One of the examples of classical conditioning in advertising is the ad by Unilever, also known as AXE, of one of its products.
The main hero in the video is a man using an AXE deodorant. The clipping begins with the fact that a boy sees something falling from the sky. This object appeared to be beautiful girl – an "angel". She fell onto a crowded square and people around began watching with interest. Then it turns out that she came down from heaven not alone. Similar things happen all over the city. People want to help the girls, but they cannot do that, because they stopped in their tracks because of their beauty. The plot develops, the girls gather in a group and approach the man in the square. The man is wondering what is going on as usually the girls do not pay him much attention. It turns out that the angels came to the smell of the man. They break their halos and stay with the desirable flavor and its owner. At the end of the video a man who sprinkles this deodorant onto himself hears a hit on the roof right after using the deodorant.
Here we have the conditioned – neutral – stimuli, which is the spraying of the deodorant, the unconditioned stimuli is the flavor and the smell the girls hear. After time the conditioned stimulus (spraying) evokes a conditioned response – the angel falls down from heaven.
An Unconditioned stimulus (US) in a natural way evokes an unconditional response (BR). For example, the smell of meat (US) naturally causes the salivation dog. Similarly, with a beautiful woman (US) in sight this causes mild sexual arousal, or at least some positive feelings (BR) for most men. At this stage of the process there is no formation of conditioned response. The formation of conditioned response occurs when the unconditioned stimulus is combined (associated) with the conditioned stimulus (OS), which normally does not produce an unconditional response. The spraying of the deodorant caused for more angels to fall down from heaven.
References
AXE. (2012). “Even angel will fall”, No data. Web Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9w72ZqK18g
