I'm sure we've all seen the DirecTV commercials where you learn not to take it stray animals, how to avoid having a grandson with a dog collar, or how to avoid ending up in a roadside ditch. I for one hand, am very thankful to know how to avoid all of life's greatest catastrophes; all I have to do is purchase DirecTV.
The marketers in this ad use the fallacy of logic, sometimes known as hasty generalization. When your cable company keeps you on hold - you get angry, when you get angry you go blow off steam - leading you to an eye patch, which eventually causes you to be left to die in a roadside ditch. Each action seems to cause another downfall, getting progressively worse. The ad presents each situation like it is bound to happen, which messes with our emotions. Going along with the commercial as a fairly gullible user, we believe that each sequential event is proven to be caused by the one before it. If I play racquetball I will hurt my eye and be forced to wear an eye patch. This instills a sense of fear in us, and the commercial tells us to avoid these fears by purchasing the highlighted product.
Assuming that the viewers of these commercials have a minimal level of intelligence, it's safe to think that they don't believe every hasty generalization in the sequence of events. This is why the commercial is funny to us, because these assumptions are so outrageous. But of course, buying DirecTV will actually safe your life.
What awesome commercials!
I actually found this a good interpretation of what they are trying to do. It seems they are trying to Classically Condition people so that when one of those situations happens to them, they will then think about all of the things that could go wrong. With that in mind, they will then try to escape those situations. It relates to what Dr. peterson talked about on Friday with Escape/Avoidance and the rat box.
Once again, very interesting!