The Use of Classical Conditioning in Advertising

Introduction
Classical conditioning in advertising has been used by firms who sell products to get consumers to purchase from them instead of their competition.
This essay will briefly explain what classical conditioning is. It will examine the problems with experiments on classical conditioning in advertising and briefly look at two experiments which try to overcome these problems in testing classical conditioning in advertising.
The first experiment will look at the effects of background features in advertising by Gerald J.Gorn.
The second experiment will investigate whether consumer attitudes towards a product can be conditioned and it will examine weather classically conditioned attitudes can be stronger with larger numbers of trials.
The essay will then look at what advertisers need to remember when using classical conditioning and then give examples of companies that use classical conditioning in their advertising campaigns.
Classical Conditioning was discovered by Ivan Pavlov by accident while he was researching the digestive system of dogs where he presented food to the dog. Pavlov noticed that the dog would start to salivate when he just walked into the room even without food in his hand. Pavlov’s main belief was that learning occurred through association. The dog associated Pavlov with the food and would then salivate. It occurs when two stimuli CS (conditioned stimulus) and UCS (unconditioned Stimulus) are continuously paired together and cause a CR (conditioned response).
There are a number of concepts drawn from Pavlov’s research:
1. Acquisition: first stage of learning(repeated a few times)
2. Stimulus Generalisation: Instead of using one particular stimulus you can change and use another one
3. Extinction: Refers to the disappearance of the conditioned response due to the non-appearance of the unconditioned stimulus
4. Spontaneous Recovery: The re-emergence of the conditioned response with the reintroduction of the unconditioned stimulus
5. High Order conditioning: The moving from one stimulus to another

In advertising the advertised product is the conditioned stimulus (CS), this is then developed trough association with other stimuli (UCS) that are reacted to positively therefore being the conditioned response (CR).
Even though classical conditioning has a massive role in advertising, there have only been a few consumer behaviour studies testing for classical conditioned effects. This may be because additional research and experiments must be conducted to determine the basic requirements to conduct a classical conditioning experiment. These requirements involve what stimuli should be used and how subjects may respond etc.
The following problems have been associated with experiments in Classical Conditioning:
Demand Characteristics: If the subjects are aware of the CS and the UCS they may respond to the CS positively because they think that is what the experimenter wants them to do.
Lack of Awareness: The subject may not be aware that the CS in the advertisement may affect them. This can result in the subject convincing themselves and the experimenter that they are being reasonable.
Arousal: Product information must be kept to a minimum in testing for classical conditioning. If not the UCS in the advertisement might cause arousing interest in the product information. By keeping product information to the least as possible it allows the UCS to change attitudes directly.
Exposure VS Classical Conditioning: If a subject has developed an attitude towards a product it is because they have been exposed to this product before in an advertisement. However with classical conditioning the subject is choosing a product because they are after associating the product with a positive or negative.

The first noticeable study on classical conditioning effects was by Gorn in 1982. Previous studies include Gresham and Shimp 1985: Kleine, Macklin, and Bruvold 1986; Macklin 1985.
Gorn’s experiment tested on 244 undergraduate students at McGill University on how music affected consumer’s product choices. The subjects were exposed to a neutral CS a pen was used for this, either a light beige or light blue one depending on which group. The CS was paired with liked or disliked music (UCS). The subjects were told very little about the CS. The US was decided before the experiment based on previous experiments. There were four different groups used in the experiment which were looking at a slide show to expose them to the CS and the UCS. Group 1 were shown the light beige pen with liked music, Group 2 were shown the light beige pen with disliked music, group 3 the light blue pen with liked music and group 4 the light blue pen with disliked music. At the end the groups were giving questionnaires and had to pick which pen they would purchase. The results showed that 79% choose the pen associated with the liked music and 30% choose the pen associated with the disliked music.

This study was noticeable because it covered problems that in previous studies had not been covered.
From Gorn’s conclusions on his experiment McSeeney and Bierley wanted to show a more accurate test of classical conditioning in advertising. The experiment tested weather consumer attitudes toward a product can be conditioned with advertising a product and second whether classically conditioned attitudes can be stronger with more trials being done.
The experiment had 3 hypotheses:
H1: The attitude towards a brand will be more positive following repetition on the trials in which the CS is paired with a positive UCS, instead of subjects shown the neutral CS and the US in different order.
H2: After the trials in which a CS is paired with a positive UCS, the attitude towards the product will be positive to the number of trials. That means attitudes will be greater for 20 trials than 10 trials, greater for 10 trials than 3 trials and so on.
H3: When CS and UCS are presented in any direction, the attitude towards the product will never change.

