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Tag: advertising

Creating effective ads with neuromarketing

July 4, 2015 1 Comment
Creating effective ads with neuromarketing

Neuromarketing offers a very different perspective on advertising research than is found in traditional research methodologies. This new perspective embraces new answers to what might be called the three fundamental questions of advertising research: What is the purpose of advertising? How does advertising achieve its purpose? How can we best measure advertising effectiveness? According to […]

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The cognitive timeline, part 4b: Acting (consumer behavior doesn’t lie)

April 20, 2015 0 Comments
The cognitive timeline, part 4b: Acting (consumer behavior doesn’t lie)

Consumer behavior: The gold standard of market research data In contrast to verbal expressions, actual consumer behavior is the real deal of market research. This is data that all marketers ultimately care about — where consumers shop, how they shop, what they buy, how much they pay, how often they buy, what they tell their […]

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A nod to Rory Sutherland: Acknowledging the value of intangible value

February 10, 2015 0 Comments
A nod to Rory Sutherland: Acknowledging the value of intangible value

Rory Sutherland is an executive at the advertising and marketing firm Ogilvy, where he has developed a practice around behavioral economics called OgilvyChange. He gave an influential TED Talk in 2009 in which he argued that advertisers (and by extension, marketers) should not apologize for what they do but should celebrate the fact that they […]

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How advertising really works

October 4, 2013 5 Comments
How advertising really works

Derren Brown is a British “mentalist” and entertainer. He has a number of fascinating videos over on You Tube, including this classic – quite simply, the most persuasive illustration of nonconscious processing I have ever seen: What lessons can we draw from this clever experiment? First, nonconscious processing exists. Our brains are busy taking in stimuli […]

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Unintended consequences? Food ads automatically prime eating in children and adults

October 2, 2013 0 Comments
Unintended consequences? Food ads automatically prime eating in children and adults

A really fascinating, and in several ways disturbing study recently crossed my desk. Authored by Jennifer Harris, John Bargh, and Kelly Brownwell, the article is called “Priming Effects of Television Food Advertising on Eating Behavior”. It was published earlier this this year in Health Psychology.  Abstract and online access are available here. The study shows in undeniable […]

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Advertising works because it’s not important

September 11, 2013 0 Comments
Advertising works because it’s not important

Advertising is, of course, important from the market development point of view – but strangely enough it works largely because it’s of little importance to the consumer. Research and experience have shown that advertising messages that do not engage the conscious mind typically have more impact than those that cause the consumer to actively consider […]

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The Hidden Persuaders: The best book I (n)ever read

July 8, 2013 1 Comment
The Hidden Persuaders: The best book I (n)ever read

In 2007 there were a number of reviews and appreciations of The Hidden Persuaders written to commemorate the 50th anniversary of its publication. I just finished reading a very interesting account by Michelle Nelson, called “The Hidden Persuaders, Then and Now,” published in the Journal of Advertising, Spring 2008. Diligent googling might find you a […]

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Bleed-over: Response to ads depends on context

July 1, 2013 0 Comments
Bleed-over: Response to ads depends on context

A clever series of experiments is reported in the Journal of Consumer Research dealing with how people respond to advertising in context.  Researchers Hao Shen, Yuwei Jiang, and Rashmi Adaval had people read pages from a mock magazine that contained articles (movie reviews for a film festival) and an ad (for a watch).  Participants were randomly assigned […]

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What if Robert Heath is right? Attention, emotion, and advertising

June 15, 2013 2 Comments
What if Robert Heath is right? Attention, emotion, and advertising

(I remain a big fan of Robert Heath, and highly recommend his new book, Seducing the Subconscious: The Psychology of Emotional Influence in Advertising.) I admit it, I’m a sucker for any argument that turns an established paradigm on its head.  It’s hard to beat that little thrill you get when you realize everything we thought […]

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Market forces and ad persuasiveness

May 30, 2013 0 Comments
Market forces and ad persuasiveness

A simplistic approach to advertising effectiveness tries to draw a straight line from an ad’s internal characteristics – its creativity, catchiness, product depiction, value proposition, memorable characters, etc. – to a product’s success in the marketplace. I was thinking about such claims when I came across a 2006 article from the Journal of Promotion Management: Stanton, […]

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