An ad agency has landed an account for Savola, a brand of healthy cooking oil. Describe how the ad can incorporate negative appeals in its messages effectively

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Student answers may vary.
Negative appeals such as fear, guilt, and shame are used by communicators to get people to do things (brush their teeth) or stop doing things (smoking). The cooking oil ad can use fear appeals to get consumers to start using its product. This can be achieved by depicting health risks associated with using cooking oils other than Savola, such as hypertension, heart attacks, etc. Guilt appeal can be used to depict a family grieving the death of someone who did not use Savola. Shame appeal could illustrate the case of a parent who cannot play catch with his kids because his fitness is compromised by not using Savola.

However, the ad agency should take care to ensure that the negative appeals do not come across as too strong to the audiences, the credibility of the source in the ads is high, and the ad promises to relieve fears of health risks in a believable and efficient way. The ad is most persuasive when moderately discrepant with audience beliefs. If the ad merely says that using unhealthy oil leads to health risks, it only serves to reinforce the belief, and if the message exaggerates the health risks of not using Savola, audiences will only counterargue and disbelieve the ad.