FIFTEEN Appeals L Needfor Sex In Advertising

Classification of content will be sufficient to reverseits hideouseffects.What is currentlyunder discussionin our nationalhysteriaaboutfailing academic performance misses the point. Schools teach exactly what they are intended to teach and they do it well: how to be a good Egyptian and remain in your place in the pyramid. F W QUESTIONS OREVALUATING RIT'ING l. ldentily the thesisstatement. Doesit tell thereaders whatthey will encounterin the essay? 2. Identify the supporting lllustrations. Does the writer .show the readers specificexamples illustrate pointf to his 3. Identify the placeswhere the writer is explaining.Doesthe writer clearly explain how the illustrationsprovided supporthis/her point (and/ormessage)? 4. Identify how the writer structures
essay. his Did he chosea structure that suits his message and/or purpose? 5. What did the writer do well?

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6. What suggestions would you give this writer to improve essay? his

Activity AnnotatingProfessional 18: a Writer's ol Classification Use
Directions: Read and annotate the article very carefrrlly. Answer the questionsabout the article.

g; Advertisin rTti;jasic
EMOTIONAL APPEALS

Appeals

The nahrre of effective advertisementswas recqgnizedfirll well by the late media philosopher Marshall Mcluhan. In his {lnderstanding

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*Reprinted Advertising Popular publications, from and cultureby permission Sage of Inc.Copvright 1996 JibFowles. by

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Classification Media, the first sentenceof the section on advertising reads, "The continuous pressureis to create ads more and more in the image of audiencemotives and desires." By giving form to people's deep-lying desires,and picturing statesof being that individuals privately yearn for, advertisershave the best chanceof arrestingattentionand affecting communication. And that is the immediate goal of advertising: to tug at our psychological shirt sleeves and slow us down long enoughfor a word or two about whatever is being sold. We glance at a picture of a solitary rancher at work, and "Marlboro?'slips into our minds. Advertisers (I'm using the term as a shorthand for both the products'manufacturers,who bring the ambition and money to the process,and the advertising agencies,who supply the know-how,1 are ever more compelledto invoke consumers'drives and longings; "continuous pressure" this is the Mcluhan refers to. Over the past century, the American marketplace has grown increasingly congested as more and more products have entered into the frenzied competition after the public's dollars. The economies of other nations are quieter than ours since the volume of goods being hawked does not so greatly exceed demand. In some economies, consumerwares are scarceenough that no advertisingat all is necessary.But in the United States, we go to the other extreme. In order to stay in business,an advertisermust strive to cut through the considerablecommercial hub-bub by any means availableincluding the emotional appealsthat some observershave held to be abhorrent and underhandedThe use of subconscious appealsis a comment not only on conditions among sellers. As time has gone by, buyers have become stoutly resistantto advertisements. live in ablizzardof thesemesWe sagesand have learned to turn up our collars and ward offmost of them. A study done a few yearsago at Harvard University's Graduate School of Business Administration venfured that the average American is exposed to some 500 ads daily from television, newspapers,magazines,radio, billboards, direct mail, and so on. If for no other reasonthan to preserveone's sanity,a filter must be developed in every mind to lower the number of ads a person is achrally aware

C'lassification of-a number this particular study estimated at about seventy-five ads per day. (Of these, only fwelve typically produced a reactionnine positive and three negative, on the average.)To be among the few messagesthat do manage to gain accessto minds, advertisers must be strategic,perhapseven a little underhanded times. at There are assumptionsabout personaliy underlying advertisers' etlorts to communicate via emotional appeals, and while these assumptionshave stood the test of time, they still deserveto be aired. Human beings, it is presumed,walk around with a variety of unfulfilled urges and motives swirling in the bottbm half of their minds. Lusts, ambitions, tendernesses, vulnerabilities-they are constantly bubbling up, seekingresolution.Thesemental forcesenergizepeople, but they are too crude and irregular to be given excessive play in the real world. They must be cappedwith the competent,sensiblebehavior that permits individuals to get along well in society.However,this upper layer of mental activity, shot through with caution and rationality, is not receptiveto advertising'spitches.Advertiserswant to circumvent this shell of consciousness they can, and latch on to one if of the lurching, subconsciousdrives. In effect, advertisers over the years have blindly felt their way around the undersideof the American psyche,and by trial and error have discoveredthe softest points of entree, the places where their messageshave the greatest likelihood of getting by consumers' defenses- Mcluhan sayselsewhere,"Gouging awayat the zurface As of public sales resistance, the ad men are constantly breaking through into the Alice in Wonderlandterritory behind the looking glass, which is the world of subrational impulses and appetites." An advertisement communicates by making use of a specially selectedimage (of a supine female, say,or a curly-haired child or a celebrity) which is designed to stimulate "subrational impulses and desires" even when they are at ebb, even if they are unacknowledgedby their possessor. Some few ads have their emotional appeal in the text, but for the greater number by far the appeal is containedin the artwork. This makessense, since visual communication better suits more primal levels of the brain. If the viewer of an advertisementactually has the importuned motive, and if the

