Persuasive advertising

Persuasive advertising is a type of advertising that appeals to customers’ needs and wants and aims at selling a product or service. It implies using different methods to communicate the benefits of a product and convince people to buy it.

In this article, we’ll explore the advantages and disadvantages of persuasive advertising and make the difference between persuasive and informative advertising clear. Next, we’ll uncover some techniques an example of this strategy.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Persuasive Advertising

Persuasive advertising, like any other type of advertising, has both benefits and drawbacks. Let’s now consider all of them to understand how it works and realize the pros a company can obtain. First and foremost, this strategy sticks to a customer-centric approach, meaning that a company focuses on making customers satisfied and tries to meet their individual needs.

Secondly, the strategy is always based on arguments supporting a product’s value and persuading customers that it can solve their problems. It helps convince consumers to purchase a certain product based on its quality, value, features, or benefits. As a result, businesses succeed in establishing credibility and trust in their products.

Persuasive advertising influences buyers through emotions, needs, and desires. Customers choose specific brands because of the way they feel about their products. The right approach and the reasons for people to purchase a particular product create a connection between a customer and a brand and establish a strong relationship between them, which results in brand loyalty.

However, this type of advertising also has several disadvantages:

• the impersonal character of advertising;
• dissatisfied consumers;
• sometimes a deceptive picture of products;
• customer churn.

Now when you are acquainted with the pros and cons of persuasive advertising, let’s talk about persuasive and informative ads since sometimes it’s difficult to differentiate between the two.

Persuasive Advertising vs. Informative Advertising

Although both types help companies communicate the strength of their products and services, they are used in different situations and represent different strategies. Let’s review both in more detail to see the difference.

Persuasive advertising is a type of advertising that implies convincing customers and making them believe that a product or service is worth buying. With these types of ads, marketers appeal to emotions. Since facts and figures aren’t always enough to persuade a specific target audience, many brands try to establish emotional connections, which helps encourage consumers to purchase.

Informative advertising is a type of advertising that encompasses companies using facts and figures to communicate the benefits of products to their target audience. Brands share truthful information about their products or services to highlight their value, benefits, and features with a minimal appeal to customers’ emotions. After obtaining accurate information about a certain good, a customer decides whether to buy it or not. Check out our article to explore informative advertising in more detail.

Simply put, the main difference is that persuasive advertising relies on emotions, whereas informative advertising is based on truthful facts and statistics.

Now that the difference between the two strategies is clear, let’s jump to persuasive advertising techniques.

4 Persuasive Advertising Techniques

You can use different techniques to implement the strategy for your business. Here are some of the most effective persuasive advertising tactics:

• Emotional appeal. When using this technique, brands try to evoke a particular type of emotions in customers. It can be happiness, satisfaction, surprise, joy, interest, or sadness. This way, companies can make consumers not use rational thinking but rather rely on their emotions at the very moment. As a result, clients make impulse purchases and bring companies more revenue.
• The carrot and the stick. Brands try to provide customers with contrasting sensations. An ad that uses the carrot principle includes the product’s values and benefits to cheer up consumers. It makes them feel hopeful that a certain product can bring a solution to their problem. However, some ads focus on the stick principle. In this case, brands highlight negative aspects and dangers that can emerge if customers don’t buy a certain product.
• Scarcity principle. The principle focuses on people’s wants to have something unique and original. The technique is used to approach customers who pay attention to rare products or experiences. It works because people can feel more powerful when owning something extraordinary others don’t possess. Brands that implement the strategy in their ads include phrases like “limited availability” or “exclusive offer” to increase customer demand and evoke the fear of missing out.
• Celebrity association. By attracting opinion leaders to their products’ advertising, companies create associations with them and increase customer engagement. Celebrities can add value to your product and make it more desirable among consumers.

Now let’s take a closer look at the example of persuasive advertising.

Example of Persuasive Advertising

The famous ketchup producer decided to establish an emotional connection with customers by including the English singer Ed Sheeran in its ad. The commercial is simple, funny, and light, and it helps connect with the target audience and evoke positive emotions that customers will associate with the brand. The singer, who became the ad’s main character, can also attract his fans to the well-established brand.

To conclude, persuasive ads allow companies to effectively promote their products and encourage people to buy. Try implementing some of the persuasive advertising tactics to establish a solid and long-lasting relationship with your audience!