SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

Social Psychology

Social Psychology

Introduction

The question that I have analyzed is regarding the persuasive communication strategy of a television advertisement. The advertisement that I have selected is of the famous shampoo brand of P & G known as Head and Shoulders Shampoo. In this particular advertisement, there is a famous cricketer shown in the advertisement persuading the people to use shampoo Head and Shoulders in order to avoid them with the problem of Dandruff. He has been able to eliminate the problem of Dandruff in his hair which used to bother him a lot before consuming this shampoo. The main role of advertising is to help the companies in selling their products. The nature of the advertising is neither objective nor neutral. Then the most important concept that comes in the case of advertising which is even used as a strategy by the advertisers is the Persuasion strategy.

The main idea behind the persuasive strategy is to inform the consumer about a certain product, entertaining people and enabling it to be easily sold in the market. It can even be inspiring and if advertising simply means selling, then persuasion strategy is the roadmap for achieving the objective. Now coming back to the advertisement of the Head and shoulders shampoo, persuasion strategy was obvious because all the advertisers use it for the well-established brands. (Baym, 1995) It is one of the most important criterions for the appropriate evaluation of an advertisement. Another aspect that was there in the Head and Shoulders advertisement was the brand-differentiating message which is a part of a persuasion strategy. The reason why it was used because the advertiser wanted to show the superiority of the Head and Shoulders brand as compare to the other brands because of its high quality, price and the image it has in the market. It is even vital to differentiate the brand from the competitor's brands. (Buller, 2000)

When the advertisement started, it was shown that the cricketer was suffering with the problem of Dandruff and the other brands which he used were not that effective in reducing his problem but when he started using Head and Shoulders shampoo, his problem got resolved. Although, the names of the pervious shampoos were not used this meant that ethical consideration was taken in an advertisement. It is the responsibility of every advertiser. Even the persuasion strategy of an advertisement does not permit any sort of discrimination against the other brands. (Collins, 1997)

The second persuasive strategy that was used by the advertiser was the selection of the famous cricketer who has lots of cricket fans. Now a psychological element was used in order to attract all his fans to show that this shampoo is used by such a famous celebrity that clearly shows the greatness of the brand. This particular factor clearly indicates the concept of connectedness in the flow of advertising images which is important in understanding advertising persuasiveness. It is certainly a psychological factor that is meant to use it for reading the ...