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Classification appeal is sufliciently well fashioned to call it up, then the person can be hooked-The product in the ad may then appearto take on the semblance gratification for the summonedmotive. Many ads of seem to be saying, "If you have this need then this product will help satisfy it." It is a primitive equation,but not an ineffective one for selling. Thus, most advertisements appearingin nationalmedia can be understoodas having two orders of content.The first is the appeal to deeprunning drives in the minds of consumers. The second is information regarding the good[s] or service being sold: its name, its manufacfurer, its picture, its packaging, its objective attributes, its functions.For example,the readerof a brassiere advertisement sees a partially undraped but blandly unperfurbed woman standing in an otherwise comrnonplace public sefting,and may experience certain sensations; readeralso seesthe name"Maidenform," a particular the brassierestyle, and in tiny print, words about the material, colors, price. Or, the viewer of a television commercial seesa demonstration rvith four small boxeslabelled650, 650, 650, and 800; somethingin the viewer's mind catches hold of this, as trivial as thoughtful considerationmight reveal it to b€. The viewer is also exposedto the name'Anacin," its bottle, and its purpose. Sometimes there is an apparently logical link befrveenan ad's emotional appeal and its product information. It does not violate cornmon sensethat Cadillac automobilesbe photographed country at clubs, or that JapanAir Lines be associated with Orientalia.But there is no real needfor the linkage to havea bit ofreason behind it. Is there anything inherent to the connection between Salem cigarenes and mountains,Coke and a smile, Miller Beer and comradeship? The link being forged in minds befween product and appeal is a pre-logical one. People involved in the advertising indushy do not necessarily talk in the terms being used here. They are stationedat the sending end of this communicationschannel,and may think they are up to any number of things-Unique Selling Propositions, explosive copywriting, the optimal use of demographicsor psychographics,

Classification ideal media buys, high recall ratings, or whatever. But when attentionshifts to the receiving end of the channel,and focuseson the instant of reception, then commentary becomes much more elemental:an advertisingmessage containssomethingprimary and primitive, an emotional appeal,that in effect is the thin end of the wedge, trying to find its way into a mind. Should this occur, the product infbrmation comesalong behind. When enough advertisements are examined in this light, it becomes clear that the emotional appeals fall into several distinguishable bategories,and that every ad is a variation on one of a limited number of basic appeals.While there may be severalways of classifyingtheseappeals,one particularlist of fifteen has proven to be especiallyvaluable. can appealto: Advertisements l. Theneedfor sex 2. Theneed affiliation for 3. The needto nurture 4. Theneed guidance for to 5. Theneed aggress to 6.Theneed achieve 7. The needto dominate for 8. Theneed prominence 9. The needfor attention l0- Theneed autonomy for to 1l. Theneed escape 12,Theneed feel safe to sensations 13.The needfor aestbetic to 14.Theneed satisfu curiosity needs: etc. 15.Physiological foo4 drink,sleep, MURRAY'S LIST Where doesthis list of advertising's fifteen basicappealscome from? Severalyears ago, I was involved in a researchproject which was to have as one segment an objective ana$sis of the changing

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Classification appealsmade in post-World War II American advertising. A sample of magazineads would have their appealscoded into the categories of psychologicalneedsthey seemedaimed at- For this content analysis to happen,a completerosterof human motiveswould haveto be found. The first thing that came to mind was Abraham Maslow's famous four-part hierarchy of needs. But the briefest look at the range of appealsmade in advertising was enoughto reveal that they are more varied, and more profane, than Maslow had cared to account for. The searshled on to the work of psychologist Henry A. Murray, who together with his colleagues at the Harvard Psychological Clinic has constructeda full taxonomy of needs.As described in Explorations in Personality, Murray's team had conducted a lengthy seriesof in-depth interviews with a numLrerof subjects in order to derivefrom scratchwhat they felt to be the essential variables of personalify.Forty-four variables were distinguished by the Harvard group, of which twenfy were motives. The need for achievement("to overcome obstaclesand obtain a high standard") was one, for instance;the need to defer was another; the need to aggresswas a third; and so forth. Murray's list had servedas the groundwork for a number of subsequent projects. Perhaps the best-known of these was David C. McClelland's extensivestudy of the need for achievement,reported in his TheAchieving Society.In the processof demonstrating that a people'shigh need for achievement predictiveof later economic is growth, McClelland coded achievementimagery and referencesout of a nation's folklore, songs,legends,and children's tales. Following McClelland, I too wanted to cull the motivational appealsfrom a cultrne's imaginative product-in this case,advertising. To develop categories expressly for this purpose, I took Murray's twenty motives and addedto them othershe had mentioned in passing in Explorations in Personulity but not included on the final list. The extendedlist was tried out on a sample of advertisements,and motives which never seemedto be invoked were dropped. I endedup with eighteenof Murrays'motives, into which Z?0 print
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Classification ads were coded.The resulting distribution is included in the 1976 book Mqss Advertising as Social Forecast. Since that time, the list of appealshas undergonerefinementsas a result of using it to analyzetelevision commercials.A few more adjustrnentsstemmedfrom the efforts of studentsin my advertising classesto decode appeals; tens ofterm papers surveying thousands of advertisements have causedsome inconsistenciesin the list to be hammeredout. Fundamentally,thoug[ the list remains the creation

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of Henry Murray. In developing a comprehensive. parsimonious inventory of human motives, he pinpointed the subsurface mental forces that are the least quiescent and most susceptibleto advertising's entreaties.

