The Role of Haptics in Persuasion
Haptics is the use of touch. It can be expressed in many ways and variations. Haptics is a central part of nonverbal communication, which consists of body language. The effect of a touch can have either a negative or positive response. While some say touch is imperative to sustaining interpersonal relationships, others believe the use of touch is impartial. Subsequently, the art of persuasion attempts to alter people’s attitudes. As reported by the International Encyclopedia of Hospitality Management (2005), “Persuasion is the deliberate effort to change the attitudes of one or more people. Attitudes are evaluations of people, objects or ideas. Attitudes are important to hospitality marketers because marketers assume that consumer attitudes affect consumer behaviors’ (Persuasion, 2010). They conclude that the advertising marketers’ design aim to influence their consumers into buying their products and reaching higher sales (Persuasion, 2010). Thus, a vital component of persuasion, as we will see in the following, is the role of haptics.
According to authors Danielle J Dolin and Melanie Booth-Butterfield (1993)in their article, "Reach Out and Touch Someone: Analysis of Nonverbal Comforting", they report that in today’s society many people live in distress and look for the comfort and support of touch from their closest relationships. Their study extended research on comforting strategies with the use of haptics and showed a positive correlation between the two (Dolin & Booth-Butterfield, 1993). Using Ninety-three students as participants, nonverbal comforting responses to a hypothetical scenario were collected (1993).Serving as the dependant variable, the use of an appropriate scenario where comforting responses could be used, including haptics, was the study(1993). The data reported that a mean of 3.5 units, or comforting responses, were used by each person(1993). Two of Dolin's and Booth-Butterfield's(1993) hypothesis predicted correctly. The study (1993) depicted the following:
"individuals who scored high affective orientation employed more comforting behaviors than those who scored low on the measure. Three categories of comforting behavior were individually correlated with affective orientation. Attentiveness and hugs were both positively correlated with affective orientation, while emotional distancing was negatively correlated. Hypothesis 2 was also confirmed, with the females reporting higher affective orientation scores than males."
"The opportunity to touch products has been shown to have a persuasive influece on customer's attitudes and behavior", state Joann Peck ad Jennifer Wiggins in the Journal of Marketing(2006).
Meanwhile, authors Joan Peck and Jennifer Wiggins in their 2006 article titled, “It Just Feels Good: Customers’ Affective Response to Touch and Its Influence on Persuasion”, touch plays the role of an evaluator, determining whether products have successfully persuaded them into buying the product, by physically examining them.
...s, B. M., and W. Stroebe. (2010) “Setting the stage.” The Psychology of Advertising. East Sussex: Psychology, Print.
Weger Jr., H. and Polcar, L. E., (2002). Attachment Style and Person-Centered Comforting. Western Journal of Communication, 66(1) (Winter 2002), 84-103.
Have you ever seen an advertisement for a product and could immediately relate to the subject or the product in that advertisement? Companies that sell products are always trying to find new and interesting ways to get buyers and get people’s attention. It has become a part of our society today to always have products being shown to them. As claimed in Elizabeth Thoman’s essay Rise of the Image Culture: Re-Imagining the American Dream, “…advertising offered instructions on how to dress, how to behave, how to appear to others in order to gain approval and avoid rejection”. This statement is true because most of the time buyers are persuaded by ads for certain products.
A study for future research on whether a customer uses the emotions of the accidental interpersonal touch to determine if they actually like the product they were interested in while shopping.
As a consumer, one is regularly subjected to advertisements. From billboards, to signs in stores, to the very apps on one’s phone, ads are everywhere to be seen. Whether or not one is aware, advertisements are an ever present influence on one’s decision making. Ads appeal to virtually everyone, whether it be through feelings or credibility. The purpose of this essay is to inform readers of how ads play into viewers trust and emotions, as well as to reveal the relatively stationary methods of doing so.
... emotional and rational appeal are important. I agree mostly with the second source because although the advertisements that trigger my feelings are effective, I am also a rational person and want evidence showing the benefits of purchasing the product or service. I would like to dig deeper into this topic for my final paper to find out more strategies and how they are effectively used by marketing companies.
Persuasion is the intentional action of a person to influence another person’s mental state through communication with outcomes either being positive or negative (Lyttle). Persuasion is seen throughout our daily lives whether it be at school or at work. In particular, persuasion in the business field portrays persuasion in higher levels because of the interests of people whether it be for money, passion, fame, etc. Persuasion in the field of business is an important skill to acquire allowing one to be successful with their business as well as dictating the pace of growth for one’s business. The usage of different nonverbal techniques in persuasion from tone usage, persuasion knowledge to the importance of appearance and trustworthiness allows
From a theoretical point of view, the persuasion process is strongly influenced by capturing the attention of the consumers (MacKenzie, 1986). Consumers proved to make their purchase decisions based on the memorization of the stimulus and not at the time of exposure to ads messages. However, using nudity in advertising can affect brand recall negatively as it distracts the attention of the audience and make the careful thoughts difficult. The emotions arousing after being exposed to a nudity ad can orient the attention from the information to the source of these emotions as they reduce the estimation and value of the product in question (Clark and Isen, 1982; Gilligan and Bower, 1984).
