Basic Persuasion Techniques

The goal of most media messages is to persuade the audience to believe or do something. Hollywood movies use expensive special effects to make us believe that what we’re seeing is real. News stories use several techniques – such as direct quotation of identified sources – to make us believe that the story is accurate.

Learning the language of persuasion is an important media literacy skill. Once you know how media messages try to persuade you to believe or do something, you’ll be better able to make your own decisions. We call these techniques the "language of persuasion.” They’re not new; Aristotle wrote about persuasion techniques more than 2000 years ago, and they’ve been used by speakers, writers, and media makers for even longer than that.

   

      10 Basic Persuasion Techniques      

      1.  Association

This persuasion technique tries to link a product, service, or idea with something already liked or desired by the target audience, such as fun, pleasure, beauty, security, intimacy, success, wealth, etc. The media message doesn’t make it obvious that you’ll get these things instead the association is implied. Association can be a very powerful technique. A good ad can create a strong emotional response and then associate that feeling with a brand.

Example

(https://goo.gl/images/YZM9rn)

The ad is simple and has only a short message yet has a strong meaning to persuade people, the words "Manisnya Marjan begitu kaya rasa" describe the characteristic of the product itself nicely. Also the brand has mostly biased or liked by people.

2. Bandwagon

Many ads show lots of people using the product, implying that "everyone is doing it" (or at least, "all the cool people are doing it"). No one likes to be left out or left behind, and these ads urge us to "jump on the bandwagon.”

Example

(https://goo.gl/images/PFBtwB)

Here Oral-B appeals to its customers by saying that over a million australians have already tried the product, so you should be a part of the crowd as well. This encourage customers to try out Oral-B product. 

3. Beautiful people

Beautiful people uses good-looking models (who may also be celebrities) to attract our attention. This technique is extremely common in ads, which may also imply (but never promise!) that we’ll look like the models if we use the product.

Example

(https://goo.gl/images/KFZ7P4)

Here they guarantee you that you too can have a luminous, flawless skin if you use the product being advertised by Cate Blanchett as it says this skincare is her luminous skin secret.  

4. Bribery

This technique tries to persuade us to buy a product by promising to give us something else, like a discount, a rebate, a coupon, or a "free gift.” Sales, special offers, contests, and sweepstakes are all forms of bribery.

Example

(https://goo.gl/images/YSnG6o)

The ad shows profit of shopping in tous les jours by offering a free gift to convince you but of course you don't really get it all that free cause it is (only) for the 50 first customers as the place and date had already been decided so you must not get left out.

5. Celebrities

We tend to pay attention to famous people. That’s why they’re famous! Ads often use celebrities to grab our attention. By appearing in an ad, celebrities implicitly endorse a product. Sometimes the endorsement is explicit, many people know that companies pay celebrities a lot of money to appear in their ads.

Example                                                                   

(https://goo.gl/images/EkoUMk)

The ad uses BTS as their endorsement to appear in their ad so they can promote their product  by using famous people to get our attention. Doing a collaboration with the artist and featuring them along with the product seems to be effective to increase the benefit of their brand on the market. 

6. Experts
We rely on experts to advise us about things that we don’t know ourselves. Scientists, doctors, professors and other professionals often appear in ads and advocacy messages, lending their credibility to the product, service, or idea being sold.

Example

(https://goo.gl/images/jk1Koj)

The ad has experts or doctors recommend and approve this product to customers, and give their opinion on why you should use it. It seems to be more reliable cause it is from the professionals themselves.   

7. Explicit claims
Something is "explicit" if it is directly, fully, and/or clearly expressed or demonstrated.  For example, some ads state the price of a product, the main ingredients, where it was made, or the number of items in the package – these are explicit claims.  So are specific, measurable promises about quality, effectiveness, or reliability. Explicit claims can be proven true or false through close examination or testing, and if they’re false, the advertiser can get in trouble. It can be surprising to learn how few ads make explicit claims. Most of them try to persuade us in ways that cannot be proved or disproved.

Example

(https://goo.gl/images/QbCW9G)

The ad states the main ingredients, what it's content of to inform and assure customers about the benefit of having this milk so they know what they will gain from this product.

8. Fear

This is the opposite of the Association technique. It uses something disliked or feared by the intended audience (like bad breath, failure, high taxes or terrorism) to promote a "solution.” Ads use fear to sell us products that claim to prevent or fix the problem.

Example

(https://goo.gl/images/8dwoxa)

Using fear to change attitudes, to urge people to stop smoking by directly stating the consequences if you are not following the warning. In other words the ad says that you've been warned so don't regret it at the end.

9. Humor
Many ads use humor because it grabs our attention and it’s a powerful persuasion technique. When we laugh, we feel good. Advertisers make us laugh and then show us their product or logo because they’re trying to connect that good feeling to their product. They hope that when we see their product in a store, we’ll subtly re-experience that good feeling and select their product.

Example

(https://goo.gl/images/3r5BsJ)

The ad shows its creativity on how they promote this app  and attract people's attention to experience the excitement of reading comic. 

10. Intensity
The language of ads is full of intensifiers, including superlatives (greatest, best, most, fastest, lowest prices), comparatives (more, better than, improved, increased, fewer calories), hyperbole (amazing, incredible, forever), exaggeration, and many other ways to hype the product.

Example

(https://goo.gl/images/hmpj9s)

The word 'most' shows how the advertiser exaggerate or hype the product, the method seems to be effectively to show the best part of the car.