Ambient Media Is All in The Mind
Ambient media is advertising in the background. Ambient media is all about putting the product or service name and ‘strap line’ into the mind of the consumer without them consciously taking it in.
Psychology in advertising has long been used as an effective means to sell a product or service. Understanding the underlying concepts that affect human psychology can help a company better sell their product or alternatively can help a consumer understand marketing strategies that get them to buy.
Persuasion is the changing of attitudes by presenting information about another attitude. This information is then processed one of two ways: centrally or peripherally. If it is processed centrally the attitude change is more likely to have permanence. If the information is processed peripherally it will be more susceptible to later change.
The ‘Elaboration Likelihood Model’ is a theory that states that there are two routes to persuasion. These two routes may alter a person’s attitude based on the mind processes that happen at the time of persuasion. The two routes are defined as the central and peripheral routes. The central route is an active and conscious process in weighing up the merits of an advertisement say.
During the mind processing in the central route, people make pro and con judgments in response to the advocated position. The outcome of this thought processing will determine whether the position that has been advocated holds any merit. The other route is taken by ambient media and has to do with the fact people cannot exercise careful and effortful consideration of every message that they come upon. There simply are too many messages in the environment for continuous conscious weighing up.
There are many variables, which affect the likelihood of thinking about the merits of a message and thus the route to persuasion. These variables affect a person’s motivation to think about issue-relevant information and the ability to do the mind working. While, other variables affecting motivation are part of the person and the situation. Some variables affect the direction of thinking (positive or negative) and others affect the overall amount of thinking a person does.
One commonly used technique of persuasion is that of authority. Everyone has seen adverts where "8 out 10 cats expressed a preference..." This is based on the idea that people will respect the opinions of someone who is assumed to have a lot of knowledge about the product. People feel better knowing that someone with authority has recommended what they are about to buy. Of course, the authority person has to have expert knowledge in that particular field. Would you buy toothpaste because a car salesman recommended it?
First and foremost an ambient advertisement has to catch your attention. One way in which it does this is by appealing to your emotions. It can arouse feelings of fear, love, pleasure, or vanity. Scarcity is the fear that you may miss an opportunity to purchase a product.
"One day sales" and phrases such as, "For a limited time only" or "Limited supply" are common uses of this technique. Health advertisements often use fear to get the audiences’ attention. Once this is accomplished they hope to "scare" the audience enough to produce an attitude change, be it buying their product, changing your lifestyle, etc.
Beer and cigarette advertisements appeal to peoples’ desires for fun and pleasure. Plastic surgery adverts are a perfect example. They attempt to persuade by appealing to peoples’ vanity by exposing their fear of aging. So next time you see some ambient media advertising ask yourself what emotional response you have to it?
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