Questions from Woodward and Denton Chapter 10

Questions from Woodward and Denton Chapter 10

1. On page 290 in Chapter 10, Woodward and Denton describe common appeals used in advertising and divided them up into three categories: emotional appeals, transformative appeals, and rational-functional appeals. Emotional appeals tend to the consumers emotions and seek to generate some sort of emotional attachment to a brand or product. They list the more powerful emotions, which were appeals to fear, humor, guilt, isolation, and sex. I think that appealing to emotions is a very powerful and effective strategy because everyone experiences them in one way or another. However, I do think that it must be done in a certain way in order to be successful. Our discussion in class about advertising the risks of cigarettes relates to this; since fear is among the top emotions ads use to appeal to an audience, shouldn’t fear of the risks of cigarettes make the consumers quit buying them? There are several reasons why people choose to continue to smoke, and the choice to buy or not buy a product is ultimately up to the individual. Do you think that there are different ways anti-cigarette ads could go about relaying their message that would be more effective? Or are there any positives/negatives you can point out in ads you’ve seen in the past?

2. I think Woodward and Denton do a good job of naming and describing the different appeals that are used in advertising: emotional appeals, which are used to spark some sort of emotion or emotional attachment in the consumer; transformative appeals, which evoke psychological associations that arise when the consumer uses the product (such as feeling prettier with a certain type of lipstick or healthier eating a certain brand of food); and finally, rational-functional appeals, which focus on the rational or logical need for a product or its service. I think that all of these appeals are definitely seen in advertising, but I also thought of Aristotle’s Ethos, Pathos, and Logos appeals-- Woodward and Denton’s relate to Aristotle’s in terms of emotion and logic, but do not acknowledge the credibility aspect. I think that the appeals are very complex, so the credibility may be intertwined within the three appeals. How important do you think stressing a product or brand’s credibility is in an ad? How often do you think it should be stressed and how effective do you think it is?

3. On page 307, Woodward and Denton describe private vs. public interests. They share Hyman and Tansey’s ideas of how advertisers should be more responsible to public interests, saying that they should assess both the medium and the market, clearly label news programs so that the viewer is aware of upcoming imagery, and avoid using shocking dramatizations. There are some ads, specifically drug and alcohol awareness ads that use this last tactic in order to make a statement. For example, the Montana Meth project uses shocking and disturbing images to evoke emotion in their audience and create awareness for the dangers of meth. First of all, do you think that there will ever be a way to stop advertisers from doing this, and if there were, how do you think it will effect the media’s ability to convey powerful messages?