A Brief List of Persuasion and Advertising Techniques

From pizza to politics, the following is an incomplete list made by an amateur of observed persuasion and advertising techniques. Examples abound so readers may supply their own.
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The Facebook logo is displayed outside of Facebook's new headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 12, 2012. Whats good for Facebook and its employees could be very good for Californias treasury. If Facebook goes public this year, as many have speculated, the state stands to reap hundreds of millions of dollars in capital gains taxes from Facebook investors and employees profiting from stock sales. That could bring a much-needed windfall to a state government facing a $9.2 billion deficit. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
The Facebook logo is displayed outside of Facebook's new headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 12, 2012. Whats good for Facebook and its employees could be very good for Californias treasury. If Facebook goes public this year, as many have speculated, the state stands to reap hundreds of millions of dollars in capital gains taxes from Facebook investors and employees profiting from stock sales. That could bring a much-needed windfall to a state government facing a $9.2 billion deficit. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

From pizza to politics, the following is an incomplete list made by an amateur of observed persuasion and advertising techniques. Examples abound so readers may supply their own. In no particular order:

1.Emotionally hot beats logically cold.

2.Brief beats lengthy.

3.Visual beats words.

4. Appeal to the preconceived stereotypes held by the audience.

5.Audiences may be increasingly segmented and analyzed.

6.A negative that stirs emotions in the audience beats a positive that appeals to logic.

7.Aggressive beats passive unless attempting to appear non-threatening.

8.Repetition hammers in the message.

9.Tell the audience what they already "know" to be true.

10.The right appearance for the context counts almost as much as the message.

11.An audience easily believes that they have a personal knowledge of and a relationship with a person seen on television or video.

12.Appearing to be a winner overcomes much except perhaps a likable underdog.

13.Desirable flexibility and compromise may easily be confused with undesirable weakness.

14.A memorable phrase beats a lengthy logical explanation.

15.An inexpensive pocketbook appeal frequently beats an expensive value appeal.

16.Today and now beats tomorrow.

17.What is easily stated may hide the true facts.

18.Apparent value beats unseen value.

19.Overwhelming resources that produce message saturation beats almost everything.

20.Promises made before the sale are all too frequently ignored after the sale.

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