Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at.

            Have you ever found yourself holding this weird thing you got some time ago and thinking, “Why in the world did I even buy it? I will never use it in a million years!” Don’t worry – not all of it is your fault, you might have been influenced by commercials and advertisements of this product that in many cases have been very carefully constructed and created by professionals who put a lot of effort into making sure you won’t be able to deny. And social psychology principles serve them well.

            According to Petty and Cacioppo (1986), we use a dual-process model to perceive information (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). That means that if we focus on the content of the message itself, strong arguments, we use the central route of processing; but if we are concentrated more on other aspects of the presented information like who wrote the message, how much we like that person, how long it was, we use peripheral route to persuasion. And we choose the way we want to engage in whether central or peripheral processing based on our ability (Is it easy to understand the message?) and motivation (How much could it affect me personally?). If we are highly motivated and willing to show interest in the topic, we will use central route processing. But if we are lazy and unmotivated, we will go with a peripheral route processing (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986).

            Politicians and sales-people use it to take advantage of us all the time, but I would like to talk about something we see all around us every day: advertisements, specifically for products targeting young people. When you are 20 and flipping through a magazine, the last thing you will want to do is to read a hundred reasons for why this product is good written in a barely readable font with no pictures. So, companies advertise themselves in a way that is very clear, easy to understand and attention grabbing. For example, this advertising campaign for a Bulgarian vodka Flirt:

The caption with a table says “She said she was making cake”. And the caption with a man says “He said he was picking roses”. The message is very short, it takes just a few seconds to read and it definitely targets the peripheral processing route. Yet, we find it interesting, using humor and sexual context also works great in attracting young generation because this is something that is exciting and interesting to them. Sometimes, like in this ad for a male deodorant that is promising you to get all the girls in the world, there are no words or actors needed:

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Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1986). Communication and persuasion: Central and peripheral routes to attitude change. New York: Springer-Verlag.

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