Fear Sells...Fear Sells Not

“Fear, after all, is our real enemy. Fear is taking over our world. Fear is being used as a tool of manipulation in our society. Itʼs how politicians peddle policy and how Madison Avenue sells us things that we donʼt need. Think about it. Fear that weʼre going to be attacked, fear that there are communists lurking around every corner, fear that some little Caribbean country that doesnʼt believe in our way of life poses a threat to us. Fear that black culture may take over the world. Fear of Elvis Presleyʼs hips. Well, maybe that one is a real fear. Fear that our bad breath might ruin our friendships… Fear of growing old and being alone.”  - Christopher Isherwood, A Single Man

Fear is an emotional response to a threat. Fear appeals have been used in advertising to sell us all things from personal hygiene products, anti-ageing creams and children's car seats to ideologies and lifestyles.  This is because fear is a strong emotional response and some of us would do anything to remove a threat. Usually these ads portray the horrible medical, social and legal consequences of doing something such as DUI or not using a product such as deodorant;  ultimately, to encourage behaviour change and purchase.

We now live in a world full of uncertainty. At any moment, bad things can happen; terrorist attacks, wars, tsunamis, economic recessions, data leakage, etc. The truth is that most of us have, more or less, similar insecurities and fears. That's why marketers can successfully point them out. But what matters the most is hitting the level of fear that effectively leads to persuasion for most of our target audience (called optimal level of fear). And that's not an easy task, because there are many factors that influence our emotional response to a threat, such as our age and the way we perceive a threat. For example, the strongest threat (i.e. death compare to disability) does not necessarily evoke the strongest fear response (and therefore, persuasion and behaviour change).  That's why before using fear appeals, marketers study how fear operates in a particular situation, starting by understanding what their target audience fear the most. 

Understanding the audience is the first step to success in advertising and this is no exception. Marketers take a close look at the market. They know what we feared yesterday might not be what we fear today. For example, I notices a change in trends for deodorant ads. While before, they were selling using fear appeals, they have now taken a different approach. Take a look below.

The fear of being called stupid and weirdo convinces us to buy Old Spice.

But as deodorants are most widely used now more than ever, expanding the total population of category users (by attracting new customers to the market) is not a profitable enough option. How many of us don't use deodorant? Not that many. And fear appeal doesn't do the job of convincing users to switch brands. That's when Axe gets creative and introduces the Axe Effect.

The relationship between fear and persuasion has always been ambiguous and scholars can't agree whether the relationship is linear or curvilinear. I believe the fear-persuasion relationship is far too complex to fit into either category. We know that sometimes when we fear something too much or too little, we choose denial and message avoidance as a coping mechanism. We also know that apart from the perceived severity of the threat (which is different for everyone), other factors such as the perceived likelihood of it occurring, the perceived effectiveness of the proposed solution in removing the threat, and the perceived difficulties of behaviour change (i.e. losing weight, purchasing a product, calling a taxi instead of DUI) play a role too.

In his article, Social Marketing and myths of appeals to fear, Herbert J. Rotfeld gave an example that illustrates this complexity further. He compared the Australia's traffic accident campaign aiming to promote safe driving practices with a very similar campaign in New Zealand. The latter one failed to make any major changes, even though it was more graphic and gruesome than the Australian campaign. The reason was the minor differences in the core message of the campaigns. The Australian campaign suggested that "you will definitely get caught if you break the law", that there are hidden speed cameras and you can be stopped at any time and location. Also, the Australian laws were painted as less forgiving. The New Zealand campaign on the other hand, suggested that there were speed camera signs, and that drivers could only be stopped at certain locations and could only be fined (rather than losing their licence). In this case, the fear of legal consequences was more persuasive that the fear of death, as silly as it sounds. In another example, Herbert Rotfeld argues that the fear of not being attractive to the opposite sex because of bad breath is more persuasive among teens than the fear of getting lung cancer caused by smoking.

Fear appeals have probably been the most used and least effective tool in public health advertisements. Punam Keller made some really interesting conclusions in her research paper, Social Marketing and Healthy Behaviour. She suggests that the evidence shows that fear arousal had virtually zero effect when there is no or little information provided about coping response. As a matter of fact, in such cases, fear arousal will not only not help but will backfire and may even lead to unhealthy behaviour. It means that in the absence of a realistic and convenient solution to a health problem such as obesity, we're not going to respond to our fear, or better said, we're going to respond to it by doing nothing. Preparing healthy food can be difficult, time consuming and costly, so no matter what they say, you're not going to do what you don't know how to do. 

Fear might be a strong emotional response but so is greed. Fear tells us not to have an ice cream while greed tells us to have another one. Let me finish up by a picture of a belly over an ice cream cone. I have to admit that ever since I came across this ad about 9 months ago, I haven't had ice cream on a cone, only on a stick. J

French Ministry of Health ad against obesity