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When advertisers are pitching something, they usually put all the stuff they want you to notice in big print, right up front, sometimes in pictures. (Like the cheerful, alert, people without hayfever symptoms frolicking in fields of pollen.) The stuff they don't want you to advertise goes in smaller print, in a footnote, sometimes on the back of the page. (Like headaches, or anxiety, or risk of stroke.) People don't pay the same sort of attention to information that comes that way--it's flagged as a less important detail. They may look for the fine print to avoid being cheated when they're about to sign a contract, but that's different from remembering the footnotes on ads they notice when they're looking for something else.
I don't remember where I read this. It was a long time ago, and my own observations have supported it. People tend to remember the central points, the obvious bits, of what they hear and read. They can remember hearing about a medical treatment and not remember it didn't work at all, or remember that a public figure was accused of corruption but not remember that he was later cleared by a court. Giving detailed descriptions of what NOT to do can cause problems, because people are thinking about what they aren't supposed to do...sometimes more than what they are supposed to do. In defensive driving, you're not supposed to focus on the obstacles you need to avoid, but on the clear space you need to drive towards. Children are more likely to cooperate with "talk quietly" than with "stop shouting." Is any of this controversial at all, or new?
( Newsweek )
( Dove )
I think the people who made the Dove ad probably meant well, and the effect of a visual beauty industry version of "We Didn't Start The Fire" is accidental. I don't expect people to pay nearly as much attention to the quick little frame of child and text as to the concentrated onslaught of images themselves, and the idea that a woman can, should, must, make herself look perfect. I don't know why I suspect the designer of the Newsweek cover of less benign intentions.
I don't remember where I read this. It was a long time ago, and my own observations have supported it. People tend to remember the central points, the obvious bits, of what they hear and read. They can remember hearing about a medical treatment and not remember it didn't work at all, or remember that a public figure was accused of corruption but not remember that he was later cleared by a court. Giving detailed descriptions of what NOT to do can cause problems, because people are thinking about what they aren't supposed to do...sometimes more than what they are supposed to do. In defensive driving, you're not supposed to focus on the obstacles you need to avoid, but on the clear space you need to drive towards. Children are more likely to cooperate with "talk quietly" than with "stop shouting." Is any of this controversial at all, or new?
( Newsweek )
( Dove )
I think the people who made the Dove ad probably meant well, and the effect of a visual beauty industry version of "We Didn't Start The Fire" is accidental. I don't expect people to pay nearly as much attention to the quick little frame of child and text as to the concentrated onslaught of images themselves, and the idea that a woman can, should, must, make herself look perfect. I don't know why I suspect the designer of the Newsweek cover of less benign intentions.
