The majority of people are inundated with ads every single day. From targeted campaigns on social media to train car takeovers to direct mail, most of us are pretty good at filtering through the noise to find the products we really want. In fact, according to recent estimates, the average person is exposed to up to 10,000 ads per day! Because of this, companies need to be strategic about the types of ads they use or else get filtered out with the rest of the junk people aren’t interested in.
To help you get a grasp on how to make your ads stand out, we’ve outlined the principles of buyers psychology below to show you how to catch the eyes of your audience.
How We Think vs How We Feel
The first thing to understand about advertising psychology is how consumers make buying decisions. There are generally two main paradigms for this process: the Consumer Processing Model which deals with rational thinking and the Hedonistic Experiential Model which deals with feelings.
Think of the Hedonistic Experiential Model as impulse buying. When consumers are processing decisions via this model, they are thinking with their hearts, not their heads. Advertising that appeals to this type of decision-making invokes emotions that may or may not have much to do with the actual product. Think of beautiful women advertising razors or a bunch of friends hanging out at the beach to advertise a soda brand.
On the other hand, the Consumer Processing Model deals with logic and reasoning. It’s the process you go through when facing a multitude of brand choices trying to buy toothpaste or deciding whether to shell out for the expensive air conditioner or stick with the cheaper unit. When making decisions via the Consumer Processing Model, buyers weigh the pros and cons of each product to reach their decision.
It’s important to note that most people use a combination of these two models when making a buying decision, so your ads should work to highlight both logical choice and positive emotion.
Choosing the Right Look
The types of fonts and colors you use in your ads also signal different meanings to viewers on a subconscious level. For example, serif fonts convey a sense of tradition and respectability, modern fonts come off as strong and progressive, and display fonts are viewed as friendly and expressive.
Colors work in much the same way. Think about your favorite brands and the color schemes they use for their products and advertisements. How does their branding make you feel, and how does it affect how you think about the company? Examples of this include red which comes off as exciting and energetic (think Netflix and Coca Cola), blue which is seen as trustworthy and secure (think PayPal and AT&T), and white which conveys purity and simplicity (think Apple and Nike).
Take a look at the infographic from RentSpree below to learn more about the fonts, colors, emotions, and pricing strategies that will make your ads appeal to buyers on a psychological level:
