A lecture I did at Temple University that explored advertising's role in the academic world of developmental psychology, and also psychology's role in the creative world of advertising.
7. AGENDA
YOUR WORLD
Advertising as it applies to the academic world of psychology.
MY WORLD
How psychology fits into the creative world of advertising.
9. BEHAVIOR
CONTEXT DEPENDENCY
DISTORTION
SOCIAL VALIDATION
CONSUMER ATTITUDES WHY DOES SEX SELL?
DUAL PROCESS THEORIES
MANIPULATION FOCAL ATTENTION
YOUR WORLD PERSUASION
DOES ADVERTISING WORK? CONTEXT
MEMORY
WHO EVEN BUYS THIS SHIT?
INFORMATION PROCESSING
WHY IS SHE SO SKINNY? CONSUMERISM
COGNITIVE RESPONSE
10.
11. “The billboard is finished when you can no longer find
a single element to remove.”
- Robert Fleege
12. YOUR WORLD
I’ll introduce consumer behavior.
I’ll talk about what influences behavior.
I’ll focus on attitudes.
I’ll explain two models that use attitudes to predict behavior.
16. ATTITUDE
“A learned predisposition to behave in a consistently favorable
or unfavorable manner with respect to people, objects,
advertisements or issues”
18. HOW ATTITUDES ARE LEARNED
A shift from no attitude to some attitude, as a result of learning.
Favorable/Unfavorable Brands as a Result of Classical Conditioning:
Unconditioned Stimulus Conditioned Stimulus Unconditioned Response
Cowboys, Outdoors Marlboro Cigarettes Rugged, cool cigarette brand
Lung Cancer, Death Smoking Smoking is terrible, dangerous
20. STRATEGIES OF ATTITUDE CHANGE
Attitude changes are learned; they are influenced by personal experience and
other sources of information, and personality affects receptivity and the
speed at which attitudes are likely to be altered.
Market Leaders: Fortify existing positive attitudes so customers won’t
consider a competitor’s offer or inducements.
Competitors: Take aim at market leaders, change the attitudes of market
leaders’ customers.
23. TRICOMPONENT MODEL
According to the Tricomponent Model, attitudes have three components:
Cognitive: Knowledge gained from direct experience with a product
Affective: Emotions or feelings about a particular product
Conative: The intention to buy the product again
24. ATTITUDE-TOWARD-THE-AD MODEL
A consumer forms various feelings and judgments as the result of exposure to
an advertisement, which affects the consumer’s attitude towards the brand,
and subsequently, purchase intentions.
1. Consumer sees ad: “That Old Spice commercial was hilarious.”
2. Consumer recalls brand: “Old Spice is a pretty cool brand.”
3. Consumer sees product: “I’m going to go with Old Spice.”
28. MY WORLD
I’ll talk about me.
I’ll talk about an ad agency.
I’ll talk about the role of psychology specific to agency disciplines.
We’ll look at a bunch of work.
42. THE PLANNER – THE BRIEF
INCLUDES
Who: Target Audience
What: Product/Market Background
Where/When: Media
Why: Reason to Believe
Single-Minded Proposition
43. THE PLANNER – THE BRIEF
SEGMENTATION CONSUMER INSIGHTS
Things we “know.” Things we “think we know.”
Measuring and valuation. Learning and anticipating.
Data: geographic, demographic, Deeper understanding of what target
psychographic and socioeconomic. segment thinks, feels and believes.
“Female, 30-45, suburbs, 1-2 kids, “More than a brand of razors,
works from home, watches ‘Dancing teenage boys just want to know how
With The Stars.’” to shave.”
49. THE CREATIVE – THE WORK
CREATIVE PROCESS
Client, Account, Planner, Creative, Planner, Account, Client, Repeat…
CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT
“The Most Interesting Man In The World”
EXECUTION
TV, Print, OOH, Radio, Web, Collateral, Digital, Social…
53. LAWRENCE KOHLBERG
Stages of Moral Development
Pre-Conventional Morality
Stage 1 Obedience and punishment orientation Obey authority, avoid punishment
Stage 2 Self-interest orientation Recognize dilemma, pursue self-interest
Conventional Morality
Stage 3 Interpersonal accord and conformity Cooperate, meet social expectations
Authority and social order maintaining
Stage 4 orientation
Decide what’s best for greater society
Post-Conventional Morality
Stage 5 Social contract orientation Respect values to compete democratically
Stage 6 Universal ethics principles Principles based on what is most just
54. GENDER
CULTURE AGE
SEXUALITY MORE PERSPECTIVE EDUCATION
SOCIAL ISSUES MATURITY
GEOGRAPHY
83. PSYCHOLOGY IN ADVERTISING
At our worst…
“The thing I hate most about advertising is it attracts all the bright,
ambitious young people, leaving us mainly with the slow and self-obsessed
to become our artists. Modern art is a disaster area. Never in the field of
human history has so much been used by so many to say so little.”
