Advertising & Society Magazine Ad “Scavenger Hunt”

This assignment call for examining magazines ads with a different point of view. There

were ten examples of emotional appeal-base ads that needed to found and collect to form our

scavenger hunt portfolio of ads. There were two different categories of emotional base ads:

need-based and reaction-based appeals.

In each category, there were specifics examples of both need-based and reaction-based

ads. Under need-based appeals, there were seven examples to find which were: (1) need for

affiliation; (2) need to nurture; (3) need to aggress; (4) need to achieve; (5) need for attention; (6)

need for autonomy and (7) need to escape. For the reaction-based appeals, there were only three

examples: (1) fear, (2) guilt and (3) humor.

The understanding behind the need-based ads is that the ads are appealing to a person

pre-existing basic human needs. These ads do not create a need for the product promoted

because the product is being advertise in a way that makes the audience believe it will satisfy one

of their already existing needs. The reaction-based needs play on the audience’s emotions. The

point of the ad is to trigger a certain emotion and have the audience associate the product with

that emotion. One example are the “Halo” commercials, the ads trigger the emotion of fear. The

consumer cannot be without halos for fear that their children will act out and need to always

have a supply on hand at home to prevent this from happening.