Summary of  “Advertising’s fifteen basic appeals “

 Jib Fowles in his essay “Advertising’s fifteen basic appeals “, explains the influence of advertising on our daily lives throughout a large analysis of the methods and strategies adopted by advertisers to appeal consumers.  He believes that advertisers use strategies based on emotion which affects the consumer subconsciously, and the focal information product as illustrated by his sayings” Thus, most advertisements appearing in national media can be understood as having two orders of content. The first is the appeal to deep-running drives in the minds of consumers. The second is information regarding the goods or service being sold”.  Fowles uses the list of 15 “basic appeals” drived from Henry A. Murray’s inventory of human motives to show these appeals are mainly false psychological needs, in which sex is the most controversial need of the list.  To support his concepts, Fowles examined several advertisements, judging that some of them presented positive images.  Finally, he ends up with the productive understanding, “advertising messages involves costs and benefits at both ends of communications channels.”

what appeal would you use if you were an advertiser?