Table of Contents

Foreword ix

Introduction 1

Part 1 Taking Advertising Apart

1 The Persuasion Model 15

2 Alternative Ideas 24

3 WhyWe Don’t Pay Attention to Advertising 39

Part 1 Summary 48

Part 2 The Psychology of Communication

4 Learning and Attention 53

5 The Role of Memory 63

6 HowWe Process Communication 74

7 Problems with Getting Attention 85

Part 2 Summary 95

Part 3 Emotion and Consciousness

8 Emotional Processing 101

9 Our Adaptive Subconscious 111

10 Emotion and Attention 123

Part 3 Summary 133

Part 4 Decisions and Relationships

11 Decision-Making 137

12 The Power of Metacommunication 149

13 The Subconscious Seduction Model 160

Part 4 Summary 174

Part 5 Taking A Fresh Look at Advertising

14 Under the Radar 179

15 The Hidden Power of New Media 189

16 Legal, Decent, Honest, and Truthful? 198

17 How to Spot Subconscious Seduction 207

Conclusion 219

References 229

Index 239

About the Author

Dr. Robert Heath has a worldwide reputation as an expert in the role of emotion and attention in the field of brand communication. In 2001 he developed the Low Attention Processing Model of advertising, after which he published the best-selling monograph The Hidden Power of Advertising. His published research has garnered him major prizes, including the dual award of the MRS David Winton and ISBA Prizes. Dr. Heath is a Senior Lecturer in Advertising at University of Bath School of Management and a Board Member of the Wharton Global Future of Advertising Project.

Reviews

Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division andgraduate students of advertising and psychology, faculty, andpractitioners. (Choice, 1 October 2012) Heath s book is far more persuasive than anyadvertisement, no matter how top-loaded the latter may be withaccurate information. His thesis depends on a lengthy journeythrough cognitive science and evolutionary psychology, and a firmgrasp on how so far as we know the human mindactually does work (rather than how we would like it to work).Heath demonstrates quite clearly at least to mysatisfaction that it is precisely when we pay no consciousattention to advertising that advertisers get to work on oursubconscious with complete effectiveness. WILLSELF, Prospect, June 2012 "(Heath) avoids academic obscurantism and fills the book withclever dissections of well-known ads... The case studies add up toan intriguing, down-to-earth introduction to the mysteries of thesubconscious..." Financial Times, March 2012 "Dr Robert Heath, who teaches at the University of Bath, haspopularised the theory of low attention processing ,which argues that ads make a stronger emotional and behaviouralimpact when we are paying less conscious attention to them. In hisnew book, Seducing the Subconscious, he further developsthis thinking, providing a detailed and scholarly explanation ofthe psychological processes involved, and illustrating these withadvertising examples, many based on his own long experience in adagencies." Paul Feldwick, Credos, March 2012