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Motivational techniques in cosmetic advertising

The purpose of the study was to determine whether or not high school students can detect the presence of motivational techniques used in cosmetic advertising. The study administered a test to eighteen senior high school students from an advanced speech class and to eighteen senior high school. students from an advanced English class. The speech class constituted the experimental group and the English class constituted the control group.The experimental group were given special. training In the six motivational techniques: emotional appeals, logical appeals, social approval appeals, social disapproval appeals, language appeals, and color appeals. The course procedure consisted of lectures, textbook readings, and exercises done by the students. Students applied their knowledge of motivational techniques to the writing of persuasive speech composition and delivery of the persuasive speeches.After the training course for the experimental group, test results showed a significant difference between the pretest and post test at the .01 level of confidence. On the other hand, the control group who had received no training showed no significant difference on test scores from pretest to post test.The investigation concerning high school students’ detection of motivational techniques indicated the following: First, there the complete experimental test showing was a positive correlation of scores between pretest and the complete post test for the group. Second, special training for the group resulted in scores from pretest to post a difference which was significant at the .01 level of confidence. Third, using the parametric t test shows no significant difference from the pretest to post test scores of the control group. Fourth, at times, the motive appeals appear to be somewhat ambiguous. Fifth, cosmetic products are emotionally oriented and, hence, many cosmetic advertisements will have emotional appeal. Sixth, social approval and social disapproval appeals are not always mutually exclusive. Seventh, it is feasible to train students to detect the presence of motivational techniques, and it is obvious that students who are untrained seem less able to detect the techniques.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:BSU/oai:cardinalscholar.bsu.edu:handle/180948
Date January 1974
CreatorsKrause, Myrtle JoAnn
ContributorsShepard, David W.
Source SetsBall State University
Detected LanguageEnglish
Formatvi, 88 leaves ; 28 cm.
SourceVirtual Press

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