Social Engineering Blogs

Framing effect  is one of the significant components in the marketing field. The L’Oréal advertisement is one of the best examples of framing effect.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n43sPhVL1uMFraming effect is considered to occur when equivalent description of a decision problem lead to systematically different decisions. (Shafir & LeBoeuf 2002.)  In other words, it means that customer’s decisions can be affected by any phrases in the advertisement. The Loreal campaign for marketing its brand of women’s cosmetics is very popular for its phrase “Because you are worth it”. This phrase affect issues that women may have about self-esteem and beauty. It also addresses the issue of a woman’s independence. Why does a woman buy the cosmetics form Loreal? It is because they are worth it !.There are some empirical evidences for the framing effect. Levin, Schneider, and Gaeth’s (1998) found a valence- consistent shift. This means that objects described in terms of a positively valenced proportion are generally evaluated more favorably than objects described in terms of the corresponding negatively valenced porption.For example, when the participants were exposed to those phrases,A; If this program is adopted, 200 people will be savedB: If this program is adopted, there is a one-third probability that 600 people will be saved and a two-thirds probability that no people will be saved.they tend to prefer the sure thing when given options A and B.On the other hand, when the subjects were exposed  to phrases likeC; If this program is adopted, 400 people will dieD: If this program is adopted, there is a one- third probability that nobody will die and a two-thirds probability that 6000 people will diethe participants tend to choose more risky one for this negative phrases containing the word “die”.This empirical evidence clearly supports how important it is to have a positive or a negative phrase in the advertisement. Depending on the phrases, the customer’s behaviour can be changed.ReferencesShafir, E. & R. A. LeBoeuf. 2002. “Rationality.” Annual Review of Psychology 53: 491- 517.Levin, I. P., & G. J. Gaeth. 1988. “How Consumers are Affected by the Framing of Attribute Information Before and After Consuming the Product.” Journal of Consumer Research 15: 374-378

Following the release of the company Jack Will’s Spring Catalogue was released in this year of 2016, accompanied by a television advert, the advertisement project was banned. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) deemed it inappropriate due to it’s overt sexual suggestiveness that may directly or indirectly reach audiences younger than Jack Will’s target demographic of 18-24. This uncontrollable sexual exposure, said to be potentially influential to impressionable youth, was enough to persuade the marketing team of the company to completely withdraw the advertising campaign to prevent a potential drop in sales. The sexualisation of this banned advert as well as the reasoning behind banning it both portray very clearly the effects of using sex as visual persuasion tool and how it is potentially dangerous to use.King, McClelland, and Furnham (2015) conducted a study addressing a similar topic which in fact, questions whether ‘sex sells’ and it’s effectiveness in viewer recall. In the context of Petty and Cacioppo’s (1986) Elaboration Likelihood Model, the message was well retained by the target audience of 18-52 through testing free recall, prompted recall, and brand recognition. This a result of sexual appeal or visual motivation causing a shallow and short lived, yet immediate influencing change.Fig.1: Results of the King, McClelland, and Furnham study regarding the recall measure of different             variants of sexual exposure in television and advertisements.As evidently put in Figure 1, the results clearly shoe a higher measure of recall of the brand itself, and the nature of the imagery freely and when prompted when a sexual advertisement is contrasted after following a non-sexual programme. This evidently shows us how that in spite of standard deviations weakening the effect, the conducted Repeated Measures ANOVAs reveal that sexual advertisements did significantly influence peoples short term recall, of not just the imagery, but the branding/ message being intentionally advertised. This is the understandable effect we can see Jack Will’s aspired to achieve.However, in spite of a potential peripheral effect, this campaign overlooks the over side of the Elaboration Likelihood Model in which those that are motivated to perceive the advertisement critically. As sexual imagery is a topic of controversy, being perceived as inappropriate to specific audiences, it has a boundary in which, if crossed, becomes too visibly inappropriate and taboo, and becomes more of a sexual statement rather than a tool for expressing the appeal of the message/ products at hand. The advert was evidently over the line, as put by the APA, and the marketing was commented on as unnecessary. Evidently, sex is something to use with caution in persuasion.REFERENCES:King, J., McClelland, A., & Furnham, A. (2015). Sex really does sell: The recall of sexual and non‐sexual television advertisements in sexual and non‐sexual programmes. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 29(2), 210-216.Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1986). The elaboration likelihood model of persuasion. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (vol. 19, pp. 123-205). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

KINDER: how Ferrero mislead Italians for years (and still does). For those who don’t know, Ferrero is an Italian company that produces branded chocolate and confectionary products that are distributed worldwide. It was founded in 1946 and its most renewed brand line of products (excluding Nutella), is Kinder. In Italy, Kinder products are amongst the most sold and Ferrero’s success was constant increasing as I was growing up. Parents, grandparents, baby-sitters, who pick up children from school bring them kinder products as a snack. It’s tradition. With the knowledge I have now, I believe that Ferrero’s immense success is probably due to its powerful marketing strategy.  First of all, In italy you will never find a supermarket that doesn’t display Ferrero products on very visible shelves. They are always placed at optimal heights and effective corners. Moreover, you will always find more next to the tills. This final strategy in particular gives customers a second opportunity for purchase in case they missed out, which in other words means… another opportunity to sell. Customers in this situation will most likely buy if in doubt, for two reasons: 1) due to time restraints they most likely won’t be able to evaluate pros and cons effectively (it is almost their turn) and 2) kinder products are cheap so price is not a factor they may take into account and that may prevent them from buying the products.Secondly, Ferrero perfectly knew their targe t audience and what kinder products were bought for throughout. They were targeting people exactly like my grandparents, who they knew were going be around children after school and before sports activities. So they simply designed packaging accordingly. They achieved this by, showing a large glass of milk on all products, which, obviously, they did not contain (only milk powder is actually present and in very small amounts), which made the products seem like a healthy choice for children, in the eyes of customers. Secondly, by choosing a child as the model, who made the products relatable/similar to the final audience.  Thirdly, Ferrero always focused on tv campaigns to boost sales. Customers saw tv adverts very often, which, due to mere exposure and familiarity effects, made them recognise the products and  consequently increase the chances of purchase References Fang, X., Singh, S., & Ahluwalia, R. (2007). An examination of different explanations for the mere exposure effect. Journal of consumer research, 34, 97-103.Parker, J. R., & Lehmann, D. R. (2011). When shelf-based scarcity impacts consumer preferences. Journal of Retailing, 87, 142-155.