change. Figure 2 – Reported behaviour change scores (Evans et al., 1970).  HF = High fear; LF = Low fear; POS = Positive; RO = Recommendation only; ER = Elaborated recommendation The effectiveness of fear appeals has been further supported through a meta-analysis of over 100 studies (Witte & Allen, 2000).  They found that the stronger the fear appeal, the greater attitude, intention and behaviour change.  In addition, the greater the severity of the fear message, the greater the persuasion.  Perhaps most notably, Witte and Allen found that individual differences did not influence the extent to which the fear appeal was persuasive, hence suggesting when viewing an advert using fear, individuals will use the peripheral route regardless of personality.Finally, the effect of disgust visuals on attitudes towards animal experimentation was investigated by Nabi (1998).  Participants were shown a counterargument and rebuttal of either:  low disgust/low affect, low disgust/high affect, high disgust/low affect or high disgust/high affect advert, where low disgust showed a monkey lying on a lab table and high disgust showed a monkey being inflicted with severe head injuries.  In addition, low affect refers to showing a talking head, whilst high affect involves showing sick babies who might benefit from animal research.  It was found that as the level of disgust increased, level of support for animal experimentation decreased, thus suggesting that disgust is an effective way to change attitudes and hence perhaps behaviour.    In conclusion, although being subjected to a Corsodyl advert while watching your favourite television show is far from pleasant, it is an effective way of implementing both attitude and behaviour change.  An advert such as this utilises emotions like fear and disgust resulting in an individual being persuaded to go out and buy Corsodyl via the peripheral route.ReferencesEvans, R. I., Rozelle, R. M., Lasater, T. M., Dembroski, T. M., & Allen, B. P. (1970). Fear arousal, persuasion and actual versus implied behavioural change: new perspective utilizing a real-life dental hygiene program. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 16, 220-227.Hovland, C. I., Janis, I. L., & Kelley, H. H. (1953). Communication and persuasion: psychological studies of opinion change. New Haven: Yale University Press. Nabi, R. L. (2009). The effect of disgust-eliciting visuals on attitudes toward animal experimentation. Communication Quarterly, 46, 572-484.Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1979). Issue involvement can increase or decrease persuasion by enhancing message-relevant cognitive responses. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 1915-1926. Witte, K., & Allen, M. (2000).  A meta-analysis of fear appeals: Implications for effective public health campaigns. Health, Education and Behaviour, 27, 591-615.Charlotte Cartwright