Today, we’re covering a different sort of logical fallacy: “Appeal To” fallacies.
These are fallacies that increase the perceived value of something by appealing to another thing, often without providing hard evidence.
Successful marketing campaigns use these principles all the time.
Here are five of them:
- Appeal to tradition. This is when you claim something is good, or true, because it’s always been this way. Meditation apps do this by appealing to Buddhist tradition.
- Appeal to popular belief. When you assume something is true because lots of people believe it, you’re appealing to popular belief. A line of copy that reads “everyone knows that major cell carriers are bad” is appealing to popular belief.
- Appeal to fear. This is common in marketing—getting your prospect to feel scared of something that might happen if they don’t buy your product. A legal compliance product might warn that you’re at risk of major penalties if you don’t buy their product.
- Appeal to nature. An all-natural deodorant might appeal to nature by claiming that their product is what people were “meant to use,” implying that their product is better because it’s connected to the natural world.
- Appeal to wishful thinking. A hair growth product might appeal to the wishful hopes of their prospects, claiming that their product is truly the only way to regrow your hair and gain your confidence back. Because people want to believe it, they often will.
So there you are. Five more psychological principles you can use in your marketing.