Why consumers rebel against slogans

Another company, Tathastu, says it is building a limitless future. Vistara urges us to fly the new feeling. Big Bazaar, meanwhile, is busy making India beautiful. But if companies like Peps and Vistara are busy with such noble pursuits, who has been doing the dirty drudge work of smelting the steel and flying the planes in India? And, is that why capital investment and job creation is at an all-time low? Nor is this phenomenon restricted to India.

In , German automaker Volkswagen was outed for cheating in its emissions tests on its diesel cars in the US for over seven years.

Why, even social media giant Facebook claimed it was only in the business of connecting people. The part about connecting them to assorted marketers, foreign governments and sundry other manipulators was conveniently left out.

Intensive activism and regulation took care of that business, but exaggerated and patently false sloganeering continues abated. No, what they are really looking for is to make a lifestyle statement. Which is why, builders across India held out the promise of dreams to home buyers. Unfortunately, what most buyers got after they had put down large amounts was a nightmare. Across the world, many companies are now beginning to question the relevance of these taglines as ads shrink in visibility on tiny phone screens.

Companies like Apple use such taglines sparingly. Marketers should be aware of this backlash and avoid messages that can be seen, even subconsciously, as manipulative. If you'd like to share this PDF, you can purchase copyright permissions by increasing the quantity.

Dalton , Eduardo B. Andrade ,. Quantity price applied. Add Copyright Permission. Copyright Permission Qty:. Current Stock:. Buying for your team? See quantity pricing. In many cases, then, brands and slogans work at cross-purposes.

What makes slogans so different? Our studies suggest that reverse priming occurs because consumers recognize that slogans deliberately attempt to persuade them, whereas in their perception brands do not.

Slogans can exert a positive influence, we believe, if the consumer is led to focus on something other than the effort to persuade. To test this theory, we asked one group of participants to rate a set of slogans on the basis of intent to persuade, while a second group rated them on creativity. Of course, getting consumers to focus on creativity instead of persuasion may be easier in a lab setting than in real-world marketing.

More research is needed to understand why consumers perceive certain tactics as efforts to persuade. In the meantime, marketers should be aware that messages seen even subconsciously as manipulative can cause significant backlash.

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