FIFTEEN APPEALS L Needfor sex.
Let's start with sex, becausethis is the appeal which seems to pop up first whenever the topic of advertising is raised. Whole books have been wriften about this one alone, to find a large audienceof mildly titillated readers.Lately, due to campaignsto sell blue jeans, concern with sex in ads has redoubledThe fascinating thing is not how much sex there is in advertising, but how little. Contrary to impressions,unambiguoussex is rare in these messages. Some of this surprising observationmay be a matter of definition: the Jordache ads with the lithe, blouse less female astride a similarly clad male is clearly an appeal to the audience'ssexual drives, but the sarnecannot be said about Brooke Shields in the Calvin Klein commercials. Directed at young women and their credircard carrying mothers, the image of Miss Shields instead invokes the need to be looked at. Buy Calvins and you'll be the center of much attention, just as Brooke is, the ads imply; they do not primarily inveigle their target audience's need for sexual intercourse. In the content analysis reported in Mass Advertising as Social Forecastonly two percentof ads were found to panderto this motive. Even Playboy ads shy away from sexual appeals: a recent
issue

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Classification containedeighty-threefull-page ads, and just fbur of them (or less than five percent) could be said to have sex on their minds. The reasonthis appealis so little usedis that it is too blaring and tendsto obliteratethe productinformation.Nudity in advertisinghas the effect of reducingbrandrecall.The peoplewho do rememberthe product may do so because they have been made indignant by the ad; this is not the responsemost advertisersseek. To the extent that sexualimagery is used,it conventionallyworks better on men than women; typically a female figure is offered up to the male read€r.A Black Velvet liquor advertisementdisplays an attractive woman wearing a tight black outfit, recumbentunder the legend "Feel the Velvet." The figure does not have to be horizontal, however, for the appealto be presentas National Airlines revealedin its "Fly me" campaign. Indeed there doesnot evenhaveto be a femalein the ad; "Flick rny Bic" was sufficient to conveythe idea to many. As a rule, though, advertisers have found sex to be a tricky appeal,to be used sparingly.Less controversial and equally fetching are the appealsto our need for affectionate human contact. 2- Need for ffiliation. American mythology upholds autonomousindividuals, and social statistics suggestthat people are ever more going it alone in their lives, yet the high frequency of affiliative appealsin ads belies this. Oi maybe it doesnot: maybe all the images of companionshipare compensationfor what Americans privatelylack. In any case,the needto associate with othersis widely invoked in advertising and is probably the mostprevalent appeal.All sorts of goods and services are sold by linking them to our unfulfilled desiresto be in good company. According to Henry Murray, the need for affiliation consists of desires "to draw near and enjoyably cooperateor reciprocate with another; to please and win affection of another; to adhere and remain loyal to a friend." The manifestations this motive can be segmented of into severaldifferent types of affiliation, beginning with romance. Courtship may be swifter nowadays,but the desire for pair-bonding is far from satiated. Ads reachingfor this needcommonly depict a youngish male and female engrossedin each other.The head of the
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Classification male is usually higher than the female's,evenat this late date; she nray be sitting or leaning while he is standing.They are not touching in the Smimoff vodka ads, but obviously there is an intimacy, sometimes frolicsome, betweenthem. The couple does touch for Martell Cognac when "The moment was Martell." For Wind Song perfume they have touche4 and "Your Wind Song stayson his mind." Depending on the audience,the pair does not absolutelyhave to be young-just together.He gives her a DeBeersdiamond,and there is a tear in her laugh lines. She takesGeritol and preserves herself for him. And numbers of consumers,wanting affection too, follow suit. Warm family feelings are fanned in ads when another generation is addedto the pair.Hallmark Cardsbringsgrandparents the into picture, and Johnsonand JohnsonBaby Powderhas Dad, Mom, and baby,all fresh from the bath, encircled in arms and emblazonedwith "Share the Feeling."A talc has been fusedto familial love. Friendship is yet another form of affiliation pursued by advertisers.Two women confide and drink Maxwell House coffee together; two men walk through the woods smoking Salem cigareftes.Miller Beer promisesthat afternoon"MillerTime" will be stafled with three or four good buddies.Drink Dr. Pepper, Mickey Rooney is coaxed as to do, andjoin in with all the other Peppers. Coca-Coladoesnot even need to portray the friendliness;it has reducedthis appealto "a Coke and a smile." The warmth can be toned down and disguised,but it is the same affiliative need that is being fished for. The blonde has a direct gaze and her friends are firm businessmen appearance, with a glass in but of Old Bushmill you can sit down and fit right in. Or, for something more upbeat, sing along with the Pontiacchoirboys. As well as presentingpositive images,advertiserscan play to the need for affiliation in negative ways, by invoking the fear of rejection. If we don't use Scope, we'll have the *Ugh! Morning Breath" that causesthe male and female models to avert their faces. Unless we apply Ultra Brite or Close-Up to our teeth, it's good-byeromance-Our family will be cursedwith "House-a-tosis" if we don't take care.Without Dr. Scholl'santiperspirant foot spray,

