The psychology of advertising.

The process by which advertising actually "works" on people is certainly open to debate and I'm not at all familiar with the psychology of what actually goes on in the heads of consumers. As a researcher, one of the key characteristics one needs is the ability to put yourself in the mind of the consumer and imagine how they may react to a commercial.

Nigel Hollis over at Milward Brown should know more than most about this and he's written a very interesting post on the subject here (http://www.mb-blog.com/index.php/2007/05/11/rehearsing-reality/) which is well worth a read if you have time. He suggests that "the concept of an ad exposure (serves) as a mental rehearsal of a brand encounter " which i think i get. See what you think.