- Banksy, Graffiti Artist/Activist
…we piss off Banksy.
84. PSYCHOLOGY IN ADVERTISING
However…
“The irony is that while there has never been more ways to reach
consumers, it’s never been harder to connect with consumers.”
- Brad Jakeman, former CCO of Activision
…things are changing.
94. “The irony is that while there has never been more ways to reach
consumers, it’s never been harder to connect with consumers.”
- Brad Jakeman, former CCO of Activision
Me, the guy in advertising, teaching you, the students of psychology, about what I know.I have to admit.The things I know about psychology are a few names and concepts if they ever come up at trivia night or something. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Freud, those YouTube videos of kids who can’tkeeptheir hands off the marshmallows.I know advertising and psychology have a lot to do with one another. But part of this still required a lo of research on my part.And what I learned most was that as much as advertising is in psychology, as much of my world is in your world.
There’s a lot of psychology, your world, in my world of advertising.
My reasoning for doing this… this is a mid-level psychology class.I know some of you are probably studying psychology, and the rest of you are here because you’re at least interested in it to some larger capacity.Learn that psychology can be utilized in so many other industries, and I believe that advertising is one of the best.Hopefully that part is inspiring.
Some textbooks…Some academic journals…Some stuff on the internet…
Felt a bit like being in Times Square. A bit overwhelmed.So I took some advice from the advertising world…
And I picked one or two things that I thought were most important, and most interesting, to the world of developmental pschology.
One of the main things we’re concerned with when it comes to advertising in psychology is consumer behavior.Understand consumers and make buyers out of them.The consumer is highly complex, his needs and desires are innumerable, teach consumer has a different priorities.So we ask…
Well, a lot of things.Perception, personality, learning, motivation… all these things that vary from consumer to consumer.The one I think is the richest area to talk about though, is attitude.
Consumer attitude. This is complicated, in a beautiful way. Every single different consumer out there and their differing opinions on EVERYTHING.
I like to think that this is basically a scale. Your thoughts on everything. So if I say Nike, a sneakerhead might be like, “FUCK YES” or if I say Geno’s Cheesesteaks, someone else might say “Gross, I got food poisoning there” or ”Fuck those guys, they’re xenophobes” or if I say Rakuten, a Japanese brand like Amazon, probably everyone in here will be like “uhhh, I dunno?”We have all these things: prior purchases, recommendations, rankings, beliefs, evaluations and intentions; ARE ALL RELATED TO ATTITUDE.There are two things we should know that are important to attitudes.
MANY WAYS, SOME ARE: direct experience with a brand, word of mouth from a friend, exposure to an advertisement.
Shift: digital cameras are great when you want to email photos to your friends.Classical Conditioning: behavior modification where a subject becomes conditioned to respond in a desired manner.EXPOSURE TO ADSMarlboro: women’s cigarette, ivory tipped, mild as may. Not very lucrative.Ad Council, anti-smoking.
They are complex. And they change.And 1) that’s important to note when we’re talking about developmental psychology and how our attitudes might change over time.And 2) that’s important for advertisers as they attempt to influence attitudes toward specific products, brands or issues.
Market leader: Band-AidCompetitor: Avis, Droid.Why so much about attitudes? Because…
Back to the original point…We know attitudes are learned and they are not permanent, and they can predict consumer behavior.In the psychology world……psychologists are motivated to understand the relationship between attitudes and behavior, so……like psychologists do, they have constructed “models” to better explain attitudes and predict behavior.
The two we’re going to talk about are:
As you might expect…Cognitions, emotions and intentions.Another approach…
Attitude toward object, attitude toward behavior… but I thought this one was the most relevant.Old Spice success story.Advertising works. But not in the way you think. We’re not walking blindly away from our Tvs trying to buy what we just saw.It either takes time (Nike, Harley Davidson) or something really special (Old Spice, Smirnoff Ice)
You know I live in NYC, you know I work in advertising.Specifically…
…I work in the creative department at an ad agency as a writer.
I’ve done work for a bunch of big brands.If that still doesn’t resonate…
Let’s ask FreudID: Most basic instincts, a restless creative.Ego: More realistic, Peggy Olson, a budding successful creative.Superego: Narcissistic satisfaction, Don Draper, a powerful, quick-witted, effortless creative director (some might say womanizer).
Production and administration aside, and for simplicity reasons, there are four main disciplines that run an ad agency.
We’re going to talk a lot about perspective… so the best way to understand how an agency functions is to look at how each person in the agency views each other.This is obviously very hyperbolic, if you have any aspirations to do any of this, I don’t mean for any of it to be offensive.This is just kind of how it is.
Account executives, account directors, all the way up to the CEO. They’re what stands between the agency and the clients. They manage the relationship and try to strategically manage the brand and the campaigns they create.
