Can you give a specific example on how psychology was used is in marketing or advertising?

Answer 1

Automobile ads always depict folks doing exciting things, usually w very attractive & sexy friends. If you had this car you would be w sexy women (or men)

Beer commercials often have a similar type of theme.

Late edit-The response above refers to Life cereal. Let Mikey eat it, he hates everything.

Another example, when I worked retail we offered floor models for a discount. Once we offered an item to a guy at $20, which was a dollar off, he said no, then my manager said how about we don't charge you any sales tax......he readily said yes...the savings....you guessed it !! ONE DOLLAR !!

Answer 2

Cognitive Dissonance is a great example. This is the concept that after a larger purchase, the buyer begins to wonder if they did the right thing, and may experience stress, anxiety, and sometimes try to reverse the transaction.
Look at commercials for cars or Realtors. Aside from the normal sales information, they are saying if you bought you did the right thing, and if you are going to buy, don't worry we are there for you and you do not have to worry.
Some Realtors in this area even offer a "buy-back" guarantee. I suspect they almost never actually buy-back a house, 1. Because there is probably a lot of fine print, 2 Very few buyers are really going to "reverse" the transaction. So the question is, why does a company have a program that no one uses? Very odd, unless it is to relieve cognative dissonance.

Answer 3

Say you have an item whose true price is $20.00. You put it on sale for $35.00. Come discount time, you tell your customers, they are getting a discount and the price of the item is now $25.00 down from $35.00. Customers will think they are getting a bargain when in reality you already made a hefty profit, still making a profit and selling at a markup price.

Case 2:- Buy 2 get one free! Nice psychological marketing strategy. More often than not, the two items total price are the true value you're paying for them both.

Customers see discount, get one free and other offers and in their minds they believe they are saving, when most often than not, it's not true.

Hope I made sense.

Answer 4

There's a cereal ad on Canadian television (I forget which cereal) where there is a baby boomer who is trying to convince his dad and his son not to eat the cereal he likes because "You won't like it" and that its bad for you (It's actually really healthy) and that the fruits, nuts and maple syrup are all stuff that a tree rejects, so it must be bad for you.
As you can tell, they're trying to use reverse psychology to establish a brand presence as a health cereal.

Answer 5

They used it in a test with smells. They found that a store that has a wonderful smell, will bring in customers and they buy more

Answer 6

You advertise the product as a SCAM! or with a warning.....before you buy read this!...... then you explain why they should buy it from you!