Advertising Techniques

Advertising is a powerful and manipulative source using both informative and persuasive communications that are essential in the human decision-making process. Thus, even when just giving us information the advertisers are manipulating our minds. They use peer pressure and rely on emotions, trying to express in a commercial the feelings that one would associate with a given product.  They target individuals and try to make them think that if they did not own their product they would not be 'cool' or 'in'.  Many of these techniques are found in the audio used, with music being conditioned to enhance the appeal of a product.

Some of the music used in the British Telecom advertisements have words.  They continually use catchy, well-known songs, such as the Beach Boys, as heard below, to reach their target audience.

      Click on the play button to  hear the Beach Boys, Good Vibrations

      Click on the play button to hear the Beach Boys, I Get Around

In the early 1980s the interest in music used in advertising increased dramatically following a study of the ‘attitude towards the ad’ (Aad).  The Aad approach shows that advertising leaves the consumer feeling positive about a product due to the classical conditioning of music used in commercials. In the Aad study, classical conditioning showed that by pairing a product with a liked piece of music, an association would be created between the music and the product and a liking for the product would be formed. Where music that was liked was used in a commercial it sold more products than that which was disliked.

This theory has attracted criticism however, as there was research made against the Aad theory where the same piece of music was used with two different colours of the same product and the results went against those found in the Aad theory. This Aad classical conditioning theory has been opposed by Pitt and Abratt who found that it did not work for products that were ‘very personal, controversial, and anything but boring’.

This Aad approach may have been criticised, yet it works to some extent as it has been found in several advertisements that the use of popular chart music attracts the right target audience.  Also the use of music that people know and can relate to aids the advertisement, especially where the lyrics are catchy and remain in your head after the advertisement has finished.