The CS used was a green and yellow tube labelled ‘Brand L Toothpaste’. The brand was presented via a slide presentation. The CS was drawn up to draw the conditioned response.
The unconditioned stimulus was presented through a presentation of nice pictures, and also again via a slide presentation. From previous tests, four UCS used on the subjects were as follows:
A mountain waterfall
A sunset over an island
Blue sky and clouds seen through the mast of a boat
A sunset over the ocean

They used these attractive images because visual aids are adapted to better and quicker than verbal stimuli. Also, the visual stimuli have nothing to do with the features of the brand.
The conditioned response (attitude towards the brand) is thought that when a product is shown along with another advertising part that draws a positive attitude reply, the product itself will pull out that attitude response.
The subjects were 202 business and psychology undergraduate students. The subjects were split into groups of one to six per group. The groups were exposed to 1, 3, 10 or 20 conditioning trials. Each trial included a five second screening of the CS followed by a five second screening of the US and then ending with a five second screening of the CS and UCS together. Also, in each conditioning screening there was filler material. This material was used to distract the subjects from the CS-UCS screening this was used to decrease guessing from the subjects. The material had the same design as above but used brands that were together with 12 affective plain pictures.
The subjects were told not to discuss the screenings with anyone. They were also given questionnaires half way through to keep them interested.
The Results were as follows:
1: The subjects uncovered to the trials, showed much more happy attitudes towards the brand compared to that of the control groups that did not show any attitude change.
2: The more conditioning trials a group participated in the greater their attitude towards the brand was. But still an attitude towards the brand was developed from the first pairing of the brand with a nice scene
3: The conditioned response was changeless no matter of the number of different showings of the CS and the US.
These results revealed that conditioning can occur in advertising. The nice images used in pairing the brand had a very good affect on the attitudes towards the brand.

The experiments above have revealed enough evidence that the attitude towards a brand can be classically conditioned.
Since these experiments, advertisers have used classical conditioning to advertise their products. Advertisers will show their product (CS) and will try to associate it with some sort of feeling or emotion (UCS) to get consumers to have a conditioned response (CR) towards their products.
Advertisers have to be careful to present the CS with the UCS or else the product may be forgotten or its original attraction may be lost this is drawn from Pavlov’s research known as extinction and spontaneous recovery as mentioned above.
From McSeeney and Bierley’s experiment it was drawn that the consumer’s response to a product is stronger the more the consumer is exposed to that product. But advertisers need to keep in mind that learning depends not only on repetition but also on the consumers to generalise. This means making the same response from the consumers to slightly different stimuli. This explains why consumers buy ‘look alike’ products by accident. They are so used to buying the brand they are familiar with they may by accident just pick up a product that has the same packaging. This can cost firms money.

The following are examples of advertisements that use classical conditioning:
Coca Cola ‘Catch’ Commercial
This was a television campaign that associates Coca Cola (CS) with feeling of joy and happiness (CR). They used upbeat and happy music in the advertisement (UCS).

Corona ‘Miles away from Ordinary’ Advertisement
The Bottle of Corona is the CS. The background image is a very nice setting of sea, beach and an attractive women relaxing (UCS). This is a scene that is easy on the eyes and would make consumers associate Corona with relaxation and beautifulness.
‘Vote or die’ campaign
This campaign was set up for US presidential election in 2004 to make young people from the ages of 18-29 to vote. It was set up by Sean Combs (aka P.Diddy). The CS was to candidates, the UCS was the celebrities used in the advertisements. By associating celebrities with voting it made voting ‘cool’ and caused people to respond by voting CR.

BMW ‘The Ultimate Attraction’
This advertisement associates the BMW car with feelings of lust and attraction. This would make people’s response to the car being ‘sexy’.

‘Anti-Smoking’ Campaign
Compared to feelings of positivity, advertisers use disturbing images to associate with either a habit or behaviour to increase awareness of the problem. In this example, it is associating smoking with bad health. The CR will hopefully be people that do smoke to stop.

Conclusion
As examined in this essay it is clear that classical conditioning is used in advertising. Pavlov developed a series of concepts that still to today advertisers should take into consideration when using the classical conditioning approach.
Pervious experiments were not that viable because they did not use the correct basic requirements when testing for classical conditioning however the two experiments above did try to overcome these problems by expanding on previous research and doing ground research first.
Gorn’s experiment showed that the background features used in advertisements such as music, colours etc has an impact on consumer’s choice preferences. This was also shown in McSeeney and Bierley’s experiment when the subjects had a positive attitude towards the brand because they were exposed to the nice images in between the conditioning trials. The McSeeney and Bierley experiment also showed that the CR was changeless no matter the amount of times the CR and UCS were shown together. This was an interesting discovery because it also shows that first impressions of a brand are very important. The experiment also showed that the more pairings of the stimuli the greater the attitude towards that brand will be. This is important to advertisers so that they can keep associating there product with an emotion or feeling that reflects their products in the consumers eye.
There may be very little experiments backing up classical conditioning in advertising but it is very clear in commercials and advertisements. Many posters have a nice scene in the background if they want consumers to act positively towards their products. They will use nice music like the Coca Cola advertisement or nice images that appeal to many people like the Corona example.
If there is a campaign that advertisers are trying to raise awareness of something that is not good for you (e.g. the anti-smoking campaign above) they will try to associate that product with a negative UCS.
Advertisers need to remember when using the classical condition approach that they must show the CS and the UCS often together so that the product is not extinct. They should also remember that stimulus generalisation is important so that consumers do not get confused between products but it is also important in that it can help with introducing new products in the line to consumers.
Classical Conditioning is everywhere in advertising if you look close enough.

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