Fear

So, here we are again, returning to the world of persuasion. In a previous blog, we covered some principles of persuasion based on the influencers is in your adverts. One other key area of persuasion is emotions, so we are going to start with fear.

Well it may be surprising to hear but fear has a strong role in our buying behaviours and thus can be used by advertisers to bring in more customers. There are many different methods, outcomes, and reasons behind fear marketing.

The first use of fear in advertising is when businesses highlight a threat within viewers' lives. This seems counterproductive, right? To scare your customers and show them a threat they may be under? But the fear and stress caused by this threat causes consumers to take action. Therefore, businesses are able to frame themselves as the solution to this threat so that viewers are more likely to become customers to resolve their stress. At first glance this may seem manipulative, but this is a legitimate form of advertising that is widely used. If the business has an actual solution to a real threat, why not highlight this to the consumer. Common examples that you have likely come across include toothpaste, life insurance, and burglar alarms.

To apply this kind of fear-based advertising to your business you must be careful. You need to be sure that your product or services are able to help the customer solve the threat, but you also must follow these four rules:

First you must induce fear of the threat to consumers.
Second, you must recommend clear actionable steps to consumers on how to resolve their problem and alleviate their fear, preferably using your business to do so.
Third, the proposed steps must be actions that the customer believes will actually help to reduce the threat.
And finally, these actions must be simple and things the consumer believes are something that they can achieve.

A similar form of fear in marketing, is change behaviour campaigns. This can be anything from anti-smoking campaigns, to wearing a seatbelt, to voting in elections. Fear is used in these campaigns through “shock” statistics. By reporting shocking figures, and highlighting facts that pose a threat to the viewer (such as health warnings and death statistics). Similar to the previous use, this fear causes stress in the viewer that prompts action to remedy this. This action is likely to be a change in behaviour that is proposed by the campaign, as the behaviour is the cause of personal threat.

A more rare, but nevertheless interesting approach to the use of fear in advertising is the element of shock that fear causes. Through the shock factor, fear can elicit a strong emotional or physical reaction. If your advert is the cause of this, it is likely that you will find it more memorable as it caused such a strong emotional reaction. There are a few examples of this include a Snickers advert , in which a tall, vacant old woman notes that the shopper does not have Snickers in their trolly, before, emotionlessly, beginning to put them into the trolly of a customer. Another example is possibly the most famous: the K-Fee “Car Commercial”, that takes advantage of jumpscares in the advert to cause an emotional reaction.

Finally, possibly the most confusing use of fear, is the discovery that fear can improve opinion of a brand, through the formation of an emotional attachment. Yes, I know, how can that work, right? Well, studies showed that brand present during a horror film, such as food or drinks that the viewer may be eating, or a product placement in the film, were seen to have more positive ratings than ones not present. This is because, as humans, when we experiences something frightening or stressful we want to share the experience with someone else, someone to provide comfort and support. However, if there is no one present during this event (even one with a not real threat such as a horror film), the presence of a brand is enough to provide comfort. As such, an emotional attachment is formed. There is good news for companies who are not product based too. This effect is true even through the presence of the brand, including your logo.

This suggests that more companies should invest in product placement of horror films, advertising at a haunted house, or even on roadside billboards for those spooky late night, rainy drives. Your brand may boost its customer ratings just by being present at a moment of fear, so get your brand out there, in places people may be scared!

As you can see, fear is a very strong but delicate ally within the world of marketing, but there are also many more emotional influences to discover.

-- From Marketing to Mind --

Photo by Nik and Daniel Jensen on Unsplash

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