Psychological Concepts in Advertising: Exploring the Uses of Psychology Through a Historical Overview and Empirical Study

This paper provides a historical overview and experimental exploration of psychology in the field of advertising. It will address four prominent psychologists who shared their psychological knowledge with the advertising field, as well as an empirical study examining current psychological persuasion techniques. These include the use of color, subliminal messages, and misrepresented facts and statistics. Knowledge of these techniques (persuasion knowledge) was tested to determine if an educational intervention could increase participants’ persuasion knowledge, and if the knowledge would negatively influence participants’ attitudes towards advertising. Sixty-three participants were randomly assigned into the advertising condition or the control condition. Each group viewed a PowerPoint presentation and answered survey questions about advertisements and their advertising attitudes. Results showed that advertising participants scored significantly higher on persuasion knowledge test questions than the participants in the control group. A significant difference in participants’ self-reported understandings of the advertisements’ persuasion techniques was found in one ad and in the opposite direction than expected. Qualitative data illustrate participants had difficulty applying their persuasion knowledge. There were no significant differences between groups regarding advertising attitudes or product attitudes. Future research should consider modifying the educational intervention to help participants apply their knowledge by recognizing techniques in advertisements. PSYCHOLOGICAL CONCEPTS IN ADVERTISING 4 Psychological Concepts in Advertising: Exploring the Uses of Psychology Through a Historical Overview and Empirical Study Consumers are exposed to hundreds of advertising messages each day, but many are unaware of the psychological knowledge and concepts that are used to create many of today’s advertisements (Lindstrom, 2008). The application of these psychological concepts to advertising began in the late 19 th century and early 20 th century (Benjamin, 2004). With the help of psychologists, advertisers were able to increase their knowledge of concepts such as association, memory, perception, and emotion in order to better reach consumers (Scott, 1904). This paper will start by exploring the historical contributions four prominent psychologists made to the field of advertising since the late 1800s, as well as how their work continues to be applied. The next part of the paper explains three psychological persuasion techniques currently used in advertising: the utilization of color, subliminal messages, and misrepresented facts and statistics. The final part of the paper is an empirical study expanding on the use of these techniques by exploring the extent to which today’s consumers have knowledge of psychological persuasion techniques (persuasion knowledge), their attitudes towards advertising and products that use persuasive advertising techniques, and whether an educational intervention can impact their knowledge and attitudes. Historical Applications of Psychology in Advertising The field of advertising began in the second half of the 19 th century when technological advancements provided businesses with surpluses of goods (Benjamin, 2004). Advertising developed as a way for businesses to differentiate their products from one another and persuade consumers to purchase their product rather than another product. It allowed them to create demand and increase sales. PSYCHOLOGICAL CONCEPTS IN ADVERTISING 5 Meanwhile, the field of experimental psychology was developing and included scientists who wanted to apply their knowledge to problems in the real world rather than in the laboratory (Benjamin, 2004). Pure scientists disapproved of this, as did the scientific community as a whole. It was believed that research in laboratories was superior. As a result, applied scientists desired to gain credibility and prove the importance of their work. Applying their knowledge to advertising was one way in which they began. The relationship between advertising and psychology developed because advertisers were also searching for credibility. They wanted to add more science to their work to prove its effectiveness and to understand the motives influencing consumer behavior (Benjamin, 2007). Psychologists were hired to assist in gathering the information that would help advertisers gain a deeper understanding of their customers (Friedman, 2004). As the relationship developed, advertisers used psychological concepts to increase the sophistication of their ads and their ability to influence consumers. Four of the influential psychologists in advertising psychology were Harlow Gale, Walter Dill Scott, Harry Hollingworth, and John B. Watson. The work and contributions of each psychologist allowed advertising psychology to grow into the well-developed field it has become