Classical Conditioning and Ads

Advertisements weren't created by psychologists, but they do tend to exploit the idea of classical conditioning and its bigger cousin vicarious classical conditioning. The ad provides the CS and the US to associate it with, and repetition is the reinforcer.

Many if not all ads try to sell their product using classical conditional in either of its two flavors by associating their product with something else people want so people also want their product. The ingenious thing is that this happen on a level people don't tend to notice, making it almost publicly broadcast mind control. The best way to explain this is to run through a gauntlet of ads, which unfortunately will hopefully, from the advertiser's standpoint, make you rush out of the room and buy a lot of probably unnecessary crap and maybe give you an erection. Freud wasn't too far off when he said sex was everywhere.

Let's start off with a fairly easy one:

The ad is attempting to cause the reader to associate the car with speed, which people associate with thrill. Fairly straightforward, the blur gives the impression of speed that reinforces the text, and the strong contrast between the red of the taillights and the blue of the chassis intensifies the picture overall. In short,
blur->speed->thrill-car => buy car

Here's another one:

This is actually a very common advertising technique, which seems to be a growing trend, although it appears to only occur in TV ads to be effective. Stick a well-proportion lady next to a guy next to a product, people associate getting getting the lady to the product, end of story. In fact, there is a website devoted to finding out who the attractive women in the ads are, to give a sense of its prevalence. Actually, this may be borderline (vicarious) operant conditioning, since it can be interpreted as getting the girl is the consequence of getting the product, but since this (probably, but you can hope) never happens, operant conditioning never actually reinforces this behavior. The classical conditioning route of associative learning still works, though. This also demonstrates that this is obvious to the consumer, but I think even though it's obvious it retains its effectiveness since it runs on a subconscious level. I assume previous generations of advertisements would have used this tactic if the culture had allowed it. Speaking of culture, let's examine ads from an entirely different part of the world to see if they use the same tactics, just altered to fit in the culture of the region, the first ad, as this video seems to be a long string of them.

In a word, yes. More playfully executed, but same concept. Now let's move on to some classier ads, monocles, top hats, and the like.

Anyone after this type of watch is looking not for performance or usability, but they seek status. They're at the higher tiers of Maslow's Hierarchy, seeking on a conscious or unconscious level self-esteem, accomplishment, respect by self, and respect by others. The last three are related to culture, so you can expect to have to interpret it using Western culture as a reference. The crown in the center of the title is conceptually linked to the monarchies that existed as the pinnacle of European society in Western minds, so it should make the consumer associate the watch with respect, and since he's at a stage where he's looking for respect, he wants the watch. Watch-respect=>want watch

[All of this stuff is mine, except for the pictures, basically. Those belong to large corporations who are using me as a puppet to make you buy their stuff.]