Using Drama to Persuade

Television ads can be classified as either arguments or dramas or hybrids of these forms. We claim that form dimension influences how ads are processed. An argument backs its claims with appeals to objectivity and is processed evaluatively. A drama appeals more to subjective criteria and is processed empathically. A study is reported in which 40 television commercials were classified on a dramatization scale. They were shown to 1,215 people, and measures of evaluative and empathic processing were taken. The measures were found to be weighted differently for arguments and dramas, supporting the contention that form influences processing. Copyright 1989 by the University of Chicago.

[1]  H. White.  The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality , 1980, Critical Inquiry.

[2]  Bernard J. Jaworski,et al.  Strategic Brand Concept-Image Management , 1986 .

[3]  J. Edell,et al.  The Power of Feelings in Understanding Advertising Effects , 1987 .

[4]  Martha S. Feldman,et al.  Reconstructing Reality In The Courtroom , 1981 .

[5]  Modern dogma and the rhetoric of assent , 1974 .

[6]  John Deighton,et al.  Rhetorical Strategies in Advertising , 1985 .

[7]  Michael L. Ray,et al.  Advertising and Communication Management , 1981 .

[8]  R. Batra,et al.  Affective Responses Mediating Acceptance of Advertising , 1986 .

[9]  S. Chatman,et al.  Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film , 1979 .

[10]  K. Burke.  A Rhetoric of Motives , 1969 .

[11]  Richard J. Lutz,et al.  The Role of Argument Quality in the Elaboration Likelihood Model , 1988 .

[12]  Scott B. MacKenzie,et al.  The Role of Attitude toward the Ad as a Mediator of Advertising Effectiveness: A Test of Competing Explanations: , 1986 .

[13]  Robert Scholes,et al.  Language, Narrative, and Anti-Narrative , 1980, Critical Inquiry.

[14]  B. Coe.  Aaker, David A. (Ed.).Advertising Management. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1975 , 1976 .

[15]  S. Chatman.  Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film , 1980 .

[16]  Julie A. Edell,et al.  The Impact of Feelings on Ad-Based Affect and Cognition , 1989 .

[17]  Peter Wright.  Message-Evoked Thoughts: Persuasion Research Using Thought Verbalizations , 1980 .

[18]  W. Riggan,et al.  The Rhetoric of Fiction , 1984 .

[19]  F. Black,et al.  The Rhetoric of Economics , 1986 .

[20]  Philip Blair Rice,et al.  Quality and Value , 1943 .

[21]  Peter L. Wright,et al.  The Cognitive Processes Mediating Acceptance of Advertising , 1973 .

[22]  H. E. Krugman.  THE MEASUREMENT OF ADVERTISING INVOLVEMENT , 1966 .

[23]  A. R. Orage.  The art of reading , 1930 .

[24]  P. Wright.  The Cognitive Processes Mediating Acceptance of Advertising , 1973 .

[25]  Bruce Kuklick,et al.  The History Primer. , 1971 .

[26]  M. Holbrook,et al.  Assessing the Role of Emotions as Mediators of Consumer Responses to Advertising , 1987 .

[27]  W. Fisher.  Narration As a Human Communication Paradigm: The Case of Public Moral Argument , 1984 .

[28]  J. Bruner.  Actual minds, possible worlds , 1985 .