Do you sometimes buy a product or service that you do not need at all at that moment? Then, like the vast majority of people, you are probably a target of advertising psychology and its iron laws, which in your case achieved its desired effect. In today’s world, the effects of advertising psychology are part of everyday work not only for marketing agencies but also for companies themselves. However, mastering advertising psychology can help anyone in both their working and everyday life.
In this article, you will learn the principle that advertising psychology is based on, what the goals of psychology are and what advertising itself is for. You will then discover the top 12 effects for influencing people that advertising psychology uses. These effects can work not only on our senses and emotions but, above all, they target our buying behaviour.
Tip: If you are interested in advertising psychology and the overall concept of modern marketing, we definitely recommend the book This Is Marketing by Seth Godin, which you can also find in our list of recommended books.
Table of contents
What does the term advertising psychology mean?
The term advertising psychology (sometimes also called the psychology of influence through promotional tools) is one of the disciplines of modern applied psychology.
The primary focus of advertising psychology is how advertising affects individual behaviour. It looks in more depth at the mental processes in a person that lead to the desired effect. Findings from this discipline are mainly used by companies to achieve targeted buying behaviour.
Advertising psychology also studies various psychological topics, such as:
- memory and forgetting
- learning
- motivation (internal and external)
- the importance of emotions in advertising
- sensory psychology (influence through all our senses)
Buying behaviour is also studied using a scientific discipline called neuromarketing, which uses brain functions to create more effective marketing strategies.
Goals of advertising psychology and definitions
When we talk about advertising psychology, we should also say a few words about psychology itself. The term psychology comes from Greek and combines the words “psyche” (spirit, soul) and “logia”, meaning science or study.
Psychology is a science that studies not only human behaviour but also how people experience different life situations. It also examines our conscious and unconscious mind. The goals of psychology build on one another and include:
- describing human behaviour and experience
- trying to explain it using psychological theories
- predicting human behaviour and experience
- improving human well-being and health
Advertising as part of a company’s marketing strategy
If we look more closely at the definition of the second part of advertising psychology, we find that advertising is a paid or unpaid form of promotion and an integral part of the marketing mix.
Through advertising, the advertising message (information) is carried via promotional tools from the promoting company to the potential (right) customer.
“Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what you are doing, but nobody else does.”
– Steuart Henderson Britt
However, we cannot create advertising without a marketing plan and strategy set in advance, which is then reflected in every piece of advertising and in the product itself. The primary functions of advertising are:
- informing
- persuading
- selling
It is also worth noting that the public does not always understand and receive an advertising message negatively. Today, many customers see advertising as a way for a company to communicate and tell the story of its brand. A person either identifies with it or goes to a competitor.
Subliminal advertising and advertising psychology
Sometimes, however, companies are so determined that they resort to unfair practices and do not play entirely fair. This is where subliminal manipulation comes into advertising. Unfortunately, it has a lot in common with advertising psychology, but because of its dishonesty it often goes beyond its imaginary limits.
Subliminal advertisements are a specific form of advertising that secretly uses our subconscious to make us remember a product. It should be noted that subliminal advertising is banned in some countries (for example in the Czech Republic) because, according to studies, it really can play with the human mind and, so to speak, plant an idea in our heads without us knowing.
Many people surely say: “I don’t want adverts, I won’t let them influence me.” The truth is, however, that advertising pokes out at us from every corner of today’s world through various promotional tools, and it is sometimes really hard to resist.
It can often very cleverly confuse our minds and so persuade us to behave as the advertiser wants when buying. So how can we avoid being influenced, and what are the healthy psychological effects (consequences) of advertising?
TOP 12 effects of advertising psychology and influencing people
There are many effects of advertising psychology that a company can trigger with its advertising. We will introduce the TOP 12, which are harmless to our minds and which we are often aware of ourselves.
