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Fear as an Advertising Tactic
Americans are considered to be one of the most highly exposed peoples to commercial advertising in the world. From television (an entertainment medium in which the average adult spends 254 minutes a day engaged), to print media, to internet banner ads, the American consumer culture is kept humming through the often, guerilla tactics of top advertising firms.
Although there have been many concerns about the sheer volume of advertising in all forms of media from as long as it has been in existence, the relatively new and growing trend of using health-related fears to sell products is particularly alarming. It is this trend that Benjamin Radford mentions in his book, Media Mythmakers, that actually "threatens" to manipulate consumers to the detriment of society as a whole.
It seems that the concept of an "informed citizenry" has become almost passe in modern times -- especially when considering areas of health and disease. With all of the varied special interests vying for the transmission of "their version" of the truth, the actual facts can be almost irreversibly obscured. Radford asserts in his book that advertising companies consciously manipulate consumers based on health fears, resulting in "real problems" going unaddressed and wasted resources.
Take, for example, the exploding market for "ADHD" medications. ADHD, short for "attention deficit, hyper-activity disorder," is a fairly new "disorder," that is being labeled onto the nation's children at an alarming rate. Although many consider ADHD to be an authentic disorder in children, the sudden jump in "diagnosis" in the school-aged population gives one pause. According...
People, Parenting, Time, Newsweek -- even scholarly journals -- including the American Psychological Association Monitor,
feature full page, glossy ads touting the benefits of the various treatment medications available to suppress the "debilitating" affects of the disorder. Indeed, the practice of pharmaceutical marketing of their ADHD drugs has become so widespread that:
In fact, in most recent issues of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, a professional research journal directed at physicians and mental health professionals, nearly 50% of the advertising space is devoted to pharmaceutical ads promoting a variety of stimulants and related medications for the treatment of ADHD. Though there is no law preventing drug companies from advertising medical treatments with potential addictive risks, ADHD appears to be the only condition at this time for which pharmaceutical companies are aggressively marketing such preparations to obtain, maintain or increase market share.
The problem with this, according to Radford in Media Mythmakers, is that the tactic of deluging the media with advertising that triggers the emotional fears of parents (and other consumers), can result in a distortion of reality -- meaning that the overall perception of the depth and…
Williams (n.d), the fear appeal has three main components that make it an effective tool in changing behavior or habit; fear, threat and perceived efficacy. Fear is the negative emotion, threat being the external stimulus that brings out the perception among the listeners that they are exposed to some negative situation or outcome, perceived efficacy is the belief that the content of the message will be effective in the
(Versfelt, 2) Herein, the protection of the advertiser would largely be affirmed in preference to the entitlement of the government to establish limitations, censorship or other such intervening measures in order to effect content and reach of advertisements. Under the conditions of the First Amendment, the entitlement must be to the originator of the message, within the pragmatic reason of certain circumstances. That is to note that the government may intervene with advertising methods only where
It would be ensured that the product is positioned in a manner that it reveals its advantages regarding its three competitor products, but also specifically identifies and targets the desired consumer base. b) Core message As with the positioning strategy, the core message would be centered on the advantages the TruFocal eyeglasses generate for the users. The message would as such communicate the ability of the new eyeglasses to offer utility
The new campaign for Old Spice Swagger portrays rich, successful, attractive males vis-a-vis an old, uglier, less confident version of themselves. The message is simple: without the product, you are that weak, less confident man. The website for Men's Health magazine is less subtle - all the ads feature well-muscled men. Even in products unrelated to physical appearance we see the same paradigm. Budweiser's ad "Lager Lessons" plays exploits
Analysis of Alternatives The first alternative is to do nothing and to see whether the threat to CIMA's core markets actually materializes. Naturally, this decision would not over-extend CIMA financially, but we can not guarantee that it would not lead to overall sales increases or sales increases in core markets. Therefore, we must rule out this alternative. Our second alternative is to aggressively target the weekender market. This decision is problematic for
As expected to prove H3, the fourth graders could recall a median of 6 items about the ad while the first graders recalled a median of 4 items. The ultimate conclusion of the researchers was that children "can recall a reasonable amount of information from a single exposure to a television advertisement and are capable of sharing information accurately" (Maher et al., 2006, p. 30). The authors view their work