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Classification the bowling team will keel over. There go all the guestswhen the supply of Dorito's nacho cheese chips is exhausted.Still more rqection if our shirts have ring-around-the-collar, our car needs if to be Midasized. But make a few purchases, and we are back in the bosomof human contact. As self-directed Americanspretendto be, in the last analysis as we remain social animals, hungering for the positive, endorsing feelings that only those around us can supply. Advertisers respond, urging us to "Reach out and touch someone," in the hopes our monthlybills will rise. 3- Need to nurture. Akin to affiliative needsis the need to take care of small, defenseless creatures-,rhildren and pets, largely. Reciprocityis of lessconsequence here,though; it is the giving that counts.Murray usessynonymslike "to feed,help, support,console, protect,comfort, nurse,heal." A strong need it is, woven deep into our genetic fabric, for if it did not exist we could not successfully ll raise up our replacements.When advertisersput forth the image of something diminutive and lirry, something that elicits the word "cute" or "precious,"then they are trying to trigger this motive. We listento the childish voice singing the OscarMayer weiner song,and our next hotdog purchaseis prescribed.Aren't those darling kittens something,and how did this Meorp Mix get into our shopping cart? This pitch is often directedat women,as Mother Nature'schief nurturers."Make rne some Kraft macaroni and cheese,please,',says the elfin preschoolerjust in from the snowstorm,and mothers'hearts go out, and Kraft's salesgo up. "W'e're cold, wet, and hungry," whine the husband and kids, and the little woman gets the Manwiches ready.A facsimile of this need can be hit without children or pets: the husbandis ill and sleepless the televisioncommercial,and the in wife grudgingly fetchesthe NyQuil. But it is not women alone who can be touched by this appeal. The father nurseshis son Eddie through adolescence while the John Deere lawn tractor survives the years.Another father counts pennies with his young son as the subject of New York Life Insurancecomes up. And all overAmerica are businessmen who don't know whv thev

('lassification dial QantasAirlines when they have to take a trans-pacific trip; the koala bear knows.
4. Needfitr guidance.The oppositeof the needto nurture is the need to be nurtured: to be protectetl shielded guided. We may be loath to admit it, but the child lingers on inside every adult-,and a good thing it does,or we would not be instructable our advancins in years.Who wants a nation of nothing but flinty personalities? Parent-likefigures can successfullycall up this need Robert Young recommends Sanka coffee, and since we have experienced him for twenty-five years as television father and doctor, we take his word fbr it- Florence Hendersonas the expert mom knows a lot about the advantages Wessonoil. of The parent-ness the spokesperson of need not be so salient; sometimes pure authoritativenessis better. when orson welles scowls and intones,"Paul Masson will sell no wine before its time," we may not know exactly what he means,but we still take direction from him- There is little maternal about Brendavaccaro when she speaksup for Tampax,but there is a certainty to her that many accept. A celebrity is not a necessityin making a pitch to the need for guidance,since a fantasy figure can servejust as well. people accede to the Green Giant, or Betty Crocker, or Mr. Goodwrench-Some advertisers get by with no figure at all: "When E.E Hutton talks, can peoplelisten." Often it is tradition or custom that advertisers point to and consumers take guidancefrom. Bits and
piecesofAmerican history are used to sell whiskeys like Old Crow, Southern Comfort, Jack Daniel's.we conform to traditional maleifemaleroles and age-old social norms when we purchaseBarclay cigarettes,which informs us "The pleasure is back." The product itself, if it has been around for a long time, can constitutea tradition.All those old labels in the ad for Morton salt convince us that we should continue to buy it. Kool-Aid says ..you loved it as a kid. You trust it as a mother," hoping to get yet more consumers go along. to