In an effort to contribute to the understanding of how consumers interpret and cope with marketers’ persuasion attempts, Friestad and Wright (1994) introduced the persuasion knowledge model. This model has a significant impact on marketing field and has been applied to research in various advertising contexts, such as advergames (e.g., Evans & Hoy, 2016; Panic et al., 2013), TV ads (e.g., Verhellen et al., 2014), and product placement (e.g., Cowley & Barron, 2008), keyword search ads (e.g., Chan Yun, 2009). The persuasion knowledge model posits that when interacting with persuasion attempts (e.g., ad, sales presentation), consumers recall three types of interactive structures: topic knowledge, agent knowledge and persuasion knowledge. These
The data have shown customers’ interest; the retailers can serve their customers more effective when they know what their customer want. The product will catch customers’ attention because they know where exactly to put it. That lead to more product being sales and more money being generated. According to the video “How store track your shopping behavior”, from the study of men’s habit of shopping, they know how to get men pay attention to their products. They change it up a little bit and get a really interesting result:”85% increase in product touch, 44% increase in sales, and 38% increase in dollar sales”; that is huge increase numbers. That number show how impactful the study effects their business performances. It is the result of understanding their customers’ need and desire. The ultimate goal is to increase product sales. They have to depend on the customer to reach that goal. Making the customer feel comfortable and encourage them to buy more goods is a process toward that
Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University conducted a study on whether hugs can help decrease the likely-hood of physiological infection in stressed individuals. The head researcher, Sheldon Cohen, chose to study hugging because it determines the closeness and intimacy of a relationship, is an act of social support, and therefore, eliminates feelings of isolation that can result in stress and poor immunity.
When I learned that I had to write this research paper, instead of procrastinating, I convinced myself to JUST DO IT. This phrase also happens to be one of the signature phrases of the leading athletic apparel company, Nike. The JUST DO IT campaign has been very successful for Nike, but it is not he sole reason for their success. Nike’s campaign has definitely persuaded me to go out and buy a few Nike products. So what exactly does Nike’s persuasive campaign consist of? This paper will discuss all aspects of Nike’s persuasive campaign. Some of the campaign’s strategies, goals, and techniques will be revealed. Some persuasive theories that can be applied to the Nike advertising campaign will be identified and explained. After discussing these theories, the specific arguments of the campaign will be validated. Overall, the entire campaign will be analyzed and it will be determined whether the campaign is a success or a failure.
were more responsive to stresses involving social relationships”. Using a psychiatric measure of affective or anxiety
Haptics is a recent enhancement to virtual environments allowing users to “touch” and feel the simulated objects with which they interact. Haptics is the science of touch. The word derives from the Greek haptikos meaning “being able to come into contact with”. The study of haptics emerged from advances in virtual reality. Virtual reality is a form of human-computer interaction (as opposed to keyboard, mouse and monitor) providing a virtual environment that one can explore through direct interaction with our senses. To be able to interact with an environment, there must be feedback. For example, the user should be able to touch a virtual object and feel a response from it. This type of feedback is called haptic feedback .In human-computer interaction; haptic feedback means both tactile and force feedback.
By being a consumer in a world of diverse products and services, it has given us a wide range of choices. A product may be produced by different companies and has the same function, but it is presented to the consumers in different forms. In order to differ from each other, companies use the help of advertising to present its product in a better way than their competitors’. However, advertising the product is becoming more crucial than the product itself. Companies are focusing more on making the brand more popular, rather than actually improving the product that they offer. By turning the advertisement competition into a war between companies, they mislead buyers by hyperbolizing their products positive features, thus hiding the negative ones. Companies forget about the effect they have on the consumers. Consumers should be aware of the manipulative tricks that advertising uses like subliminal messages and brain seduction in order to not be misled into buying something that they do not really require. By knowing how to manipulate the audience and consumers’ brain, companies use tactical methods in order to persuade specific customers to buy specific products or services. Other examples of techniques they use are techniques like puffery which are suggestive claims about a product, using subliminal messages and transferring information indirectly, as well as by targeting a specific group of people, creating a slogan or a mascot and by using sexy models with perfect bodies, advertising tries to manipulate and persuade consumers into buying the product they are offering.