Before we move on to them, let us introduce 3 primary psychological effects that are almost always at play when advertising is used to attract the attention of potential customers. They are also reflected in the following TOP 12 effects of advertising psychology and influencing people. They are:
- self-involvement effect – people who are offered a solution to their problem remember the message better
- self-generation effect – we actively involve the customer in responding through associative coding
- self-reference effect, information or messages related to the “self” are recalled better than general ones
1. Cognitive dissonance
The first effect that can occur under the influence of advertising psychology is called cognitive dissonance, discovered by Leon Festinger in the mid-19th century. Put simply, it means defending our actions or attitudes towards a particular product or fact. Cognitive dissonance is an unpleasant
state that we try to remove by changing our attitude or our behaviour.
From a professional point of view, it is a state of mind caused by a conflict between two cognitions, for example between attitudes, knowledge, beliefs and the actual state of things. A person needs to reach inner balance, so they justify their attitudes and actions.
This is because people try to remove or minimise negative emotions, so they look for a way to defend their choice. As a result, adverts that focus on the cognitive dissonance effect often call the recipient to action. According to this belief, the customer is best persuaded by themselves (in their own mind).
In their advertising messages, companies count on customers having some inner conflict, so they offer them a solution to their problem or a way to restore balance. People also like to do and buy what people with a similar socio-economic background do and buy. They tell themselves: yes, this is what people like me do. This very idea is developed well in the book mentioned in the introduction, This Is Marketing by Seth Godin.
2. Altercasting and advertising psychology
The second effect of advertising psychology is called Altercasting. Altercasting is a theory first introduced by Eugene Weinstein and Paul Deutschberger in 1963. It is a theory of influence in which the main goal is to influence customers through social roles that customers will cast themselves in.
Advertising places a person in a social role that they identify with in their own life. Each social role has its own specific features: how the person should behave and what emotions they should radiate.
For example, if we want to be a capable and independent gardener, let’s go to Hornbach. Do you want to be like James Bond? Let’s drink Heineken.
3. The group effect
The third psychological effect is the group effect. In plain language: “if others do it, so will I”. This effect has influenced our lives since prehistoric times, although the situation may have been slightly different then. In prehistoric times or the Middle Ages, a person who behaved differently from others or was different in some way was cast out into the desert or banished from the kingdom.
Whether we like it or not, the need for a group is still ingrained in our minds, and we want to be part of something bigger. We do not want to be left alone or excluded from a certain order.
So if the people around us use a certain brand of phone, for example, we want it too. Wireless headphones are one new trend, for example. Companies use advertising messages, and because we want those headphones too and don’t want to feel embarrassed, we buy the product from that company. Promotional materials might therefore include a phrase such as: “Don’t have wireless headphones yet? Come and see us and we’ll help you choose!”
4. The unavailability effect
The unavailability effect is achieved when an advert includes a touch of mystery and a sense that something is out of reach for the customer. If something is unattainable, we want that product or service all the more. We can see a parallel in looking for a partner, for example. The more mysterious a potential partner is, the more we are drawn to them.
Companies try to persuade potential customers that the product they offer is rare and certainly not easy to get. Examples include sales labelled limited edition, premium range or only while stocks last. Their messages rely on phrases such as: Do you want to be unique?
5. The anchoring effect
The fifth effect is the anchoring effect, also known as anchoring. When making decisions, people rely on (anchor) their choice to a single piece of information or fact that they already know or have come across before (or that someone has told them).
Once we notice such a fact or piece of information, our imaginary anchor drops. We automatically start linking every further step to it, because it is stuck in our mind.
You can spot the anchoring effect in adverts when the original price of a product is shown in the offer. The effect can also be seen clearly when negotiating a price. A certain value is set for the product at the start, and the whole negotiation then follows from it.
6. The mere exposure effect
Another effect that promotional materials may aim for is the mere exposure effect. If we see a certain thing or person very often, it starts to feel familiar, and we gradually build trust and a relationship with it. As a result, we also think of that product or service more readily when choosing.
