Negative Messaging Can Stick Better
Most people will tell you they don’t like negative ads. The problem is, they work. They work very, very well.
The reason is that the brain pays more attention to the negative than to the positive.
This is the start of a two-part series about negative advertising, covering:
- what research shows about negativity’s impact on people, and
- how to apply those lessons to your messaging.
Today, I’ll cover three important findings about human responses to the negative. These are an important backdrop to how and when to use negative advertising.
1. Negative words rule.
Professor Nilli Lavie, of the University College London (UCL) Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, and colleagues showed participants a series of words divided into three categories: positive, negative, or neutral. The words flashed too fast to be read.
The participants were asked to choose whether a word was “neutral” or “emotional,” either negative or positive. Participants’ guesses in response to the subliminal messages were most accurate with negative words.
Robert Schrauf, an associate professor of applied linguistics and anthropologist at Penn State, has spent a lot of time looking at world languages, and he’s found that negative words make up half of them. Another 30 percent are positive, and the rest are neutral.
2. Our brains are attuned to the negative.
From an evolutionary point, this makes sense. Something negative is a potential danger. The conscious mind may be too slow to avoid a tiger, so the subconscious has to be highly attuned to potential threats.
But interestingly enough, negatives have an important secondary impact (assuming we escaped the tiger): we tend to slow down and process negative stimuli.
“Negative emotions require more detailed thinking, more subtle distinctions,” says Schrauf. Languages contain more negative words because we need them for precise thinking.
As for positive things, heck, they’re positive! What’s there to process?
3. Negative statements’ effectiveness depends on sentence structure.
Psychologists Mante S. Nieuwland and Gina R. Kuperberg of Tufts University found that the way negative statements are processed in the brain depends on sentence structure.
In short, they found that when a negative statement clarifies an idea, it takes no more time for the brain to process than to process positive information.
An example of a clarifying negative statement is: “In moderation, drinking red wine isn’t bad for your health.” This is no more challenging for the brain than a positive statement.
However, a negative statement such as “Vitamins aren’t very bad for your health” sucks and takes a while for your brain to process. That’s because “Aren’t” implies that vitamins may be bad for your health (confusing), but we know that isn’t true (contradictory). So, it’s no longer clarifiying, it’s just plain confusing.
So, if certain negative messaging can increase your impact, it’s worth considering how to incorporate some negative messaging into your advertising. I’ll provide some practical applications in the next post.
Chime in: Can you provide examples?
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Accentuate the Negative
Negative Messaging Can Stick Better
The reason is that the brain pays more attention to the negative than to the positive.
This is the start of a two-part series about negative advertising, covering:
Today, I’ll cover three important findings about human responses to the negative. These are an important backdrop to how and when to use negative advertising.
1. Negative words rule.
Professor Nilli Lavie, of the University College London (UCL) Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, and colleagues showed participants a series of words divided into three categories: positive, negative, or neutral. The words flashed too fast to be read.
The participants were asked to choose whether a word was “neutral” or “emotional,” either negative or positive. Participants’ guesses in response to the subliminal messages were most accurate with negative words.
Robert Schrauf, an associate professor of applied linguistics and anthropologist at Penn State, has spent a lot of time looking at world languages, and he’s found that negative words make up half of them. Another 30 percent are positive, and the rest are neutral.
2. Our brains are attuned to the negative.
From an evolutionary point, this makes sense. Something negative is a potential danger. The conscious mind may be too slow to avoid a tiger, so the subconscious has to be highly attuned to potential threats.
But interestingly enough, negatives have an important secondary impact (assuming we escaped the tiger): we tend to slow down and process negative stimuli.
“Negative emotions require more detailed thinking, more subtle distinctions,” says Schrauf. Languages contain more negative words because we need them for precise thinking.
As for positive things, heck, they’re positive! What’s there to process?
3. Negative statements’ effectiveness depends on sentence structure.
Psychologists Mante S. Nieuwland and Gina R. Kuperberg of Tufts University found that the way negative statements are processed in the brain depends on sentence structure.
In short, they found that when a negative statement clarifies an idea, it takes no more time for the brain to process than to process positive information.
An example of a clarifying negative statement is: “In moderation, drinking red wine isn’t bad for your health.” This is no more challenging for the brain than a positive statement.
However, a negative statement such as “Vitamins aren’t very bad for your health” sucks and takes a while for your brain to process. That’s because “Aren’t” implies that vitamins may be bad for your health (confusing), but we know that isn’t true (contradictory). So, it’s no longer clarifiying, it’s just plain confusing.
So, if certain negative messaging can increase your impact, it’s worth considering how to incorporate some negative messaging into your advertising. I’ll provide some practical applications in the next post.
Chime in: Can you provide examples?