Types of advertising appeals include appeals based on fear and humor. I’ll cover fear and humor in this first of four posts on types of advertising appeals.

Remaining posts in this series will cover sex, music, rational, emotional, and scarcity appeals. I’ll cover each with a brief definition. Then I’ll present my thoughts or experiences regarding each type of advertising appeal.

Advertising appeals build from human needs, persuasion theories, and psychological research. Although types of advertising appeals vary as much as human needs, advertisers primarily organize advertising appeals into the seven types covered in this series.

Types of
Advertising Appeals
Fear

Fear ranks low as a type of advertising appeal. However, many Internet marketing gurus contend that fear is effective.

If you agree with the gurus, choose your fear appeals carefully. This appeal works best when it’s related to lesser fears like having bad breath or losing out on a money-making opportunity.

When it relates to the big fears like dying or loosing a loved one, people are more inclined to block the advertising message. They move into denial mode and ignore the rest of the message.

Types of
Advertising Appeals
Humor

Humor proves to be a more effective type of advertising appeal, but it too must be used carefully. What one person finds funny, another considers appalling.

For example, the people who create most advertising campaigns for television are creatives at large marketing agencies. The burn-out in those positions is great. So advertising employees in these positions tend to be young – Generation Yers and Xers.

As a Boomer, most of their humor totally leaves me cold. Of course, I’m frequently not in the target market for the advertisement, but sometimes I am. I’ve discussed the problems of trying to market across generations before in this blog. Those problems increase when using humor.

To learn more about advertising, see Claude Hopkins Advertising. Claude specializes in advertising, copywriting and marketing secrets for tested, measurable, and scientific advertising.

To read my next post on types of advertising appeals, click the link below:

Types of Advertising Appeals 2

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Posted 8-26-08:
Types of Advertising Appeals 1
Fear And Humor

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