ABSTRACT
Persuasion is becoming more important in advertising. A major reason is that competition is finding it easier to erode any functional or price advantage attached to a product. A firm may still have the advantage of a well-established system of distribution that is not easily copied but the goodwill and preferences of distributors can be destabilized by changes in their buying policies or a decline in consumer insistence for the product. In recognition of all this, companies are scrambling to reactivate long-neglected methods of reaching the consumer, like sports sponsorship, billboards and videos wherever there are people waiting, whether at airports or in doctors’ waiting rooms. American Idol came to the screen in 2003 in the United States, and signalled the aggressive way in which advertisers are embedding products in TV shows and films. According to The Economist, product placement has been taken to a whole new level in the James Bond movie Die Another Day, promoting everything from ‘Heineken beer to Omega watches and (invisible) Aston Martin cars. BMW cars are even starring in Internet minimovies.’1 The article also mentions the threats to TV advertising from ad-evading systems such as TiVo and the proliferation of other media. (Interestingly, TiVo is no longer selling its digital video recorders in the UK – the result of a failure to put across its advantages persuasively?) Attempts are also being made to create useful websites to attract viewers by offering them a free service.2 Thus a Lexus site is predominantly concerned with offering lifestyle information on subjects such as luxury hotels, high-technology homes and so on, while playing appropriate soothing music; it is hoped this will induce a sense of obligation to click the ad, as well as creating a positive attitude towards the company. This tactic changes a push to a pull strategy in that consumers are pulled to receive something and then to respond favourably. Advertisers on the web recognize that giving something for free motivates the viewer to give something in exchange, namely to look at the ad a click away. This is the principle of reciprocity (‘You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’) which is all-pervasive in social life. Kraft
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1011 1 2 3111 4 5 6 7 8 9 20111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 40111 1
Plate 1.1 Getting attention: Oliver Sweeney Source: Courtesy of Oliver Sweeney, © Oliver Sweeney Ltd
annoying people with pop-ups. A good deal of zipping and zapping results from the poor quality of commercials. In a survey of users, TiVo found that most did in fact watch the best commercials.3
