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Advertising Influence On Consumer Behavior

Customer Description:

Analyze the impact of advertising on consumer behavior. Today, no one can go anywhere without seeing at least one advertisement. These ads, as they are called, are an essential part of every type of media. They are placed in television, radio, magazines, and can even be seen on billboards by the roadside. Advertisements allow media to be sold at a more efficient way to consumers. Advertisers influence consumers by persuading the consumer into purchasing their product over a generic product that has the same function.

Paper Body:

I guess you can't find someone who hasn't ever been influenced by advertisements. Wherever you go, whatever you do - you see different ads ( as they are called). Encyclopedia Britannica gives the following definition of an advertising: " Advertising - the techniques and practices used to bring products, services, opinions, or causes to public notice for the purpose of persuading the public respond in a certain way toward what is advertised."

Advertising is a essential part of our life and the important source of income for the media. Many people say that they don't like TV commercials in the middle of the favorite movie, ads on a radio, billboards and so on. They say that such advertising is a nuisance, but in spite of it many of them prefer to drink Coca-Cola (but not some other soda drink) and to buy "Sony" or "Panasonic" equipment (but not any other less advertised brands). Why is that? How does advertising influence consumers behavior? What do the companies do to make us think that their products can change our life into better way? These serious questions worth answering.

Nowadays advertising has become large and important industry. Companies invest a lot of money in advertising campaigns. During this century advertising became a widespread and complicated activity. Developing of the psychology has influenced the advertising and made it more sophisticated. Most advertising campaigns now are based on psychological characteristics of human beings. Advertisers main target is to persuade us to buy their product, to make us think that we need it, but in fact maybe we don't. They try to manipulate our needs and wishes.

Advertising campaigns have become more aggressive because of increased competition. Unexpected problems with sales and increasing number of companies in a market in the early 70th of this century leaded to a situation where advertising became the major instrument in a competitive activity. For companies advertising became even more important than product developing.

Using different tricks advertisers can make consumers believe in their beautiful lies. Nowadays, when there are a lot of techniques that can create a great visual and acoustic effects, advertisers can easily attract consumers attention. Their purpose is to create the image of the product in consumers minds. Some years ago independent group of specialists made a research about the loyalty to a cigarette brand. All the people who participated in the experiment were devoted to a certain brand. They were asked to distinguish the brands of three cigarettes. Only 6 tested among 300 did it correctly. Many of them didn't even recognized their favorite brand. That means that consumers smoke not a cigarette, but its image created by an advertisement.

Another thing that advertisers use to influence consumers is a social status. Everyone wants to achieve a success and to have a higher position in a society. That's human nature. There are some products and brands which are associated only with the high social status. Companies try to show their product not as a thing with a certain functions but as a material symbol of success. The great example of it - Mercedes-Benz. That's not a car for everyone. If you purchased a Mercedes, your neighbors would think that you've got a promotion. For example, Mercedes-Benz found itself headed for trouble during the early 1990s, when it was losing younger, first-time luxury-car buyers to Toyota's Lexus division and Nissan's Infiniti unit.

Research showed these customers felt intimidated by the Benz; the brand had become such a symbol of wealth that it struck an unwelcome elitist tone. "We had to make the car more approachable," says Garfinkel of Lowe & Partners, which handles the carmaker's North American advertising. "Baby-boomers could now afford a Mercedes, but how could we connect with them?"( "Frogs, bears and orgasms" by Edward Robinson; Magazine: Fortune, June 9, 1997) Anywhere, it's important to mention that car manufacturers are more likely to indicate the image of the car rather than its technical characteristics. They say that when you buy a car, you buy a prestige.

Advertisers try to direct fashion in a way which is useful for them. That's not a secret that when we buy something fashion has an important influence on our choice. Often we can't help buying fashionable clothes, fashionable cars which maybe not much better than the other generic goods. Advertisers do their best to make the product fashionable and to make consumers think that it's superior than the others. There are different tricks to be used for this purpose. The most effective is to invite some famous person to advertise a product. It could be top-models, movie stars, pop singers - people who achieved success and who are consider to be fashionable.

Consumers start to associate a product or a brand with some person's success. The example is Pepsi campaign when it's changed the packing into blue one. Pepsi invited Spice Girls to advertise the drink. At that time Spice Girls were extremely popular. They were rather new and successful group. Pepsi soda drink were supposed to be considered by consumers as a symbol of something new and successful. That trick worked and many Spice Girls fans began to drink Pepsi. But it's important to mention that the taste of this soda drink hasn't been changed, it was only new packing and new image.

Nike sportswear uses the same effect in advertising. In its commercials you can see famous sport stars, Olympic games winners who say that Nike sportswear helped them to achieve high results. Consumers start to associate sport stars' features (bravery, strong wild, physical attractiveness) with the brand. But it's obvious that talented sportsmen can achieve high results in any other qualitative sportswear...