The Danger of Subliminal Persuasion in Advertising - Literature review Example

The Danger of Subliminal Persuasion In Advertising Contents Contents 2 Introduction 3 Literature review 3 Conclusion 8 References 10 Introduction Inthe past few decades many articles have been published regarding the subliminal applications and perceptions and the dangers in subliminal persuasion in advertising. There are many factors that do affect the customer’s perception because of the advertisement been presented about the particular product in a typical way which does affect a lot on the way the customers think about a particular product. Anything wrong that might happen in the advertisement can lead to a big problem for the company and its brand image in the market and especially in the high competitive global environment. For most of the products the sales do increase because of more than 50% of the subliminal displaying of the words in the advertisements. Numerous studies have been carried out over the subliminal persuasion of the customers based on the advertisements been made and the impact that it creates on their buying decision. In this report various articles, books are been studied and a brief literature review on the dangers that might be caused because of the subliminal persuasion of advertisement has been presented. Literature review In 2002, Strahan, Spencer, and Zanna through their research found out that the turning point in the subliminal priming field is relevant to the particular’s goal and the particular subject is motivated enough to achieve the goal and in the process it can affect the behaviour of the person in a huge way. According to Pakard in 1957, if the sales goes down and the buyer’s shopping gets worse in that case the company needs to attract the attention of customers and change the perception of them and make them to buy the product by making the product more attractive. In addition to this point in 2000, Benady explained that companies have played a lot with subliminal techniques so that they can enter into the minds of the customers and communicate its message properly without even with the knowledge of the customers (Dixon, 1971, pp. 34-42). Though in 2000, Merikle said that subliminal perception occurs when the advertisement presented to the customer is below the level of awareness, than they are found to influence the feelings, thoughts or actions of the customer. This term of subliminal perception was used earlier to describe the particular situation in which a particular advertisement was been perceived without any awareness about the right thing. Recently the term is being used more generally to explain a situation when a particular advertisement is been unnoticed and is been perceived. According to Arndorfer, Atkinson, Bulik, McDonough, and Oser in 2005, marketers in today’s generation are finding it difficult to make the customers watch the advertisements and also pay more for buying a particular product and they also said that it is very difficult to control the customer’s physiological thinking about a particular brand (Babin, and Harris, 2012, pp. 24-26). In 1980, Wittrock said that the brain is the centre basis for all the activities done by a person. According to him, human behaviour is based on the way human mind thinks. The brain connects all the nerves and it is the main reason for creating the perception about a particular brand or advertisement about a particular product. This gives a clear indication on how and why the marketers do try and create a good brand image on the minds of the customers and try and attract the customers by creating a good message that can create a good perception in the mind of them. In 2004, Whitlow, explained the meaning to subliminal explaining that it is the threshold below the level of awareness (Solomon, Bamossy, Askegaard, and Hogg, 2010, pp. 113-118). In 1996 according to Peretti & Jong the subliminal number stimuli does affect the verbal response of the customers which does in big way affect the brand image of the product in the market because of the fast spread feeling about the brand from the word of mouth by the customers which will influence other customers in a huge way in purchasing the particular product and making their buying decision. In 2000, Bagozzi, Wong, Abe, and Bergami through their research found out that the action of the customers with respect to the fast food restaurants in US, Japan, Italy and China differ in a huge way based on the culture of the particular country (HEJASE, HAMDAR, FARHA, BOUDIAB and BEYRUTI, 2013, pp. 12-18). They also found that the effect of advertisements was more on the customers from US than in other countries because of their individualistic character of making decisions which is completely different than the customers belonging to the eastern culture where customers don’t have individualistic character of making decisions and are more collective in making the decisions. Thus the advertisements do influence a lot over the customers from the western countries than the countries in the East (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2010, pp. 67-75). As per Holender in 1986, marketers could not rely only on the subject threshold level as a measure of the perception of the customers, instead the marketers can only look to depend upon the objective of creating a particular threshold which can define the require criteria. He also argued to the point saying that even if the marketers can achieve the threshold they cannot guarantee to the point that the customers also didn’t become conscious to the stimulus. As per him if the threshold is not been verbally reported in the right way than it doesn’t gives any guarantee that the stimulus has reached the consciousness of the customer’s in a proper way (Peter and Olson, 2008, pp. 54-59). This was been supported by Kihlstrom in 1992 as he also agreed to the same point saying that the stimulus must be conveyed verbally in a proper way to make sure it reaches the conscious of the customers in a proper way. On the other hand in 1988, Norretranders explained against this point saying that the consciousness of the customers must be given the maximum preference and also it must be treated as a primary phenomenon. According to him what goes in the consciousness becomes stable and settles on the mind of the customers and what doesn’t goes that doesn’t goes in the mind ever. So as per him subliminal perception is the type of perception that passes through the objective threshold of the customers but fails to pass through the subjective threshold of the customers that it fails to reach the consciousness of the customers if not conveyed verbally in a proper way (Broyles, 2006, pp. 392-407). According to Greenwald, Draine & Abrams in 1996, the power of the subliminal perception implies to the perception that does not reach the conscious awareness in the minds of the customers but these terms cannot be distinguished between the different reasons for the consciousness not entering the mind of the customers (Malhotra, 2010, pp. 102-106). In 2006, Karremans, Stroebe and Claus conducted a