Hope
Ads and videos written to this emotion: 321. 53 make the Say move, 161 make the Avoid mistake.
What it is
Wanting a better outcome that is not certain but still possible, and that matters: to get well, to have a child, to pass, to earn more. The hope that moves people has three parts: a goal, a way to reach it, and the belief that you can.
Where it shows up
Tonics and remedies, weight loss, fertility, skin and hair treatments, courses and income schemes, savings plans, fertilizer, lottery tickets.
Say
Give the hope a path: what changes, how, how long it usually takes and what the reader must do. Show what the typical buyer gets, not the best case, with evidence the reader can check: the trial, the licence, the real odds.
Where five testimonials claimed 48 to 72 pounds lost and "results not typical" ran in bold red, 55% of shoppers still took it that new users would lose at least 48 pounds; where the ad said the average user loses about 10 pounds in three months, 15% did (Hastak and Mazis 2004, 582 shoppers). Limit: made-up print ads, about 65 people per version, and it measured what people understood, not what they bought.
Avoid
False hope: a cure, a fortune or a result the product cannot deliver, promised to people who want it badly and are least able to judge the claim. Also a best-case testimonial with "results not typical" underneath: many readers still expect the best case.
When people were made less sure they could reach what they hoped for, they chose product-friendly sources, rated them as more credible and were worse at spotting weak claims (de Mello and colleagues 2007, three lab studies). Limit: the abstract does not give sample sizes.
The UK advertising code bars unqualified "cure" claims, claims of a precise weight loss in a stated period and lottery ads that present playing as a way out of money worries (CAP Code, rules 12.7, 13.9 and 17.3). Saudi Arabia's E-Commerce Law bans false or misleading claims in electronic ads (Article 11).
Sources
- Hastak and Mazis (2004). Effects of consumer testimonials in weight loss, dietary supplement and business opportunity advertisements. Report to the US Federal Trade Commission.
- de Mello, MacInnis and Stewart (2007). Journal of Consumer Research 34(2).
- Committee of Advertising Practice. UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising (CAP Code), rules 12.7, 13.9 and 17.3.
- Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (2019). E-Commerce Law, Royal Decree M/126. Article 11.
Doing it right
Ads that make the Say move.
Middle East Institute of Telegraph and Wireless enrolment ad, al-Kawakib 1959
One year of study leads to a named post, seventh-grade wireless officer with a 3 pound allowance, and a free booklet of April 1959 exam statistics lets the reader check the path.
Meyer Both Company booklet: Your Opportunity
It gives the art career a path: 18 to 20 months of home study, a stated average graduate starting pay of $40.00 a week, employer letters, and a full tuition refund guarantee.
Mowasat charity lottery free draw ad, al-Musawwar 1936
It states the odds outright, 1 chance in 500, and shrinks the 1000 pounds to 10 prizes of 100, so the hope of winning is sized plainly rather than sold as a fortune.
I. C. S. training ad, Popular Science Monthly, 1920
The raise is a modest, concrete $50 handed to Grace at home, backed by students reporting advancements, and the coupon asks only that the reader mark the position he wants.
Al Rajhi Bank: Off-plan home finance from 0.93% a year
It gives the hope of owning a home a path: the monthly payment, the 5 to 30 year term, the rate and the eligibility rules are all printed on the piece.
Roth memory training ad, Judge, 1918
Roth names 60 guests before any claim is made, the narrator voices the reader's doubt that it takes years and hears it answered, and seven lessons come on five days' free examination.
National Bank of Egypt savings ad, al-Kawakib 1970
Under 'every piastre you save today benefits you tomorrow', five boxes give each saver a door with its terms, from a 25 piastre savings fund at 3.5% to a school bank taking 20 milliemes.
National Radio Institute home-study course ad, Weird Tales, 1941
It lays out the route in numbers, learn at home in spare time, $5 to $10 a week extra while learning, many making $30 to $50, and asks only for a free 64-page book.
Telecommunications institute radio officer course ad, al-Kawakib 1961
It names who qualifies, secondary certificate and technical diploma holders, the April intake, and the exact payoff: an international radio officer certificate and a grade 7 government technical post at its set salary.
Phoenix Mutual retirement plan ad, American Legion Monthly, 1929
A few dollars a month buys a boxed guarantee of $100 a month for life from 65, so the wish to quit work some day gets a path with arithmetic the reader can check.
