So what if negative advertising is effective?

The topic of marketing and advertising is usually a sore spot for entrepreneurs. However, the question no longer is "should" I market my business; it's an absolute necessity. Today, in a world full of advertising noise, the question is "how" do I market my business. One of Exemplar's fabulous legal interns, Ms. Anna Bielejec, has written a cheeky and innovative blog on negative advertising and its effectiveness. I would like to share her point of view with our readers. Enjoy!

By: Anna Bielejec

Consumer susceptibility to the sensational finger-pointing and mud-slinging of negative advertising is on the rise and there is nothing we can do to stop it. Actually, there is. While curbing our general attraction to negative advertisements is not something we, as consumers, might actually be capable of doing, we can curb the opinions that we later form from them. Sure. Negative ads can be rude, crass, mean, dirty, spiteful, and absurd. They can also be harmless and entertaining. Apple’s famous “Hi, I’m a Mac” hipster dude, and his balding “I’m a PC” nerd co-star, is a subtle yet effective way at conveying to consumers the message that Mac computers are better than PCs. Could Mac have made a friendlier commercial? Maybe, but who cares about that? They are recognizable, memorable, and oh so witty (sort of).

Scientific analysis of the psychology behind negative advertising has provided insight into why it is so effective. Psychiatry professor at UCLA Dr. Marco Iacoboni conducted an experiment utilizing functional magnetic resonance imaging techniques to monitor the brain activity of President Bush and Sen. John Kerry supporters during the 2004 presidential campaign. During the test, when subjects were shown images of the candidate they opposed, far more brain activity was detected than when they were shown an image of the candidate they supported. As such, this experiment underscored our subconscious favoritism for negative stimuli.

I like to think of the brain as a nightlight in an outlet at the end of a dark spooky hallway. It lights up the moment things go dark. During the day, the hallway isn’t spooky and the nightlight is off, because when it’s light outside the hallway is boring and familiar and nothing about it catches your eye. There aren’t any giant spiders and the crooked baseboards are just as dusty as they were the day before. This comfort and familiarity ends abruptly the moment nighttime appears, though. When daylight retreats and darkness falls, in steps the unknown, the controversial, the spooky. You know. The point at which your hand-held spider-dar breaks and you realize your makeshift Proton Pack is missing. This is when the nightlight lights up! Such is the case when it comes to our brains and advertising: they’re plugged in, but they’re only truly riled up when the hallway spiders come out. Thus, like a nightlight, our brains light up, right on cue, with every publicity scandal, political debacle, and every other negative bit of press that our metaphorical hallway spiders could be ascribed to, night after night, week after week.

All this talk of spiders tells us several key things. First, it tells us that our brains respond favorably to the emotion that savvy advertisers evoke in us and that these responses occur automatically and subconsciously. Second, in the face of such automatic responses, it also tells us that there is absolutely nothing we as consumers can do to thwart the brain’s inevitable hunger to experience this emotion. So, if there’s nothing we can do to change our internal programming for negative advertisements, what can we do? The answer is simple. We, as the consumers of the world, can exercise our brains with, wait for it, rational thought. This novel idea requires us to consciously analyze information and issues for ourselves, however emotional it may be, before we make any ultimate decisions in response to what was initially presented. Simple? Maybe not. Crucial? Absolutely. Spider-proof? I’ll let you decide.