Art directors, copywriters, creative directors. All mostly have bigger aspirations to write TV, to be an artist, but realize that ad gigs pay their bills.
Insightful, savvy, consumer-centric, strategic, very “start-up”
Business people, marketing people, sometimes they have MBAs. They’re concerned—mostly—with sales, with numbers, with branding and maybe, maybe, at the end of the list you can get them to care about creativity.The best clients come from agency backgrounds, the best clients find a way to accomplish business goals, push creative boundaries and simplify their brand all at the same time.But regardless if they’re a good or a bad client, they think they’re Jesus.
So again, there are four main disciplines that make an agency run.
The two that deal the most with psychology are creative and planning.So we’ll get into both of those in depth.
Every brief is different.Seems like a lot.“Give me the freedom of a tight brief” – David OgilvyGet ___ to ____ by _____.
Segmentation:helps us segment consumers into groups. Census data, Nielsen reports.Consumer Insights: Deeper understanding.Market research, focus groups.BBDO razor storyOreo.Not selling ¾” drill bits, you’re selling ¾” holes. Not selling mattresses, selling a good night’s sleep.Insights should spark ideas and resonate with consumers.
Why all this? Why so much? Why not just write a funny commercial? We’re able to craft a message that speaks to someone on a much deeper level, to connect with them, not just talk at them.MAIN PURPOSE OF THE STUDY OF CONSUMER BEHAVIOR: Get close to the buyer, understand their needs and priorities.
If you connect with a consumer, you have an opportunity to develop not just a purchase, but brand loyalty.Faithfulness to a brand, expressed through repeat purchases, irrespective of the marketing efforts of other brands.
What we’ve talked about so far, the role of account planning and strategy, has answered the…We know who we’re talking to, what we’re going to say, where and when we’re going to say it and why they should believe us.
This is how we’re going to communicate it. This is the creative messaging as well as what media we’re going to employ.
Let’s talk about the role psychology plays to the creative.
As harebrained as it might seem being a creative, there is a process.Concerned with two main things: FIRST concept development and SECOND execution.
Conceptually, need to be clever. Create something that people want to spend time with.Executionally, need to be able to put yourself in the shoes of all sorts of different people and be able to talk to them.Look and feel of a particular design are important in order to ATTRACT.Tone and language of words both written and spoken are important in order to CONNECT.
To be an advertising creative, perspective is the biggest thing.One day I could be selling Band-Aids to Moms…One day I could be selling beer to single, 20-something men…When we segment people into target markets, the message needs to be mindful of a lot of different things. Much in the way differing perspectives matters…
…differing stages of moral development matters.This brings us to Lawrence Kohlberg.
We understand that people in different stages of moral development—or different stages in life—or just live different lifestyles—react and respond to messaging differently.Kohlberg = morality.But when creating advertising, NEED TO CONSIDER DIFFERENT: gender, age, intellect, socioeconomic background.And it matters where they’re from, their comfort level with different social issues, sexuality and culture.Yes, there are certain established conventions for communicating to specific groups, but as you’ll see in the work that follows, sometimes the biggest creative opportunity lies in the potential to break them.
We’re going to take a look at why differing perspectives matter.
And were going to do it by looking at work.Work that has been created with specific segments of consumers in mind.Some is great. Some is awful. Some is safe. Some is aggressive.We’ll learn that we communicate differently with different segments within certain boundaries and conventions.But we’ll also learn that the creative opportunity comes in trying to push those boundaries and break those conventions.
Work that has been created with specific segments of consumers in mind.
Work that has been created with specific segments of consumers in mind.
Work that make considerations for sensitive, topical issues.
There are fine lines between being socially aware.
Socially opportunistic…
Socially ignorant.
We can be real about sexuality with teenagers…
…or we can tread lightly with older demographics.
America was built on, and thrives on diversity.
Brands who want to compete here, need to act like it.Got Milk? Story.
I think this applies to the advertising of old, where we used to talk at people.
The reality now is that we have infinite ways (list) not just to talk at people, but an opportunity to talk with and engage people.
We don’t have to perpetuate.
We don’t have to hurt.
We don’t have to promote unrealistic lifestyles.
We saw a whole range of work tailored to specific target segments—some good—some bad, and we’ve seen where advertising is now.What separates good work from the bad?
Unfortunately, this is what some brands continue to do.
Work that doesn’t break through to the consumer, it’s when the consumer breaks through to the work. When they go, “ah-ha.”There’s a quote about advertising today…
So where’s the opportunity today?
We’re part of a conversation with consumers.Not just crafting messages, we’re crafting experiences.Not just talking at people, we’re talking with them and engaging them.Never before have brands required such a deep understanding of people living among such a diverse, fragmented population.That’s the reality, and the opportunity, today.This is, to me, is why psychology—understanding people, they way they think, what they respond to and what makes them tick—plays such an important role in creating better, more meaningful, more impactful and more positive brand experiences for consumers.This is psychology’s role in advertising.