By Rory Sutherland, vice-chairman at Ogilvy UK
Back in the old days, advertising used fear rather a lot. BO (Odorono), night starvation (Horlicks), even the idea of halitosis as a medical condition (Listerine) were all invented by advertisers seeking to dramatise a problem they wished to solve. Almost all of them used a highly Darwinist approach – fear of loss of status or fear of sexual rejection. The phrase “Always a bridesmaid, never a bride” was popularised by a Listerine advertisement.
It is a tenet of behavioural science that “fear of loss is felt more acutely than hope of gain – perhaps twice as strongly”. It’s a little more complicated than that.
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