Imc Essay

Abstract

Fear is very powerful but primitive feeling at the same time, this is one of the most influential emotion that impact our decisions and behaviors in many different situations. Fear appeal is use very common in marketing industry. It’s used in advertising to catch attention and influence the consumer’s decision. It’s also quite often used to interfere in audience actions in which the product or service should be used to avoid the ‘’risk’’ and what could happen if the certain things aren’t bought. Modern world is characterized by the ubiquity of information that is passing across whole world in every single day and the most significant are advertising , the volume of messages is massive , people are ‘’attacked’’ by countless amount of ads from every side ,therefore advertisers use various techniques to transfer the message and use emotions as a tool to be remembered . Fear is very effectual in getting attention and knows how to sow the seed of anxiety that will not disappear until a particular purchase or action is done. Studies shows that fear appeal in advertising can have high or low involvement and can be very successful, but can also dramatically hurt and disgust the receivers. However the higher level of fear the higher effectiveness and greater publicity.

Table of Content

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………..4

Fear appeal impact on consumer behaviours………………………………………........5

Fear appeal in health campaigns……………………………………………………….....6

Ethics in fear appeal ………………………………………………………………….........8

Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………..10

Bibliography ………………………………………………………………………………..11

Introduction

Fear is ‘’distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc.,whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid ‘’(Dictionary). Term of fear in marketing industry is also described as ‘’fear is an emotional response to a threat that express or least implies, some sort of danger. For most people , fear has a significant effect on behaviour, leading them to seek ways of removing co coping with the threat and therefore the danger’’(Tanner, Hunt, Eppright, 1991).

Fear is also’’one of the basic psychological experiences and apart from love there is nothing else that could exceeded fear in intensity. There are all sorts of fear, which can have different degrees of severity. . This feeling may be limited only to a small anxiety or fear, but sometimes takes the form of great fear, terror and horror’’(Pokonaj Strach(Overcome Fear Blog 2011).

The theme of this assessment is to critically discuss the following statement :

‘’ The use of fear in advertising is one that has attracted much debate. There is significant disagreement as to how the use of fear can manipulate consumer action’’.

Last decades shows that fear as one of the emotions, works very impressive in advertising sector and has significant impact on the brand and consumer perception of the communicating message. The primary reason for their growing popularity is that advertisers have found them to increase the interest and persuasiveness of individual ads (Hyman and Tansey, 1990; Higbee, 1969; King and Reid, 1990)Studies also shows that fear appeal can be a great motivator for many of us and be very influential in decision making and of changing people's attitudes in certain cases. Fear appeal is sending a message that inform

us “if you don’t do this (buy, vote, believe, support, learn, etc)some particular dire consequences will occur” (Glascoff, 2000, 35). It’s strongly used by brands in advertising campaigns that trying to evoke in us a sense of need ,that turn into the fear of not filling that desire and make us to purchase of certain product/service to eliminate that unpleasant feeling .

Of Purpose of this essay I was asked to discuss more in detail fear appeal in advertising and critically analyse whether fear appeal is effective or not and give examples where needed to support the answer.This assessment focused on impact of fear appeal on consumer behavior, how fear appeal seen in ads can stimulate our buying decisions. I will also analyze effectiveness of fear appeal in health campaigns , whether fear can motivate people to actions and change in attitudes. The last part of this assessment is focused on the ethics in fear appeal and on criticise side of using fear appeal by marketers.

Impact of fear appeal on consumer behaviour

Fear appeal is one of the driven factor which has impact on consumers actions and decisions. It’s quite often used by marketers to induce more attention among audience and to achieve their targeted objectives. Fear is very powerful emotion that can call out in humans excitement like as well as anxiety feeling . ‘’Fear is a primitive instinct which can occasionally guide and activate human behavior. It creates anxiety and tension, causing people to seek ways to reduce these feelings’’ (La Tour, Zahara).

Advertising is a type of information that is fitted in a nice frame and presented to the public through range of different media , the aim of each advertising is to be coded in people’s heads and to be remembered. In nowadays consumers are bombarded by hundreds ads everyday from every side and only very small amount of these ads will be memorized by people if even that. Marketers standing on front of tough challenge to create advertising which will interest and attract consumers. According to Hyman and Tansey, advertisers can increase interest and persuasiveness of an ad through the use of a fear appeal, studies shows that these ads have better recall and are easier remembered by receiver (Hyman and Tansey,