Fear in Ads

This ad for Listerine uses the fear of bad breath and how it could supposedly affect your social life and future.  They use statistic to make it seem more legitimate, yet how does the opinion of a group of hairdressers count at a credible source?  The ad claims that if you have bad breath, which about a third of women do, that it is not only offense, but people have to make an extra effort to be nice to you because of it.  The ad is appealing not only to a person's desire to be socially accepted, but to also seem attractive.

This commercial SimpliSafe home security systems plays on so many tropes of fear-based advertising, from the unknown, to food, to smart technology listening to everything you say.  Even though it's making fun of our fears, it's still an ad for a security system and is using the same tropes that marketers have used for years.  It's using your fear of fears to sell you security.