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f'lassification Even when the product has no history at all, our need to conform to tradition and to be guided are strong enoughthat they can be invokedtluough bogusnostalgiaand older actors.Country-f ime lemonadesells because conflrmerswant to believe it has a past they can defer to. So far the needsand the ways they can be invoked which have been looked at are largely warm and affiliative; they standin contrast to the next set of needs,which are much more egoistic and assertive. 5. Need to aggress. The pressures the real world createstrong of retaliatory feelings in every functioning human being- Since these impulses can come forth as bursts of anger and violence, their display is normally tabooedExisting as harboredenergy, aggressive drives present a large, tempting target for advertisers.It is not a target to be aimed at thoughtlessly, though, for Gw manufacturers want their products associatedwith destructivemotives.There is always the danger that, as in the case of sex, if the appeal is too blatant,public opinion will turn againstwhat is being sold. Jack-in-the-Box soughtto abruptlyalter its marketingby going after older customers and forgettingthe younger ones.Their television commercialshad a seveng-ish lady command,"Waste him," and the Jack-in-the-Box clown exploded before our eyes. So did public reaction until the commercialswere toned down. Print ads for Club cocktailscarriedthe facesof octogenarians underthe headline, "I{it me with a Club"; response was contrary enoughto bring the carnpaignto a stop. Better disguised aggressiveappealsare less likely to backfire: Triumph cigareftes has models making a lewd gesture with their uplifted cigarettes,but the individuals are often laughing and usually in close company of others. When Exxon said "There's a Tiger in your tank," the implausibilify of it concealed the invocation of aggressive feelings. Depicted argumentsare a corrrmon way for advertisersto tap the audience'sneedsto aggress.Don Rickles and Lynda Carter trade gibes, and consumerstake sidesas the name of Seven-Upis stitched on minds. The Parkay tub has a difference of opinion with the user; who can forget it, or who (or what) got the last word in?
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Classificatiorr 6. Need to achieve.This is the drive that energizespeople, causing them to strive in their lives and careers.According to Murray, the need for achievementis signalled by the desires ..to accomplishsomethingdifficult. To overcomeobstacles and attain a high standard. excel one's self. To rival and surpassothers."A To prominentAmerican trait, it is one that advertisers like to hook on ro because identifiestheir product with winning and success. it The cutty sark ad doesnot disclosethat Tedrurner failed at his latest attempt at yachting'sAmerica cup; here he is represented a as championon the water as well as off in his televisionenterprises. If we drink this whiskey, we will be victorious alongside Turner. We can also succeedwith O.J. Simpsonby renting Hertz cars, or with ReggieJackson bringing home somepanasonic by equipment. Cathy Rigby and StayfreeMaxipads will put peopleout front. Sportsheroesare the most convenientmeansto snarecons'mers' needsto achieve,but they are not the only one. Role models can be establishd oneswhich invite emulation, as with the profiles put forth by Dewarb scotch. Successful,fweedy individuals relate they have "graduated to the flavor of Myer's rum." or the advertisercan establish a prize: two neighborsplay one-on-onebasketballfor a Micherob beer in a televisioncommercial,while in a print ad a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label has been gilded like a trophy. Any product that advertises itself in superlatives-the best, the first, the finest-is trying to make contact with our needsto succeed. For many consumers,sales and bargainsbelong in this category of appeals,too; the person who managesto buy something at fifty percent off is seizing an opportunity and coming out aheadof others. 7- Need to dominate.This fundamentalneed is the craving to be powerful-perhaps omnipotent, as in the Xerox ad where Brother Dominic exhibits heavenly powers and creates miraculous copies. Most of us will settle for being just a regular potentate,though. We drink Budweiser becauseit is the King of Beers, and here comes the powerful clydesdales to prove it. A taste of wolfschmidt vodka and "The spirit of the Czar lives on." The need to dominate and control one's environment is often thoughtof as being masculine, as closestudents humannature but of

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Classification advertisersknow, it is not so circumscribed.Women'saspirationsfbr control are zuggestedin the campaign theme, "I like my mcn irr English Leather,or nothing at all." The femalesin the ChanelNo. l9 ads are "outspoken" and wrestle their men around. Male and female, what we long for is clout; what we get in its place is Mastercard. 8. Needfor prominence. Here comesthe needto be admired and respected,to enjoy prestige and high social status.These times, it appears, are not so egalitarian after all. Many ads picture the frappings of high position; the Oldsmobile standsbefore a manorial doorway, the Volvo is parked beside a steeplechase. book-lined A study is the setting for Dewar's 12, andLenox China is displayedin a dining room chock full of antiques. Beefeater gin represents itself as "The Crown Jewel of England" and usesno illustrationsofjewels or things British, for the words are sufficient indicatorsof distinction.Buy that gin and you will rise up the prestige hierarchy, or achieve the same effect on yourself with Seagram's7 Crown, which ambiguouslydescribes itself as "classy." Being respected doesnot haveto entail the usualaccoutrements "Do you of wealth: know who I am?" the commercials ask, and we learn that the prominent person is not so prominent without his American Express card. 9- Needfor ottention. The previous need involved being looked up to, while this is the need to be looked at. The desire to exhibit ourselvesin such a way as to make others look at us is a primitive, insuppressibleinstinct, The clothing and cosmetic industries exist just to serve this nee{ and this is the way they pitch their wares. Some of this effort is aimed at males, as the ads for Hathawayshirts and Jockey underclothes. But the greater bulk of such appeals is targetedsinglemindedly at women. To come back to Brooke Shields: this is where she fits into American marketing. If I buy Calvin Klein jeans, consumersinfer, I'll be the object of fascination. The desire for exhibition has been most strikingly played to in a print campaign of many years' duration, that of Maidenform lingerie. The woman exposes herself,and

