How to be Me: Advertising Revealed

Don’t advertisements love to show these happy, beautiful people? Don’t they make it seem like you can never become them? Do you feel jealous? You can blame behaviorist John B. Watson for this tactic they use. Watson worked at Johns Hopkins on experiments such as the famous “Baby Albert” experiment then got into some trouble with his graduate student assistant. Anyways, after being kicked out he worked for J. Walter Thompson, an advertising agency.

He went into market research by applying psychology to advertising. He’s the one that started using celebrities as promoters. Watson found this out by looking into the demographic of consumers that the producers were aiming for. Look at how our magazines are filled with this. About 30-40% of magazines contain advertisements. That’s what’s really funding the magazine.

Don’t be fooled though. Photoshop is their best friend. Each company has their own look and they like to modify already pretty people into their image. For mascara ads the models are wearing fake lashes. Don’t give into those diets and obsessions over having a thigh gap. Be your own perfection.

For an effective advertisement, Watson believed it needed to appeal to three feelings: love, fear, and rage. All of these can be displayed in Nike’s Find Your Greatness campaign. It gives us the message of trying our best. It can relate to anyone and it fits with what Nike wants to promote which is that they have the tools to help you.

How do your favorite brands use psychology in their ads?

Sources:

Lustgarten, Sam. “Wired Magazine Is 40 Percent Ads – Frugaling.” Frugaling. N.p., 03 July 2013. Web.
“100 Percent of What You See In Fashion Magazines Is Retouched – IdealBite.” IdealBite. N.p., 22 Oct. 2012. Web.
Tartakovsky, Margarita. “The Psychology of Advertising.” Psych Central.com. N.p., n.d. Web.