research based on which they demonstrated that the subliminal perception of a particular brand does affect positively in the way the customers feel about that brand but only when the customers find that their goals are been met by the brand in a proper way (Bargh, 2002, pp. 280-285). According to Légal, Chappé, Coiffard, & Villard-Forest in 2011 the effect of the goal of the customers on creating a perception over a particular brand is very huge and the subconscious effort to activate the goal does directs the customers towards making a better judgement about the particular message and make them either agree or disagree with the message that is been displayed in the advertisements (Malhotra and Birks, 2007, pp. 156-162). In 1994, Haberstroh explained that subliminal advertising is a big myth in the business operation. As per him the subliminal advertisements don’t create any effect on the way the customer’s behave or think about a particular product (Proctor, 2005, pp. 29-36). But in 2007, Veltkamp, Aarts, & Custers conducted a research and found out that the subliminal advertisement in the absence of self-motivational goals for the customers does affect the corresponding behaviour of the customers and affect the way they intend to make their buying process about a particular product of a certain brand (Aylesworth, Goodstein and Kalra, 1999, pp. 73-82). According to Brasel and Gips in 2011, they conducted a study over the brand Red Bull and they found that the brand associated with risk taking and speed which motivated the customers to take higher risks in a racing game and compared it with those who were not associated with the brand which did create a lot of impact in the mind of the customers and thus the brand got lot of profit from this type of advertisement by creating a subliminal perception in the mind of the customers (Louis, 1959, pp. 19-22). In 2011, Bos, Dijksterhuis, & van Baaren said that the majority of information which is been advertised is been processed subconsciously by the customers, and there is no need for presenting the message in subliminal form which might result in getting non-conscious effects over the customers (Churchill and Brown, 2010, pp. 25-32). In 1989, Sampson and Wiener said that the commercial success of the product is a big paradox for the marketers and the subliminal persuasion is below the threshold of consciousness of the customers which says that the line used in the advertisement is supposed to be existing but is not strong enough to be recognised by the customers in a proper way (Strahan, Spencer, and Zanna, 2002, pp. 9-12). In 1983, Zanot, Pincus, and Lamp conducted a research and suggested that people have a certain considerable knowledge of the subliminal messages been displayed in the advertisements and they are quite at odds to which are been exposed by the psychologists (Bradley, 2010, pp. 234-242). In 1972 McConnel, Cutler, & McNeil pointed put that the relationship which has affected both the fields of psychology and advertisement. In 1997, Lewicki, Hill, and Czyzewska said that the unconscious process does play a crucial role in functioning for problem solving, listening, writing and learning and in most often cases the consciousness is not at all required. According to Silverman, Martin, Ungaro, and Mendelsohn in 1978, after conducting an experiment did say that the advertisements do affect the consciousness of the people and they do create a huge impact in the way the customers think about a particular product and thus they look to change their lifestyle after being influenced from the particular advertisement (Scarpa, 2013, pp. 3-5). Thus the subliminal persuasion of the customers that is their consciousness is been affected in a huge way the advertisement is been made and the message is been conveyed. In 1993, Murphy and Zajonc explained that emotions are precognitive and the customers emotions do keep changing and are highly affected by the messages that are been communicated through the advertisements. This does vary from people to people and also from country to country based on the culture of people and the type of perception that the people of that particular location have and the particular way they think about a particular message. Thus the subliminal persuasion of the customers because of the advertisements does change with the locations and the type of consciousness that the customers have in their mind and also creates an image about a particular brand in the mind of the customer’s which plays a crucial role in making the buying decision (Shrum, Liu, Nespoli and Lowrey, 2012, pp. 13-17). Conclusion Thus looking at the vast literature present with regard to the danger of the subliminal persuasion of the customers because of the advertisements it can be seen that the message displayed in the advertisement does create a big impact in the way the customers think about a particular brand or product. The consciousness of the customers is affected by the way the customers perceive to a particular advertisement and take the message into consideration in a proper way. The subliminal persuasion is a controversial issue to a fact whether it does create an impact or not as many of the researches have said it does creates an impact while many others have said against it. The effectiveness or the danger of subliminal messages used in advertisements over the customer’s perception is still a myth in the global market. References Aylesworth, A. Goodstein, R. and Kalra, A. 1999. Effect of archetypal embeds on feelings: An indirect route to affecting attitudes? Journal of Advertising. Vol 28(3). pp.73-82. Babin, J. and Harris, E. 2012. C84. Mason: Cengage Learning. Bargh, J. A. 2002. Losing Consciousness: Automatic Influences on Consumer Judgment, Behavior, and Motivation. Journal of Consumer Research. Vol. 29 (2). Pp. 280-285.  Bradley, N. 2010. Marketing research: tools and techniques. 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Consumer behaviour and marketing strategy. New York: McGraw-Hill. Proctor, T. 2005. Essentials of marketing research. London: Financial Times Press. Scarpa, A. 2013. Subliminal marketing- Infiltrating the mobile device-through multiple exposures. [Pdf]. Available at: < http://www.uni-kassel.de/fb07/fileadmin/datas/fb07/5-Institute/IBWL/Wagner/Abschlussarbeiten/Expos%C3%A9/WS_2013_2014/Scarpa_expose.pdf>. [Accessed on 10 April 2014]. Schiffman, L. and Kanuk, L. 2010. Consumer behaviour. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Shrum, L. Liu, M. Nespoli, M and Lowrey, T. 2012. PERSUASION IN THE MARKETPLACE. How Theories of Persuasion Apply to Marketing and Advertising. [Pdf]. Available at: < http://faculty.business.utsa.edu/ljshrum/Dillard%20Ch19_FN%20to%20Publisher.pdf>. [Accessed on 10 April 2014]. Solomon, M. Bamossy, G. Askegaard, S. and Hogg, M. 2010. Consumer behaviour: a European perspective. Harlow: Prentice Hall. Strahan, E. Spencer, S. and Zanna, M. 2002. Subliminal priming and persuasion: Striking while the iron is hot. [Pdf]. Available at: < http://osil.psy.ua.edu/~rosanna/soc_inf/week3/subprime.pdf>. [Accessed on 10 April 2014]. Read More