The main purpose of advertising is persuading people into buying certain ideas, services or product. Persuasion on the other hand, can be defined as the process through which one is able to influence the other’s attitudes, beliefs, values and behaviors. Persuasion may not be directly coercive. However, in most cases coercive acts are followed by persuasive messages; in which effectiveness depend on the level of threats credibility on acting otherwise. The motivation and ability of an individual to process persuasive message determine the route, in which the persuasive message is processed cognitively.
Peripheral persuasion is the one in which there is very little effort and motivation and it aims at reinforcing the existing attitudes. There are no significant changes that occur with the central route persuasion. On the other hand, central route persuasion involves lots of motivation, which results into careful considerations of the offered information. Central route persuasion results in the long term change. Therefore, the psychology of advertising in many respects is viewed as the psychology of influencing or persuading. Theories used by different psychologist in describing the psychology of influence and advertising are similar showing the similarity between the two.
Peripheral Route Persuasion in Advertising Example
The Nokia N80 advertisement presents a case in which the aim is not necessary to use a lot of effort in influencing the consumers’ decisions. This can be attributed to the fact Nokia brand is an established brand in the globe and the advertisement is just to reinforce their existence in the market. Therefore, the advertisement seems to be just a reinforcement of their marketing strategies in the market.
The advertisement under consideration for the case of peripheral route advertisement is that of Nokia N-series and specifically that of N80. The catchy phrase used in the advertisement was “The next episode is about to begin” and it could get to those hooked into watching the advertisement. In the advertisement, there were beautiful and eye catching sceneries, which attracted the viewers and readers. In addition, the advertisement had a beautiful lady running around and enjoying the use of the phone. Although the advertisement does not contain the full low down on Nokia N80 features and additive applications, anyone reading the newspaper would have been interested in knowing more about the Nokia N80 phone.
Therefore, the advertisement is a peripheral advertisement based on the reason that there is only scanty information provided on the features of the phone.
Central Route Persuasive Advertisement on Colgate
The central route advertisement under consideration is that of Colgate, in which there are various descriptive and experimental results. The advertisement provides an illustration on the advantages of using the Colgate hence persuading people by providing more information. The consumers require knowing if what they are buying is effective and practicality of buying the product. This is due to the fact that consumers purchase decisions are not based on the pictures provided in the advertisement such as people or models with white teeth. Consumers require information on whether the toothpaste works as illustrated in the advertisement.
Therefore, to convince and persuade consumers Colgate provided facts through experiments, which they thought would influence the consumer. This would persuade consumers to purchase the product since they are availed with more information and experiments on Colgate.
References
Brock, T., & Green, M. (2005). Persuasion: Psychological Insights and Perspectives. Ca: Sage.
Petty, R., Cacioppo, J. T., & Schuman, D. (2001). Central and Peripheral Routes to Advertising Effectveness: The moderating Role of Involvement. Journal of Consumer Research , 135-146.
Richard, P. E., & John, C. T. (2000). Central and Peripheral Routes to Persuasion: Application to advertisement. Advertising and Consumer Psychology , 521-531.
