The Power of Using Emotions In Persuasion

As a Public Relations practitioner, working in this field requires you to come up with creative ideas that can persuade your target audiences. Most of the time, your strategies and tactics will revolve around establishing an effective and strong relationship with target audiences. Hence, having good communication and persuasive skills are important in order to achieve your organizational goals.

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What is Persuasion?

According to Perloff (2003), persuasion is defined as “A symbolic process in which communicators try to convince other people to change their attitudes or behaviours regarding an issue through a transmission of a message in an atmosphere of free choice”.

If a persuasion effort is successful, it should be able to develop changes on the cognitive (thinking), affective (feeling) and behavioural (acting) on the attitudes of the audiences.

The following represents the 3 main components:

According to O’Keefe (2016), a professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Northwestern University. The theories of Persuasion and Social Influence represents a set of analytical approaches that can describe persuasion. Within this context, persuasion can be further examined using the following terms:

Advertisements?

Advertisements are found in almost every country in the world. It represents a good example where persuasion is its key concept. In advertising, it’s not just about rational appeals where you only need to provide clear benefits for the customers. There are other approaches that can capture the attention of its audiences in advertising - here’s where Emotional Appeal comes in.

Emotional Appeal relies more on feelings and perceptions. Whether it’s a cute puppy or a campaign that leaves you feeling sad or angry – if an advert connects with someone enough to evoke emotion, it has made an impact (Gillespie, 2017).

To further explain the theories of Persuasion and Social Influence, let’s take a look at Titan’s advertisement which made use of the emotional appeal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQxFL6Ce-XM

Titan - "The Joy of Gifting"

Titan is the 5th largest watchmaker in the world. Known for its contemporary style, exceptional quality and affordability, it has garnered the love of customers across the globe. Their campaign called “The Joy of Gifting” showcases a valuable emotional approach where a professor was caught by surprise when his students started playing musical beats in the classroom and working together to surprise him with a farewell gift (a Titan Watch).

Let’s see what EMOTIONS had evoked from this ad:

#1 Personal Appeal

The personal appeal is applicable in many different scenarios for a wide range of products and services. If what you want to advertise is heading towards affecting people’s emotions, then the personal appeal is the right choice to use.

The advertiser in this ad (Titan) used Personal Appeal in a way that evoked emotions such as joy and happiness. In this video, you can see a bunch of students surprising their professor with a farewell gift through cooperation and teamwork. Teenagers, teachers and generally people might feel a sense of connection to the advertisement as they can understand the excitement that the actors were experiencing.

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#2 Empathy Appeal

Audiences may visualize themselves in a similar situation where the actors were facing in the video. Because of this, it could stimulate nostalgic memories and even stir up emotions for some of the audiences.

Through this Titan ad, the characters and the emotions that were portrayed by them, could remind the audiences about their previous happy memories. More importantly, with the professor being very emotional, it could cause the audiences to believe that surprises do impact people’s lives (empathizing). With its tagline “The Joy of Gifting”, the audiences could react by visiting a Titan Watch Shop and purchase a gift with joy for their loved ones!

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#3 Musical Appeal

Music represents something that can create or destroy the ad by setting its tone and mood in a blink of an eye. The music appeal is especially useful when you want to make your product or service look more lively and exciting. The presence of a jingle or a song can spark the happiness in your audiences as well as creating an emotional experience for them.

This can be seen through this Titan ad, where the students started making musical beats using their classroom tables, calculators, notebooks and voices that enlightened the lecturer. This created an unforgettable lively scene that will REMAIN in the minds of the audiences of this video.

So, what were the persuasion strategies used behind this ad? And how has the ad influenced people's behaviours?

Awareness

An individual becomes aware of the Titan Brand, along with its product and services when he/she watches the advertisement and accepts the information delivered willingly. However, if the individual decides to ignore the advertisement, he/she remains unaware.

ATTITUDES

When an individual is aware of the advertisement, he/she has the choice to like or dislike the information. The story advertised, illustrates the act of gifting, can bring overwhelming love and joy to someone important in our lives. After watching the video, the individual then decides whether he/she approves the information that is being delivered by Titan.

BELIEFS

If an individual decides to like the advertisement, he/she then makes assessments whether the information is true or false. The individual might believe the advertisement in terms of giving someone a gift can create joy from within. At the same time, if an individual accepts and likes the advertisement but does not believe in the information, he/she may not even buy any Titan products or services.

BEHAVIOURS

If an individual believes the information provided in the advertisement, he/she then decides whether to take an action. Depending on the situation, the individual might execute observable actions such as looking up for more information about Titan, sharing the advertisement with other people or he/she might buy a Titan watch and surprise their loved ones with a joy that brings joy.

*References

Cherry, K. (2018) Psychology of Persuasion and Social Influence. [online] Available at: https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-persuasion-2795892 [Accessed 8 October 2018].

Gillespie, L. (2017) An emotional approach to advertising | Alamy Blog. [online] Available at: https://www.alamy.com/blog/emotional-approach-advertising [Accessed 8 October 2018].

O’Keefe, D. J. (2016) Persuasion and Social Influence. The International Encyclopedia of Communication Theory and Philosophy [online]. 3, pp. 1432-1450. [Accessed 8 October 2018].

Perloff, R.M. (2003) The Dynamics of Persuasion: Communication and Attitudes in the 21st Century. | Routledge. [online] Available at: https://pages.uoregon.edu/tbivins/stratcomweb/readings/persuasion_def.pdf [Accessed 8 October 2018].

Titan. (2018) Titan Page: TitanWatchesMalaysia – About | Facebook. [online] Available at: https://www.facebook.com/pg/TitanWatchesMalaysia/about/?ref=page_internal [Accessed 8 October 2018].