Angela Planisek
March 22 2016
Independent Study: Music as Persuasion
I. Daily television broadcasting has been a huge staple in the media and one of the best ways for large companies and organizations to reach consumers at a quick rate and in an eye catching fashion. Television commercials specifically have the power to appeal to the human senses such as sight and hearing. As many people tend to be visual and emotional in the way they consume information we sometimes can tend to overlook the way the in which we respond to music in those same commercials we see. Or do we? We know the music is there but how much does it affect our mood and judgment upon our perception and purchasing habits? What makes us …show more content…
Whan Park and S. Mark Young. The article immediately claims that the impact of music or non-music commercials is in fact a peripheral persuasion cue when influencing our process on brand attitude formation. This article goes on to explain the types of motives people use in processing. For example, Park and Young say, “Specifically, one may be highly involved in a commercial because it emphasis the brand’s functional performance (utilitarian motive) or because it appeals emotionally or aesthetically to one’s motive to express an actual or ideal self-image to the outside world (value-expressive motive).” (Park &Young, 1986, p.12). The article also refers to McGuire’s Psychological Motives as well. McGuire suggests that there are “cognitive” and “affective” motives that contribute to the process. Utilitarian movies are equal to cognitive involvement and value-expressive motives lead to affective involvement. Moving on to the music portion, they tell us that they chose to focus on background music because it is a peripheral cue that plays a significant role on people physiologically, as well as in their reactions. They say that while visual cues are obviously crucial, there is something special about music in a commercial that affects our brand perception opposed to when there is not any …show more content…
Krugman states in the article that while advertising on television has the unique ability to change the perception of the product for the consumer, it does not always assist in the promotion of sales (Krugman, 1965). So, we know now that music can reinforce the message of the advertisement and make people recall, but not always increase the sales of