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Classification sales surge. "Gentlemen prefer Hanes" the ads dissemble, and women who want eyes upon them know what they should do. Peggy Fleming flutters her legs for lieggs, encouragingfemaleswho want to be the star in their own lives to purchase this product. The sameappealworks fbr cosmetics and lotions.For I'ears,the little girl with the exposedbacksidesold gobs of Coppertone,but now the companyhaspicked up the pacea little: as a female,you are supposed to "Flash 'ern a Coppertone tan." Food can be sold the sameway, especiallyto the diet-conscious; Angie Dickinson poses "Would for California avocados and says, this body lie to you?" Our eyesare too fixed on her for us to think to ask if she got that way by eating moundsof guacomole. 10. Needfor autonomy.There are severalways to sell credit card services,as has been noted: Mastercardappeals the needto to dominate,and American Expressto the need for prominence. When Visa claims, "You can have it the way you want it," yet another primary motive is being beckonedforward-the need to endorsethe self. The focus here is upon the independence and integrity of the individual; this need is the antithesis the needfor guidanceand is of "If unlike any of the social needs- running with the herd isn't your style, try ours," says Rotan-Mosle, and many Americans feel they have finally found the right brokeragefirm. The photo is of a red-coated Mountie on his horse,posedon a snow-coveredledge; the copy reads, "Windsor-One Canadian standsalone." This epitome of the solitary and proud individual may work best with male customers,as may Winston'sman in the red cap. But one-figure advertisementsalso strike the strong need for autonomy among American women. As Shelly Hack strides for Charlie perfume, females respond to her obvious pride and flair; she is her own person. The Virginia Slims tale is of people who have come a long way from subservienceto independence. Cachetperfume feels it does not need a solo figure to work this appeal, and uses tfuee different faces in its ads; it insists, though, "It's different on every woman who wears it." Like many psychologicalneeds,this one can also be appealed to in a negativefashion, by invoking the lossof independence selfor

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Classification "Gee, I could have had regard.Guilt and regretscan be stimulated: a V-8." Next tirne, get one and be good to yourself. ll. Need to escape.An appeal to the need for autonomy often co-occlrrswith one for the needto escape,since the desireto duck out of our social obligations, to seek rest or adventure,frequently takes the form of one-personflight. The dashing image of a pilot, in fact, is a standardway of quickening this need to get away from it all. Freedom is the pitch here, the freedom that every individual yearns for whenever life becomes too oppressive- Many advertisers of the becau'se sensation pleasure like appealingto the need for escape often accompaniesescafre,and what nicer emotional nimbus could "You deservea break today,"saysMcDonald's, therebe for a product? "Set yourself free." and Stouffer'sfrozen foods chime in, For decadesmen have imaginatively bonded themselvesto the Marlboro cowboy who dwells untarnished and unencumbered in Marlboro Country some distance from modern life; smokers'aching needs for autonomy and escape are personified by that cowpoke. Many women can identifu with the lady ambling through the woods "Benson and Hedgesand mornings and me-" behind the words, But escape does not have to be solitary. Other Benson and Hedgesads,part of the samecampaign,contain fwo strolling figures. In Salem cigarette advertisements, it can be several people who escape together into the mountaintops. A commercial for Levi's pictured a cloudbank above a city through which ran a whole chain ofyoung people. There are varieties of escape, some wistful like the Boeing "Someday''campaign of dream vacationq some kinetic like the play and parties in soft drink ads. But in every instance, the consumer exposed to the advertisement is invited to momentarily depart his everyday life for a more carefree experience, preferably with the product in hand12. Need to feel sale. Nobody in their right mind wants to be intimidated menaced battere4 poisoned. We naturally want to do whatever it takes to stave off threats to our well-being, and to our families'. It is the instinct of self-preservationthat makesus responsive to the ad of the St. Bernard with the keg of Chivas Regal. We

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Classification pay attention to the stern talk of Karl Malden and the plight of the vacationing couples who have lost all their funds in the American Express travelers cheques commercials. We want the omnipresent stag liom llartford Insurance to watch over us too. In the interestof keepingfailure and calamityfrom our lives,we like to see the durability of products demonstrated.Can we ever forget that Timex takes a licking and keeps on ticking? When the American Tourister suitcase bounces all over the highway and the egg inside doesn't break, the need to feel safe has been adroitly plucked. We take precautions to diminish furure threats- We buy Volkswagen Rabbits for the extraordinary mileage, and MONY insurance policiesto avoid the tragedies depictedin their black-andwhite ads of widows and orphans. We are careful about our health. We conzumeMazola margarine becauseit has "corn goodness" backed by the natural food traditions

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of the American Indians. In the medicine cabinet is Alka-Seltzer, the "home remedy"; having it, we are snug in our little cottage. We want to be safe and secure;buy theseproducts,advertisers are saying, and you'll be safer than you are without them. 13. Need for aesthetic sensations.There is an undeniableaesthetic componentto virtually every ad run in the national media: the photography or filming or drawing is near-perfect,the type sfyle is well chosen,the layout could scarcelybe improvedupon. Advertisers know there is little chanceof good communicationoccurrjng if an ad is not visually pleasing. Consumersmay not be awareof the extent of their own sensitivity to artwork, but it is undeniably large. Sometimes aestheticelementis expanded the and madeinto an ad's primary appeal.Charles Jordan shoesmay or may not appearin the accompanying avant-grade photographs; Kohler plumbing fixtures catch aftention through the high style of theirdesert settings. Beneath the slightly out of focus photograph,languid and sensuous in tone, General Electric feels called upon to explain, "This is an ad for the hair dryen" This appeal is not limited to female consumers: J&B scotch says "It whispers" and shows a bucolic sceneof lake and castle.

