Seducing the Subconscious: The Psychology of Emotional Influence in Advertising

We have a love–hate relationship with advertising. Adverts serve a purpose—they keep us in touch with new products and ideas, and at their best, ingenious campaigns provide entertainment. But we also worry that advertising can get ′under our radar′ in some way and might affect us without our knowledge. For this reason, we ignore it: we think if we don′t pay attention to it, we won′t remember it, and it won′t influence us. But, paradoxically, ignoring advertising can actually lend it greater power. Dr. Robert Heath, a pioneering researcher in the field of brand communications, reveals that how we process advertising—both at a subconscious and semiconscious level—can actually increase the influence it has on our emotions, the underlying drivers of our decisions and relationships. Utilizing extensive psychological and neuroscientific research, Seducing the Subconscious reveals how this brave new advertising world works, using illustrative examples of advertising campaigns that have been hugely successful without anyone quite being able to recall what they were trying to communicate. Knowledge, or perhaps awareness, Dr. Heath shows, truly is power. Whether advertising executives are trying to harness it, or average consumers are looking to defend themselves, one thing is certain: we cannot afford to ignore it.

Foreword ix Introduction 1 Part 1 Taking Advertising Apart 1 The Persuasion Model 15 2 Alternative Ideas 24 3 WhyWe Don’t Pay Attention to Advertising 39 Part 1 Summary 48 Part 2 The Psychology of Communication 4 Learning and Attention 53 5 The Role of Memory 63 6 HowWe Process Communication 74 7 Problems with Getting Attention 85 Part 2 Summary 95 Part 3 Emotion and Consciousness 8 Emotional Processing 101 9 Our Adaptive Subconscious 111 10 Emotion and Attention 123 Part 3 Summary 133 Part 4 Decisions and Relationships 11 Decision–Making 137 12 The Power of Metacommunication 149 13 The Subconscious Seduction Model 160 Part 4 Summary 174 Part 5 Taking A Fresh Look at Advertising 14 Under the Radar 179 15 The Hidden Power of New Media 189 16 Legal, Decent, Honest, and Truthful? 198 17 How to Spot Subconscious Seduction 207 Conclusion 219 References 229 Index 239

Dr. Robert Heath has a worldwide reputation as an expert in the role of emotion and attention in the field of brand communication. In 2001 he developed the Low Attention Processing Model of advertising, after which he published the best–selling monograph The Hidden Power of Advertising . His published research has garnered him major prizes, including the dual award of the MRS David Winton and ISBA Prizes. Dr. Heath is a Senior Lecturer in Advertising at University of Bath School of Management and a Board Member of the Wharton Global Future of Advertising Project.

“Summing Up: Recommended.  Upper–division and graduate students of advertising and psychology, faculty, and practitioners.”  ( Choice , 1 October 2012) “Heath’s book is far more persuasive than any advertisement, no matter how top–loaded the latter may be with accurate information. His thesis depends on a lengthy journey through cognitive science and evolutionary psychology, and a firm grasp on how – so far as we know – the human mind actually does work (rather than how we would like it to work). Heath demonstrates quite clearly – at least to my satisfaction – that it is precisely when we pay no conscious attention to advertising that advertisers get to work on our subconscious with complete effectiveness.”   WILL SELF, Prospect , June 2012 "(Heath) avoids academic obscurantism and fills the book with clever dissections of well–known ads... The case studies add up to an intriguing, down–to–earth introduction to the mysteries of the subconscious..." Financial Times, March 2012 "Dr Robert Heath, who teaches at the University of Bath, has popularised the theory of ‘low attention processing’, which argues that ads make a stronger emotional and behavioural impact when we are paying less conscious attention to them. In his new book, Seducing the Subconscious , he further develops this thinking, providing a detailed and scholarly explanation of the psychological processes involved, and illustrating these with advertising examples, many based on his own long experience in ad agencies." Paul Feldwick, Credos, March 2012