Before the first world war, advertising in the United States tended to be informative, unlike today. The main goal back then was not to persuade the buyer to purchase a product, but rather to inform them of the uses and characteristics of the product. Below are two Coca Cola advertisements, one from 1906 and one from modern day.
An important aspect of advertising is the divide between heuristic persuasion and systematic persuasion. While systematic persuasion is easy to identify, due to very clear persuasion using an abundance of facts and information, heuristic persuasion is trickier to identify. One popular method is the use of animals in advertising. Animals provide no information about the product being advertised, yet they often hold cultural meanings and trigger emotional reactions (due to human-animal bonds), which can be easily transferred to a product or brand through the use of animal logos and advertisements (Lancendorfer, Atkin, Reece, 2008). A study titled Animals in advertising: Love dogs? Love the ad, demonstrated that not only do animals increase positivity towards ads, but that dogs evoke a more heuristic processing method while suppressing systematic processing. This suppression of systematic processing is a powerful tool, for it allows for further emotional reaction to the ad while decreasing the consumer’s ability to think critically about the advertisement and potentially gain awareness of how they are being influenced.
The shift from systematic persuasion to heuristic persuasion, or subliminal messaging, can be seen in the two Coca-Cola advertisements. The first contains information that is meant to persuade the consumer, but this persuasion can only be accessed through effort. The ad must be read, processed, and reasoned with in order to be understood. There are traces of heuristic persuasion contained in this advertisement, such as the words “cooling,” “refreshing,” and “thirst-quenching,” and the image of the smiling man. But much of the ad is purely informational, and is thus an example of systematic persuasion, which was most commonly used in the early 1900s.
The second ad uses almost entirely heuristic persuasion. There is really no information about the product used within the ad. Instead, bright colors, the phrase “open happiness,” and the bottle of a drink so famous its logo causes a positive emotional reaction, are used to convince the consumer of the goodness of the product without directly saying so.
The shift to heuristic persuasion can be seen in World War II propaganda. During wartime, advertisements generally took the form of propaganda and utilized normative influence to persuade citizens to help the war effort. In this poster a woman dressed in an American flag can be seen on a field spreading seeds and gardening; a benefit one may obtain if they contribute to the American war effort. By intertwining an illustration of a reward in the propaganda poster, it makes an individual more likely to engage since they see a tangible benefit.
After the second world war, the intent of advertisements shifted to display the person buying the product and the benefits they received from it. From there, it has quickly intensified and in the present day we can see the effects that advertising has had on consumption. If anything, overconsumption can be observed as a result of subliminal messaging in advertising. Click here to learn more about Subliminal Messaging.