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Classification 14. Need to sqtisfy curiosiry*.It may seernodd to list a need for information amongbasic motives,but this needcan be as primal and compelling as any of the others. Human beings are curious by nature,interested the world aroundthem, and intrigued by tidbits in of knowledge and new developments.Trivia, percentages,obseryations counter to conventional wisdorn-these items all help sell products. Any advertisement in a question-and-answerformat is strummingthis need. A dog groomer has a question about long distance rates, and Bell Telephonehas a chart with all the figures.An ad for porsche9l l is replete with diagrams and schematics, numbers and arrows. Lo and behold, Anacin pills have 150 more milligrams than its competitors;shouldwe wonder if this is betteror worsefor us? 15. Physiological needs. To the extent that sex is solely a biological need,we are now coming aroundfull circle, back toward the start of the list. In this final categoryare clusteredappealsto sleeping, eating, drinking. The art of photographing food and drink is so advance{ sometimesthesetemptationsare wondrously caught in the camera's lens: the crab meat in the Red Lobster restaurant ads can start us salivating, the euarterpounder can almost be smelled,the liquor in the glassglows invitingly. Imbibe, theseads scream.

STYLES Some common ingredients of advertisements were not singled out for separatemention in the list of fifteen becausethey are not appealsin and of themselves.They are stylistic features,influencing the way a basic appealis presentedThe use of humor is one, and the use of celebrities is another.A third is time imagery past and future, which goes to severalpurposes. For all offits employment in advertising, humor can be treacherous,becauseit can get out ofhand and smother the product information- Supposedly,this is what Alka-seltzer discovered with its comic commercialsof the late sixties; "I can't believe I ate the whole

C l as s i f i c a t i o n thing," the sad-facedhusbandlamented and the audiencecackled so much it forgot the antacid. Or, did not take it seriouslyBut used carefully, humor can punctuate some of the softer appealsand soften some of the harsher ones. When Emma says to the Fruit-of-the-Loom fruits, "Hi, cuties. Whatcha doing in my laundry basket?"we smile as our curiosity is assuaged along with hers- Bill cosby gets consumerstickled about the children in his Jell-O commercials,and strokes the need to nurnrre. An inzurancecompany wants to invoke the need to feel safe, but does not want to leave readerswith an unpleasantaftertaste; cartoonist Rowlandwilson creates avalanche an about to crush a gentlemanwho is saying to another,"My insurancecompany? New England Life, of course.why?"The sametactic of humor undercuttingthreat is usedin the cartoon commercialsfor safeco when the pink panther wanders from one disasterto another often humor masksaggression: comedian Bob Hope in the outfit of a boxer promisesto knock out the knockknocks with rexaco; Rodney Dangerfield,who'tan't get no respect,,' invites aggression the comic relief in Miller Lite commercials. as Roughly fifteen percent of all advertisementsincorporate a celebrity,almost always from the fields of entertainmentor sports. The approact can also prove troublesome for advertisers, for celebrities are human beings too, and fully capabre of the most remarkable behavior. If anything distasteful about them emerges, it is likely to reflect on the product. The advertisersmaking use of Anita Bryant and Billy Jean King suffered several anxious moments. An untimely death can also react poorly on a product. But advertisersare willing to take risks becausecelebrities can be such a good link befween producers and consumers, performing the social role of introducer. There are several psychological needs these middlemen can play upon. Let's take the product class of cameras and see how different celebrities can hit di{ferent needs.The need for guidance can be invoked by Michael Landon, who plays such a wonderful dad on "Little House on the Prairie"; when he says to buy Kodak equip_ ment, many people listen. JamesGarner for polaroid camerasis out

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C I a s s i f i c a t i er n in a similar authoritativerole, so definedby a mocking spouse. The need to achieve is summoned up by Tracy Austin and other tennis siars for canon AE-l; the advertiser first makes sure we see these athletesplaying to win. when cheryl Tiegs speaksup for olympus cameras,it is the need for attention that is being targeted. The past and future, being outside our grasp, are exploited by advertisersas locales for the projection of needs.History can offer up heroes (and call up the need to achieve) or traditions (need for guidance) as well as art objects (need for aesthetic sensations). Nostalgia is a kindly version of personal history and is deployed by advertisersto rouse needs for affiliation and for guidance; the need to escapecan come in herq too. The sameneed to escapeis sometimes the point of futuristic appealsbut picturing the avant-gardecan also be a way to get at the need to achieve.

ANALYZING ADVERTISX'-MENTS When analyzing ads yourself for their emotional appeals, it takes a bit of practice to learn to ignore the product information (as well as one's own experience and feelings about the product). But that skill cornessoon enough, as does the ability to quickly sort out from all the non-productaspects an ad the chief elementwhich is of the most striking, the most likely to snagattention first and penetrate brains farthest. The key to the appeal, this element usually presents itself centrally and forwardly to the readeror viewer. Another clue: the viewing angle which the audiencehas on the ad's subjectslis informative- If the subjects are photographed or filmed from below and thus are looking down at you much as the Green Giant does,then the need to be guided is a good candidate for the ad's emotional appeal. If, on the other hand the subjectsare shot from aboveand appeardeferential, as is often the casewith children or female models, then other needsare being appealedto. To figure out an ad's emotional appeal, it is wise to know (or have a good hunch about) who the targetedconsumersare; this can often be inferred from the magazineor televisionshow it appears in.