National Bank of Egypt savings book ad, al-Kawakib 1965
A young couple with a passbook beside a grey-haired couple holding cash shows where the path ends, and the band gives the path's terms: deposits from 1 to 5000 pounds at 3% a year.
"Plains Farms Need Trees" poster
Beside the same land half buried in blowing soil, it shows the green farm that tree belts allow, says how, by stopping wind erosion, and gives one step: write the Prairie States Forestry Project.
Each adult's success is traced to a concrete school habit, so students see a goal, a path through effort and discipline, and ordinary people like them who got there.
Etisalat brand Ramadan 2010 They called anyone who thinks crazy
Its optimism, الدنيا لسه فيها أكتر, rests on a checkable record: moves once called crazy that Etisalat made, a minute at 19 piasters instead of 39 and a balance notice after each call.
باب رزق جميل للتمويل المتناهي الصغر16:9
The hope of earning more is tied to a path: who qualifies, what the money funds and the goal of freelance work, without promising a fixed result.
لا تفوت فرصة العمر للفوز بمبلغ ٥ مليون جنية مصري من بنك الإمارات دبي الوطني! #Emirates_NBD
The 5 million dream comes with a path: open an account, each 3,000 pounds is one entry, the draw is in February 2019, and every saver keeps the money with interest.
The hope of owning a car comes with its full path: the daily number, the two-year span and the sign-up link, so the courier can judge whether the goal is within his reach.
Doing it wrong
Ads that make the Avoid mistake.
al-Darahim al-Dhahabiya lottery ad, al-Musawwar 1931
It says a great fortune is waiting and urges the reader to seize it, citing 32513 winning tickets out of 80000 beside a 750000 gold mark top prize so a win looks almost certain.
Lydia Pinkham's Vegetable Compound ad in the Delineator, 1896
It tells women who long for a child that childlessness is curable nine times out of ten, proven by one best-case letter: $200 on doctors without relief, $5 on the cure, a baby.
Vi-Tabs gland tonic tablets ad, al-Musawwar 1936
It tells ageing men they will feel 10 to 20 years younger without the gland surgery they feared, on the word of an unnamed American doctor: false hope dressed as a laboratory discovery.
Fool Idea fortune story ad, American Legion Monthly, 1928
The headline promises a fortune of over $100,000 from a spare-time idea, backed by hand-picked testimonials such as $5,500 on a first deal, while the $1,000 Reward box concedes not everyone earns these amounts.
Dhakhirat al-Hayat herbal tonic ad, al-Musawwar 1936
The line promising to give old men back their youth, credited to Ibn Sina and pointed at by a drawn sage, sells a result no tonic can deliver to readers who want it badly.
Lydia E. Pinkham's cures and claims advertisement
It promises a "POSITIVE CURE" for a long list of female complaints, tumours included, backed only by a druggist's stamp, and pushes six bottles for $5.00 on women in pain.
Vi-Tabs tonic tablets ad, al-Musawwar 1936
Promising to make the reader feel 10 to 20 years younger without gland surgery offers a result no tablet can deliver to men who want it badly, refund or not.
Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound ad
It promises suffering women cures under headings like Tumor Removed and Avoid Operations, a vegetable compound offered for what it cannot do, with selected letters as the only proof.
Vi-Tabs rejuvenation tablets ad, al-Musawwar 1936
'Gland activation and restored youth in 24 hours' promises a tired reader a result no tablet can deliver, and the refund on an empty box does not make the promise true.
Bile Beans for biliousness booklet
It turns one best case, a Kilmarnock mother her doctor called incurable who is now 'perfectly cured' after 20 terrible years, into a promise for every reader's liver, with no word on typical results.
Mowasat lottery ad, al-Musawwar 1935
A fortune teller tells the girl she will win, and her daydream fills with raining money, jewels and a suitor, selling the 5000 pound prize as a certainty with no word on the odds.
Microbes and the Microbe Killer booklet
It argues that all disease has one cause and so one cure, and offers Radam's own recovery after doctors failed as proof that a single bottled remedy heals every illness.
It names real services, then promises the owner who wants a company among the biggest that Al Rajhi Business 'يحققها لك', a best-case result with no path or timeline.
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