La advertencia del intento persuasivo en contextos publicitarios

Abstract

Resumen: Cuando las personas saben que se las está intentando convencer, tienden a resistirse puesto que en general no desean ser manipuladas. Asimismo, los mensajes ambiguos son menos persuasivos que los mensajes claros y ordenados, entre otras razones, porque las personas prefieren los estímulos fáciles de procesar. En la presente investigación se propone que estas dos variables (advertencia del intento persuasivo y ambigüedad del mensaje) pueden resultar paradójicamente más persuasivas cuando se utilizan conjuntamente. Los participantes del estudio recibieron un mensaje ordenado (baja ambigüedad) o desordenado (alta ambigüedad) que fue presentado como un anuncio publicitario (intento persuasivo) o una narración no comercial. Tal y como se esperaba, se encontró que el mensaje ambiguo resultó más persuasivo cuando fue presentado como un anuncio (contexto publicitario) que cuando fue presentado en un contexto meramente narrativo. Saber que un anuncio publicitario constituye un intento por convencer puede hacer que los pensamientos que se generen para interpretarlo sean de valencia positiva (como los argumentos que supuestamente contiene el mensaje), dando lugar a un mayor cambio de actitudes. Palabras clave: Persuasión; actitudes; publicidad; ambigüedad; reactancia; contra-argumentar.Title: Forewarning of the Persuasive Attempt in Advertising Contexts. Abstract: Forewarning of a persuasive attempt has been found to reduce persuasion because people tend to resist being manipulated. Likewise, messages that are high in ambiguity tend to be less persuasive than messages that are clear, among other reasons, because people prefer information that is easy to be processed. The present research postulates that these two variables (persuasive attempt forewarning and message ambiguity) can result paradoxically persuasive when combined together. Participants of the present experiment received a message composed by images that were presented in a logic (low ambiguity) or in a random order (high ambiguity). Furthermore, the message was said to be a commercial advertisement (with persuasive attempt) or a neutral narrative (without persuasive attempt). As predicted, it was found that the highly ambiguous message was more persuasive when it was presented as an advertisement (with persuasive attempt) rather than as a narrative context (without persuasive attempt). Knowing that the message constitutes a persuasive attempt (ad) could bias the generation of thoughts to interpret that information in a positive manner (consonant with the direction of the arguments supposedly contained in the ad), leading to more attitude change. Key words: Persuasion; attitudes; advertising; ambiguity; reactance; counter-argument. IntroducciónLa publicidad tiene como uno de sus objetivos primordiales crear mensajes que generen en el público actitudes más favorables hacia un producto, un servicio, una marca o una compañía. La investigación en comunicación persuasiva ha mostrado que el cambio de actitudes depende fundamentalmente de cómo el receptor int...

Warning of persuading attempts and ambiguity within advertising contexts in Mexico

“…al., 1953;Germelmann et. al., 2020;Hudders et al, 2017) and, finally, the warning of the attempt of persuasion and clarity or ambiguity in the message as elements that influence the consumer (Briñol et. al., 2015).…”

“…al., 2017;Boush et. al., 1994;Briñol et. al., 2015;Campbell & Kirmani, 2000;Cialdini & Petty, 1981;Colín, 2018;Chen et.…”

“…During a persuasion attempt, the consuming audience can enter into a psychological state of mind in which they consider that an influence agent may have an ulterior motive regarding the message they are transmitting, which Fein (1996) defined as «suspicion» and its presence can result in not so positive perceptions of the message, having a lower persuasion power on the consumer for considering it questionable as a consequence (Boerman et. al., 2017;Briñol et. al., 2015;Fein, 1996;Hamby & Brinberg, 2018;Hudders et al, 2017;Russell et.…”

“…This situation is reinforced when consumers are expressly warned about a persuasion attempt and, for this reason, the warning of the attempt of persuasion slants their thoughts because the seller's motivations to influence the buyer are exposed, there are no surprises, and thus the information processing is activated (reactive thought) upon the message, causing the search of counterarguments (Boush et. al., 2009;Briñol et. al., 2015;Chen et.…”

“…In particular, one of the advertising's principal goals is generating communication with the audience and thus creating messages that cause more favorable attitudes toward a product, service, brand or company (Briñol et al, 2015). Communication focused on audience persuasion is the main goal of advertising and the promotion it seeks, as to finally set a business transaction between the offeror and the buyer (Kotler & Stigliano, 2020).…”