Classification This piece of information is a great help in determiningthe appeal and in deciding between fwo different interpretations.For example, if an ad featuresa partially undressed female, this wourd typically signalone appealfor readers Penthouse (needfor sex)and another of for readersof Cosmopolitan (need for atfention). It would be convenientif every ad madejust one appeal,were aimed at just one need.unforrunately,things are often not that simple. A cigareftead with a couple at the edgeof a polo field is trying to hit both the need for affiliation and the need for prominence, dependingon the attitude of the male, dominancecould also be an ingredient in this. An ad for chimere perfume incorporates two photos: in the top one the lady is being commandingat a business luncheon (need to dominate), but in the lower one she is being bussed (need for affiliation). Better ads, however,seem to avoid being too diffused; in the study of post-workl war II advertising describedearlier,appeals grew more focusedas the decades passed. As a rule of thumb, about sixty percent have fwo conspicuous appeals; the last twenty percent have three or more- Rather than looking for the greatestnumber of appeals,decoding ads is most productive when the loudest one or fwo appealsare discerned,since those are the appealswith the best chance of grabbing people's attention. Finally, analyzing ads does not have to be a solo activity and probably should not be. The greater number of people there are involved, the better chance there is of transcending individual biases and discerning the essential emotionar rure built into an advertisement.

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DO THEY OR DON'T THEY? Do the emotional appealsmade in advertisements add up to the sinister manipulation of consumers? It is clear that theseads work. Attention is caught, communication occurs between producers and consumers,and sales result. It turns out to be difficult to detail the exact relationshipbefweena spe-

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Cllassification cific ad and a specific purchase,or even betweena campaign and subsequent salesfigures,because advertisingis only one ofa host of influencesupon consumption.Yet no one is fooled by this lack of perfect proof; everyoneknows that advertisingsells.If this were not the case,then tight-fistedAmerican business would not spenda total of fifty billion dollars annuallyon thesemessages. But before anyone despairsthat advertisershave our number to the extent that they can marshal us at will and march us like automatons to the check-out counters, we should recall the resiliency and obduracy of the American consumer.Advertisers may have uncoveredthe softest spots in minds, but that does not mean they have found truly gaping apertures.fhere is no evidence that advertising can get people to do things contrary to their selfinterests. Despiteall the finesse advertisements, all the subof and tle emotionaltugs, the public resiststhe vast majority of the petitions. According to the marketing division of the A.C. Nielsen Company,a whopping seventy-fivepercentof all new productsdie within a year in the marketplace, the victims of consumerdisinterest which no amount of advertising could overcome- The appealsin advertising may be the most captivating there are to be had, but they are not enough to entrap the wiley consumer. The key to understandingthe discrepancybetween,on the one hand,the fact that advertising truly works, and on the other, the fact that it hardly works, is to take into accountthe enormousnumbers of people exposedto an ad. Modernday communicationspermit an ad to be displayedto millions upon millions of individuals;if the smalrest fraction of that audiencecan be moved to buy tle product, then the ad has been successful.When one percent of the people exposed to a television advertising campaign reach for their wallets, that could be one million sales,which may be enough to keepthe product in production and the advertisementscoming. In arriving at an evenhandedjudgment about advertisements and their emotional appeals,it is good to keep in mind that many of the purchaseswhich might be credited to these ads are experienced as genuinely gratif,ing to the consumer.We sincerely like the goods

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or servicewe have bought, and we may even like someof the emotional drapery that an ad zuggests comes with it. It has sometimes been noted that the most avid studentsof advertisements the are people who have just bought the product; they want to steep themselvesin the associated imagery.This may be the reasonthat Americans, when polled are not negativeabout advertisingand do not discloseany senseof being misused-'fhevolume of advertising may be an irritant, but the product information as welr as the imaginativematerial in ads are partial compensation. A productive understanding is that advertising messages involve costs and benefits at both ends of the communications channel. For those few ads which do make contact,the consumer surrendersa moment of time, has the lower brain curried, and receivesnotice of a product; the advertiserhas given up money and has increasedthe chance of sales.In this sort of communications activity, neither party can be said to be the loser. F G QUESTIONS OREVALUATTNWRITING l - Identifythe thesisstatemenr. Doesit tell thereaders whatthev will encounter the essay? in 2- Identify the supporting illustrations.Does the writer shttw the readers specificexamples illustratehis point? to 3. Identify the placeswlrerethe writer is explaining. Doesthe writer clearly explain how the ilrustrations support his point (and/or message)? 4- Identify how the writer strucftlreshis essay. Did the writer chose a structurethat suits his message and/or purpose? 5. What did the wrirer do rvell? 6' what suggestions wourd you give this writer to improvehis essay?

Activity Evaluating Annotated 19: an Student Essay
This IRW studentwrote an essayfor a unit on analyzingadvertrsements. Directions: Read the essay,including the annotations, very carefully.