Social influence principles are very useful to those working the advertising or marketing fields. There are seven principles in total; the automaticity principle, reciprocity principle, commitment and consistency principle, social validation principle, liking principle, authority principle, and the scarcity principle. Each principle encapsulates an aspect of how people can be influenced by social context.
The authority principle involves using authority figures to influence others; this can be achieved through using titles, clothes, possessions, and lifestyles to convey status in order to impress and influence others. It drives on use of symbols to convey expertise and obtain credibility. Many ads use doctors and dentists to give credibility to their product. For example, ads for the skin care product pro-active use dermatologists and celebrities to discuss the success of the product. These commercials also use the social validation principle--which is the idea that the validity of an idea increase as the number of people supporting the ideas increases--in that they have testimonials from real people who have used the product.
An ad that I find to use the authority principle in a particularly innovative way is the Dr Dre ad for Dr Pepper. At the end of the ad he says "...trust me, I'm a doctor"; this line is clever because it addresses the fact that people tend to believe what an authority figure like a doctor has to say. However, Dr Dre's celebrity status ironically gives him the same type of credibility. This ad has a clever take on the effectiveness of the authority principle. Knowing the in's and out's of the social influence principles is crucial for those working in the advertising industry; any ad you see on TV calls upon one or more of these principles.
