Self-Monitoring & Advertising: The Snyder & DeBono Study The Hard Sell, The Soft Sell, and The Mind

Summary

The video explains how two contrasting advertising styles appeal to different consumer personalities:

• Soft-sell advertising emphasizes mood, image, and the kind of person associated with a product rather than its measurable features. The perfume example presents glamour and lifestyle instead of information about the scent.
• Hard-sell advertising focuses on a product’s practical qualities and objective evidence, such as performance, materials, or technical specifications. The vintage IBM computer ad illustrates this approach.

The video connects these strategies to self-monitoring, a personality trait studied by psychologist Mark Snyder:

• High self-monitors adjust their behavior to social situations and pay close attention to the image they project. They may look to others for cues about how to act.
• Low self-monitors are more guided by their inner values and tend to behave consistently across different settings, regardless of social expectations.

Snyder and DeBono’s 1985 Study

The researchers tested whether advertising effectiveness depends on a match between an ad’s style and a consumer’s self-monitoring tendency.

• They recruited 40 University of Minnesota undergraduate students taking introductory psychology.
• Participants completed Snyder’s self-monitoring scale, developed in 1974. The researchers used a median split to classify them as high or low self-monitors.
• Later, each student received an unexpected phone call from a researcher posing as a market-research caller for a new shampoo.
• Participants heard one of two randomly assigned pitches:
  • A hard-sell, quality-focused pitch, describing the shampoo as consistently above average at cleaning hair.
  • A soft-sell, image-focused pitch, emphasizing how good the shampoo makes hair look.
• The caller did not know each student’s personality classification, helping prevent expectations from influencing how the pitch was delivered.
• Students reported how willing they were to try the shampoo.

Results: High self-monitors were more persuaded by the image-oriented soft sell, while low self-monitors were more persuaded by the quality-oriented hard sell. The researchers described this as an interaction effect: the effectiveness of the message depended on the consumer’s personality profile. Image-heavy advertising could even put low self-monitors off the product.

Implications and Limitations

The findings suggest that a single advertisement blending facts and image may not persuade everyone. Advertisers may need to tailor messages and placements to the audience they want to reach.

The video also notes important limitations:

• The sample was small and consisted only of young university students, described as relatively wealthy. Other age or income groups might respond differently.
• The phone call involved deception. Participants were not told in advance that they were taking part in a psychological study and could not give informed consent to participate.

Finally, the video cautions against treating advertising as mind control. Personality can shape which messages resonate, but behavior also changes with the situation. Advertising may influence people by appealing to their current social concerns and aspirations rather than mechanically determining their choices.

Speakers and Sources Featured

• Narrator: Presents the advertising examples, explains self-monitoring and the study, and discusses its implications and limitations.
• Mark Snyder: Identified as the psychologist who developed the self-monitoring scale and studied self-monitoring and social behavior.
• Kenneth DeBono: Identified as Snyder’s colleague and co-researcher on the 1985 study.
• Study participants: Forty University of Minnesota undergraduate students. Their responses are described, but they are not heard speaking.
• Advertising examples: A perfume advertisement and a vintage IBM computer advertisement illustrate soft-sell and hard-sell approaches.