Take, for example, a stranger on the train who travels the same way as us at the same time every day on the way to work. At first we don’t trust them, but over time they become a familiar face and we develop a kind of relationship with them, even though we often still know very little about them.
The philosophy of the mere exposure effect is: The more often your advert is seen, the more people like you.
7. The psychology of advertising, avoid pain with us
You could say that the effects companies want to trigger in our minds are closely related. Remember the group effect and the reference to prehistoric times. Of course, the same principle also applies to the pain avoidance effect.
Companies use the pain avoidance effect to stress that if customers don’t do it, they will suffer. Deep down, people try to avoid pain.
To achieve the pain avoidance effect, the psychology of advertising focuses on phrases that describe the fact that if customers don’t buy now, they will lose the opportunity after a certain time and the price will be much higher.
It therefore highlights the consequences or situations that may follow if a potential customer doesn’t buy the product.
8. The golden mean
You know how it is. When we can’t decide in a certain situation, we choose the logical golden mean and go with it. Marketers are human too, and they neatly use this rule when creating advertising messages.
The effect that marketers want to achieve through the psychology of advertising can therefore also be the middle option. They know very well that if they give us a choice of three options, we usually pick the one in the middle. The options on either side are then built around it. Simply put, people want things just right.
Let’s take an example. You are having a coffee at your favourite Starbucks. Have you ever wondered why you can choose from 3 sizes and you almost always pick the middle one, because it seems to be the best value for you?
Author’s note: With the middle option effect, also watch out in particular for the decoy effect. This is when a third, least advantageous option (the so-called decoy) is deliberately squeezed in between 2 options.
9. The fate effect
Let’s admit it. We humans also often like to get carried away by illusions and dreams. We tend to see a pattern in random coincidences and believe that everything is a twist of fate. Gambling fans and betters themselves could tell you a thing or two about it.
Unfortunately, marketers are very good at exposing our weak spots, and this is where the fate effect comes in.
We often interpret situations as signs of fate, which frequently push us to take more and more risks. We also become convinced that our run of bad luck must break now, although unfortunately it is usually just coincidence.
10. The scarcity effect
The second-to-last TOP effect that companies try to achieve is the scarcity effect. With this effect, we see advertising messages saying that something is available in limited numbers. For example, when booking a holiday online, we see small print saying “only 2 rooms left“. With this signal, the online platform’s administrator triggers the scarcity effect in us.
To achieve the scarcity effect, companies claim in their adverts that “stock is low”. This “illusion of scarcity” can explain why crowds of people queue for hours just for the launch of a new iPhone range, for example. In reality, unfortunately, a limited offer in an advertising message rarely has anything to do with insufficient stock.
11. Cognitive bias and the psychology of advertising
Cognition = the set of operations and processes through which a person perceives and understands the world and themselves. The principle of the cognitive bias effect is to make the advertising message easy to access and understand for our fast thinking.
When thinking, we can focus either quickly or slowly. We use fast thinking most of the time. It is stereotyped, automatic thinking in which we don’t reflect and our brain is completely relaxed.
A simple advertising message must therefore be clear, brief and easy to follow so that we understand it within about 3 seconds, even when thinking fast.
Think, for example, of a roadside billboard, which is a perfect example of fast thinking, or an advert in a magazine whose pages we flick through out of the corner of our eye. The message must catch our attention and is designed so that customers don’t have to concentrate on it for long or work out what it means.
12. The success effect
When companies want to reach potential customers and create the success effect, they tell their stories through people who have succeeded. These people plucked up the courage and simply went to meet their destiny.
We read about people who won the lottery, who started a business and are now among the richest people in the world. Some are also daring lovers. They plucked up their courage and now have a wonderful life full of happiness and success.
In short, an advertising message using the success effect tells us that being spontaneous and brave pays off. The reality, however, is that for every person who succeeded and won, there are unfortunately 1 million others who did not.
Final advice: Look at the world through your own eyes and always weigh up all your options. Remember that behind every marketing message there is a hidden message leading you towards a targeted psychological effect. Good luck!
