Leveraging the Power of Animation to Elevate Consumption
Consumption is a phenomenon that affects the global economy. Its pros and cons include: increased job creation, and a greater sense of belonging. However, it also has negative impacts on the environment. Conspicuous consumption, for example, can lead to newer models of technology being released every year.
Pixar films like Toy Story and WALL-E breathe life into anthropomorphized objects, endowing them with emotions and subjectivity. This vision of a subject-object relationship leads the audience to seek out merchandise related to these films.
It is a tool of outreach
Animated ads offer an effective way to reach out to consumers and build consumer affinity. In addition, they can also create immersive experiences that captivate audiences and promote brand awareness. By leveraging the power of animation, businesses can forge a strong connection with their customers and boost their bottom line.
In his short film, The High Price of Materialism, psychologist Tim Kasser explains how America’s culture of consumerism undermines its citizens’ health and well-being. In the video, he highlights how a desire to acquire new products leads people to overuse Earth’s resources and encourages wasteful disposal practices.
Many contemporary animations depict urban settings, and characters are often mass-produced commodities. Nevertheless, Pixar films such as Toy Story and WALL-E breathe life into these object-characters by endowing them with individuality and subjectivity. In doing so, they challenge the conventional cultural imagination with a vision of a position where the subject and object are not yet separate. This vision evokes an instinctual search for the Real.
It is a tool of education
Animation is a powerful tool that can help educate consumers about health and wellness. It also offers an opportunity to explore and critique consumer culture in a unique way.
Consumers often identify with the characters in animation movies, and this can influence their attitudes towards the products that they buy. The results of a recent study indicate that the use of animation can improve consumer cognitive and affective processing, as well as conation responses.
Pixar’s Toy Story films and WALL-E are examples of this trend, and both emphasize the importance of individuality. Their character-based narratives make the audience forget that the objects they see in these films are mass-produced commodities that serve as a sign of their owners’ financial and social status. The fact that these objects have feelings and a subjectivity that the audience can identify with inspires an instinctual search for this “totality” or for the Real. The Toy Story films and the resulting merchandise thus function as an anti-consumerist ideology, warning against commodity culture and mega-corporations.
It is a tool of training
Animation has a unique enchanting power that can elevate consumer affinity for products and services. This is because it can create memorable experiences and evoke wonder, while also building emotional connections and fostering brand personality. This enables businesses to cultivate long-term consumer affinity, a necessary condition for success in today’s competitive marketplace.
Nonetheless, while the didactic message of animated films often aims to cultivate a certain type of consumer savvy, some implicit assumptions and attitudes may contradict its primary didactic text. Moreover, it is not uncommon for films to be accompanied by ideological messages that run counter to the film’s primary didactic message.
The results of a multi-group CFA analysis indicate that there is a significant relationship between cognition and affect and between conation and purchase behavior for two different product involvement groups exposed to animated commercial stimuli. These findings suggest that the tripartite attitudinal model is a good model for explaining these effects. However, future research should replicate these results with a more diverse sample and more varied product categories.
It is a tool of marketing
Animation can be used to create memorable experiences and enchant consumers. It has the power to elevate consumer affinity, build emotional connections, showcase product benefits, and foster brand personality. In this way, it has the potential to drive long-term success for businesses that captivate their audience.
Pixar’s films also criticize commodity culture and consumerism, while underlining the importance of individualism. The anthropomorphization of objects in the Toy Story and WALL-E films emphasizes the intrinsic value of each object, and the fact that it has its own identity. This approach generates a desire in the primarily young audience to acquire merchandise related to these films.
In addition, the characterization of these products in animated commercials can have a strong impact on consumer cognitive, affective, and purchase behavior. This is because these products are perceived as more prestigious and attractive than their real-world counterparts. The effect of the characterization can be analyzed using a tripartite attitudinal model of attitude formation: cognition, affection and conation.
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