The Conditions of Belief in Advertising

Abstract

The problem of arousing the confidence of the consumer in the article advertised, the conditions on which it depends, how belief in advertisements may be created and how it may be measured have been very lightly touched in experimental studies. Belief is rarely the result of reasoning. To study the relationship between belief and reasoning an advertisement of the New Gillette Razor was given 57 college graduates with seven questions intended to test both their belief in the new razor and their understanding of it. They agreed that they would rather pay $5 for the new than $1 or $2 for the old one. They were ignorant of the importance of the changes. The experiment shows that in advertising reasoning is not needed to create belief. It is not necessarily that which is true that is believed. Three advertisements, Taylor trunk, Stanley vacuum bottle, Edison phonograph, were presented to 100 people, together with a series of statements about them. Thirty-eight per cent doubted the truth in the trunk advertisement, 31 per cent in the bottle advertisement, 77 per cent doubted the truth of the statements in the phonograph advertisement. Ideas which are present in the mind and are not interfered with by any opposing ideas will be believed. Ideas aroused by an advertisement must not conflict too sharply with the reader's experience. Ideas that are to create belief must come from an authoritative source. We tend to believe what arouses our desires, our fears and our emotions generally. These points are illustrated. From Psych Bulletin 21:01:00090. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)