Another week of class and it gets even more interesting. This weeks class we dealt with the theory of dual process persuasion. Especially in advertising it's amazing how much emphasis is placed on the heuristic thinking of people rather than the systematic side. It seems to me that most advertisers seem to assume that the audience they are targeting does not really have the intelligence to think too hard about any ad. While this might work for normal advertising while promotion health communication messages I feel that any campaign should probably start off heuristically but the campaign needs to eventually appeal to the systematic thinking of people to have a long term impact.
I also found the lab interesting. Before this my only experience with 'lab' work has consisted of smelly gases and broken beakers:-) I found it a relief to actually be doing a lab that involved planning a campaign for seniors to promote physical activity. The approaches based on what type of audience really gave me an insight into how different each campaign needs to be to appeal to that specific target audience. Creativity is definitely the key here...and i'm loving every moment of it...
Totally unrelated to this here is an awesome ad a friend did to prevent female infanticide--a HUGE problem in India
2 comments:
It's true that most interesting advertisements today, lean toward heuristic thinking. Ask an ad guy from yonder years why and you'll probably end up buying him more beer to just shut him up. Thing is, in the days of the past...when reading was actually a hobby and the visual didn't really replace copy, it made sense to talk about things. Discuss them, toy with ideas, and convince the consumer. Entertain him at that too. So there was a relationship that a brand spoke to it's consumers.
Well now, the visual era has taken over. Long copy is replace replaced by visuals. Visuals that work both heuristically and sytematically and are spelling out everything for the consumer.
It's sad.
But blame it on the tube. Attention spans are shorter now. (totally off-base but...)Heck! even men stopped courting women like they used to.
Sadly even the print medium will die soon.
Say hello to the internet! Clients now feel thay need to be closer to their consumers. More interactivity. And a thousand annoying ways to remind them by.
Anyways, you'll find heuristic ads when they are intended for awards...for the jury rather..and the spoon-fed ones...for the 'aam aadmi' or the janta.
Buy me a beer and I'll go on about insights and target audiences as well =)
Yup, cool ad. But what's the point? Isn't it only going to impress and convince people who already believe that female foeticide is wrong?
As for the rest, I'm sure they feel that everyone else will take care of tomorrow's sex ratio. People aren't altruistic.
So why public health ads at all? Only the selfish ones, like aids prevention, would be any good right?
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