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Attitudes: The ELM Model of Persuasion



This week in Consumer Behavior we covered the topic of attitudes, how attitudes are formed, the three components of an attitude, cognitive, affective, and behavioral, and lastly, how to influence attitudes using persuasion approaches. The topic that I most drew a liking to was how the use of the Elaboration Likelihood model can be used to persuade a consumer to ultimately create a favorable attitude towards a brand, and purchase their product. 

Marketers can use emotional marketing strategies in their promotions to to gain sales and foster a favorable brand image towards consumers. Successful advertisers can use peripheral cues when conducting these campaigns to persuade consumers to change their attitudes about a brand and ultimately buy their product.

ELM: An Example

Image result for dawn ad
Dawn, the dish detergent company is a great example of using emotional marketing in combination with both routes of processing persuasive messages in the ELM model, the central route, and the peripheral route, to influence consumers in their advertisements. An online advertisement that I chose to analyze for persuasive techniques helped to visualize just how effective in practice these methods can be in the marketing world. The commercial that I watched called “Cleaning Oil Spills” by Dawn, shows multiple animal rescue workers cleaning ducks and seals that were victims of an oil spill in the ocean. The commercial goes on to show the unsoiled animals being released back into the comfort of their ocean homes, waddling happily. In this case, the Elaboration Likelihood Model is applied by the central route, or the peripheral route, depending on the viewer’s motivation and ability. If the viewer cares gravely about the cause to support animals and wildlife, and gives their full attention to the message without distraction, then they will elaborate on Dawn’s message. The viewer will then be an active participant in Dawn’s process of persuasion. If the message evokes positive thoughts and emotions towards toward supporting wildlife, successful attitude change towards this position will likely occur. 

If the viewer has low motivation and ability to comprehend the advertisements message, they will most likely process the persuasive communication based on peripheral cues besides the strength of the argument. In the dawn advertisement, these peripheral cues include attempting to encourage the promoted stance with signs and signals the viewer already attributes positively feelings towards. Some of these peripheral cues in the advertisement include cute appealing animals, muted background colors with a bright colored product to draw eye attention to the focus of the ad, expert appeals using credibility, a happy ending reaction that the animals were saved, and inspirational background music to persuade the consumer.  If these peripheral cues are accepted and believed by the viewer, then the viewers attitude toward the persuasive message may change towards Dawn’s desired position. 

Key Takeaway

Dawn ultimately plays to the emotional appeal of the viewer. They use cute animals such as ducks, penguins, and baby seals to enhance message effectiveness. Who wouldn’t want to save adorable animals that were harmed because of our mistakes? By using cute animals, and expert appeals of credibility Dawn’s persuasive attempts using peripheral processing are very effective. Marketer’s at Dawn are attempting to tap into the audiences’ American values to get their message across. They want to make the consumer think, “not only will supporting the cause create a positive image for myself, but doing my part will benefit society’s future wellbeing too,” and it is incredibly effective.

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