today. In 1895, Harlow Gale was the first psychologist to research advertising issues (Eighmey & Sar, 2007). His background in experimental psychology and interest in advertising practices led him to survey 200 businesses across Minnesota about their advertising practices. In the cover letter he sent with the surveys, he acknowledged the novelty and importance of his work, as well as his desire to uncover the processes that occur in consumers’ minds once they see advertisements and once they actually purchase the advertised product (Benjamin, 2004). His PSYCHOLOGICAL CONCEPTS IN ADVERTISING 6 focus was on how elements of magazine advertisements, such as type size, design, and color, influenced consumer attention and decision-making (Eighmey & Sar, 2007). Because his work and interests were so novel, the advertising community was not immediately interested in his ideas and he received a low response rate from his surveys. Even so, Gale was still able to provide suggestions for how to improve advertising techniques by combining his results with additional information he gathered from interviews with advertisers (Gale, 1900). His major findings focused on the best ways to format print advertisements, as well as differences in colors that attracted the attention of men and women (Eighmey & Sar, 2007). Gale’s work did not receive much attention at the time, but it opened the door for future psychologists with similar interests to pursue an understanding of the roles of psychology in advertising and consumer decision-making. One of these psychologists, and an admirer of Gale’s work, was Walter Dill Scott. Scott’s career in advertising psychology was long and productive, spanning from the early 1900s to 1920 (Benjamin, 2007). Similar to Gale, Scott’s background was rooted in experimental psychology rather than advertising. This training gave him the ability to apply concepts such as suggestion, perception, mental imagery, memory, and emotion to advertising in a methodical and scientific manner. Even though he believed consumers could be easily persuaded, he believed his ideas and techniques were not manipulative, but motivational in influencing consumers’ purchases (Friedman, 2004; Schultz & Schultz, 2008). Scott’s work regarding the importance of consumer emotions and utilizing suggestion to influence consumer behavior were well-received by the advertising community, as were his beliefs in making advertisements appealing and intense, and helping consumers associate products with their own lives (Friedman, 2004; Muchinsky, 2011). He turned his ideas into two PSYCHOLOGICAL CONCEPTS IN ADVERTISING 7 books and expanded on how to utilize suggestion to influence consumers. The Theory of Advertising was first published in 1903, and The Psychology of Advertising was first published in 1908 (Scott, 1903; Scott, 1908). His knowledge interested the business world, and his writings were able to influence the growth of advertising by clearly presenting information advertisers could easily apply to their work. His writing has been considered one of his greatest career accomplishments because it presented psychological theories as solutions advertising professionals could implement in their work (Sandage, 1974). It is unclear as to the exact reasons why Scott’s ideas were better received than Gale’s ideas, but Scott’s writings were likely a significant contributing factor. While Scott and Gale’s approaches to analyzing consumers focused on the factors that attracted attention from consumers, psychologist Harry Hollingworth took a different approach in the early 1900s (Benjamin, 2004). Hollingworth focused on the effectiveness of advertisements because he believed that an attention-grabbing advertisement would not necessarily result in a sale. He claimed four tasks could illustrate whether or not an advertisement was effective. These tasks were: gaining the consumer’s attention, holding the consumer’s attention, making a lasting impression on the consumer, and motivating the consumer to act. The final test of an advertisement’s effectiveness was when the consumer actually purchased the product. Throughout this work, he developed an interest in understanding the stimuli present in each task, such as wording, color, and images (Benjamin, 2004). Before entering advertising, the final psychologist, John B. Watson, was well-known in the field of psychology for his work regarding behaviorism. His ideas were an extension of Ivan Pavlov’s classical conditioning (Benjamin, 2007). Pavlov conducted experiments where animals learned to respond to a conditioned stimulus. Through this work, Pavlov discovered how to elicit PSYCHOLOGICAL CONCEPTS IN ADVERTISING 8 responses from stimuli that were once neutral. Watson expanded on these ideas through the development of behaviorism with an emphasis on predicting and controlling behavior, especially outside of laboratory settings (Fancher, 1990; Schultz & Schultz, 2008). This prior work provided him with knowledge needed to predict and control behaviors. His in