Blog 3: Advertisement should not be so aggressive!
In marketing, Slogan is a form of above the line sales promotion, involving simple yet 
memorable, maybe catchy phrases, which often used to promote products to captivate audience, attracting more costumers, in the hopes of leading to higher sales and profit, and even build up the company’s name and recognition. I can be a powerful method of promotion when it is well executed. However, studies from the Journal of Consumer Research have shown that sometimes advertising slogans can backfire and off putting to consumers.
According to the study, consumers tend to enjoy making-decision on their own as it gives them a sense of meaningfulness since they have chosen for themselves. However, some advertisements have strong pitch to it, such as with phases ‘the only choice for costumers’. Studies have shown many people if off-put by such strong pitch, while managers and marketing executives believed that those sales pitch would be more effective.
This information can be very helpful to ‘business to customer’ companies as their objective is to sell product to households. This also suggests that marketing department should be more aware of their sales pitch, especially with slogans, so that it will attract more customers instead of scaring them off.
I would agree to the study as I feel the same way about strong advertisement and slogans. Growing up in Hong Kong there were tons of commercials with very catchy and funny slogans, many Hong Konger would still remember commercials and slogans from 10 years ago till now. (Hard to give example as most are in Cantonese slangs) But I remember watching the commercial for Carlsberg in Hong Kong, the slogan is “possibly the best beer in the world”(in Cantonese), or other slogan with phrases such as ‘the only’, ‘the best’, or ‘if you don’t buy it, it’s your lost’ type of slogan, it gave the impression that the company is arrogant and annoying, therefore I’m less likely to even bother to purchase the product.
This is only my personal thought in this matter. Of courses slogans are not the only considering factor when buying a product, perhaps it is because of the quality, certain attribute of the products, or even simply brand loyalty. But a company’s slogan to many people is the first impression of the product the company is selling, it would be good if the advertisement approached to the audience too strong that set them off. Therefore I believe companies should do more market research to figure out how to present their product with the most appealing way to costumers, to gain more positive attention with curiosity, and hence, attracting more costumer and improve sales and perhaps profit
Reference:
Richtel, Matt. “How Ads Can Push Too Hard.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 27 Sept. 2014. Web. 27 Sept. 2014. <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/28/business/overly-aggressive-pitches-can-put-off-consumers.html?ref=business&_r=1>.
Bravo.