We've covered a lot of material in this module, but we have one more big piece to go over. And that is the specific type of appeal. You want to use as you construct your persuasive messages. One of the most commonly used techniques, for better or worse is a so called sex appeal. And obviously, there are certain benefits to this approach. Because as this billboard indicates, sex appeals do tend to get consumers attention and we know that that's one of the very biggest challenges that marketers face today.

On the other hand, there are a lot of downsides to employing this approach. One is that there are very strong cultural differences and sub cultural differences in terms of how receptive consumers are to this kind of messaging strategy. So if you travel around the world, you you realize pretty quickly that there are some countries like India, for example, that are much more conservative than we are here in the US. But on the other hand, there are other areas of the world like Scandinavia, that would make many of us blush. So you have to be pretty careful about how you're going to use this approach, if at all. There are also gender differences and it won't surprise you to learn that, for example, female nudity in print ads generates negative feelings and tension among female consumers, whereas men's reactions are more positive.

Although erotic content does appear to draw attention to an ad, it's used may actually be counterproductive. I hate to sound like a prude, but according to one study, 61% of the respondents said that sexual imagery in a products ad would make them less likely to buy the advertised product. Generally speaking, sex appeals are most effective for products where the message is appropriate, such as beauty related items, but they can be counterproductive in other categories, so use them carefully. Another common approach is to incorporate humor into advertising. And this usually works a bit better than sexual appeals, although it has its limits as well. We do find that recognition scores for humorous ads are better than average.

One reason that silly ads may shift opinions is that they provide a source of distraction. A funny ad inhibits counter arguing in which a consumer thinks of reasons why he doesn't agree with the message. This increased is the likelihood of message acceptance, because the consumer doesn't come up with arguments against the product. However, as with sex appeals, there's an important caveat in order here and that is that we find huge cultural differences in terms of what people find funny versus offensive or inappropriate. Yet another type of appeal is a fear appeal which emphasizes the negative consequences that can occur unless the consumer changes a behavior, or at least an attitude. Fear appeals are common in social marketing contexts where organizations are trying to get consumers to stop unhealthy behaviors.

For example, do fear appeals work? Well, the evidence is mixed. But most of it indicates that very graphic ones, like the one you see in this picture, probably do not work very well because they're so overweight. whelming that people are motivated to find ways to explain them away or to decide that they just don't apply to them. So, the available evidence indicates that fear does work, but only in a moderate amount. Don't overdo it with the fear appeal, or you'll find that it's counterproductive.

The takeaway is that both humor and fear will work under the right condition. However, in both cases, this strategy can backfire if the message is inappropriate for the audience, or if the imagery is too extreme. What about a more complicated or even artistic approach to messages? The message as an art form that is what I like to call metaphors be with you. Sorry for a little joke. They're advertising creatives rely consciously or not on one Well known literary devices to communicate meanings.

Many ads take the form of an allegory, or a story about an abstract trade or concept that advertisers tell in the context of a person, Animal, vegetable, or object. This approach should be familiar to you because it came up earlier in the context of our discussion of the power of anthropomorphism, and the importance of creating a strong backstory for your product. resonance is a form of presentation that combines a play on words with a relevant picture. So an ad for a diet Strawberry Shortcake dessert, for example, might bear the copy buried treasure, so that the brand conveys qualities we associate with very treasure, such as valuable and hidden. Let's finish up with a really important question that attitude researchers have devoted a lot of thought to and that is, do we emphasize the source or the message? Another way to think about this in sales terms is do we sell the steak or the sizzle?

And my guess is that you'll find people who come down on both sides of this issue. So, which is the sizzle or the steak? You can probably guess the answer I'm going to give you It depends. Once again, we can get a lot of guidance about selling the steak versus the sizzle by looking at research that's been done on the elaboration likelihood model or the LM, which is very well known in social psychology. As we saw in module number four, a consumers level of involvement determines which cognitive processes will activate when she receives a message. In other words, her level of involvement will determine the likelihood that she will elaborate upon the message or give it a lot of thought.

Like a traveler who comes to a fork in the road, she chooses one path or the other. The direction she takes determines which aspects of the marketing communication will work and which will fall on deaf ears. This in turn influences which aspects of a communication she processes. One fork in the road is known as the central route to persuasion. When we find the information in a persuasive message relevant or interesting, we pay careful attention to it. We focus on the arguments the marketer presents and generate cognitive responses to this content.

So, this is a fairly high involvement situation. In contrast, we take the peripheral route to persuasion, when we're not really motivated to think about the marketers arguments. Instead, we're likely to use other cues to decide how to react to the message. These cues include the products package, the attractiveness of the source, or the context in which the message appears. But this leads us to what I like to call the paradox of low involvement. When we don't care as much about a product, the way it's presented, for example, who endorses it or the visuals that go with it actually increase in importance.

We buy low involvement products chiefly because the marketer designs a sexy package, or chooses a popular spokesperson or perhaps creates a stimulating shopping environment. So our final takeaway for this module is that the steak is more important for involving or complicated purchases. In contrast, the sizzle is more important for low involvement purchases, where the customer is more persuaded by package designs and other peripheral cues.