Week 7

   In a courtroom, attorneys will sometimes use a method of persuasion called stealing thunder. Stealing thunder happens when a defending attorney reveals potentially incriminating evidence before the prosecutor has a chance to. Attorneys use this method in order to diminish the importance of the evidence in the minds of a jury. It works because the jury will tend to believe that if the evidence were extremely important the prosecuting attorney would try to refute or deny the evidence.
  Stealing thunder is also used by advertisers. When a company shows it's audience weakness, the audience will have the tendency to believe that the company is honest and trustworthy. If the company was not trustworthy they would not share unwanted or negative company traits. But to use stealing thunder well in an advertisement a company will want to include the positive aspects of the negative trait. An example of this would be "We're #2, so we are working harder so we don't let you down. OR It's expensive, but our product is good."
  Stealing thunder is a two sided argument. Some psychologists believe that two sided arguments in advertisements persuade a more scholarly audience. One sided messages tend to work better on a less educated audience. Stealing thunder, because it is a two sided message, is also a negative message. The trick is to make sure it is two sided and the negative is turned into a positive.
  An example of stealing thunder is the L'Oreal slogan "Because your worth it." The preposition auditory left out is "It's expensive." which they may have at one point used and dropped. A basic question arises because of the slogan. Do they know if you are worth it or how much you are worth. Last time I checked, individuality could not be purchased nor will $10 make-up make someone "worth it".
  Maybe your just worth it if you are white: According to the following website, L'Oreal was sued for being racist in 2007. Hmm. Eva Longoria has since done commercials for the company, but most commercials reflected their standard. Even their Paris commercial, the girl has green eyes and is lightly complected.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jul/07/france.angeliquechrisafis