The 15 basic Appeals of Horror Fiction

Copyright 2018 by Gary L.Pullman

Jib Fowles helped thousands of people better understand how advertisements, print and otherwise, manipulate viewers using fifteen basic appeals to various desires, emotions, and needs. He characterized five of these needs as “needs to,” eight others are “needs for.” Generally speaking, people can satisfy “needs to” on their own, but they require the participation or, at least, the presence of others to fulfill “needs for.”

Fowles identifies these “needs to”:

The need to aggress.

The need to escape.

The need to feel safe.

The need to nurture.

The need to satisfy curiosity.

The “needs for” are:

The need for aesthetic sensations.

The need for affiliation.

The need for attention.

The need for autonomy.

The need to dominate.

The need for guidance.

The need for prominence.

The need for sex.

The fifteenth basic need is a group, the physiological needs, which include the needs for food, drink, sleep, and so forth.

His essay explains in detail each of these needs and provides several examples of each type of appeal advertisements make in promoting their products.

The same fifteen basic needs make horror novels, short stories, and movies appealing to their readers and viewers. Let's take a look at these needs, in regard to horror novels and movies, in the same order in which Fowles himself discusses these needs in relation to the appeal of advertisements, as we cut back and forth between the two analyses.

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1. The Need for Sex

Only a small percentage of ads appeal to sex, because such an appeal can overwhelm the product being advertised. As Fowles says, “it is too blaring and tends to obliterate product information. Nudity in advertising has the effect of reducing brand recall.” In other words, sex and nudity are distracting, and they are more memorable than the product they supposedly promote.

Whether or not an ad containing nudity or sexual imagery actually evokes the need for sex depends on the context of the nudity or sexual images. Such an ad in Playboy magazine, aimed at men, may be an appeal to the need for sex, but one featuring a scantily dressed young woman and aimed at other young women is more likely an appeal to the need for attention.

2. The Need for Affiliation

The need for affiliation is the need to belong, to be part of a group. In a positive approach, such ads often show a person surrounded by friends or family members whose affection and loyalty are valued. Ads may also appeal to the need for affiliation by taking a negative approach and showing it as absent or as threatened” “If we don't use Scope, we'll have the 'Ugh!' Morning Breath' that causes the male and female models [in the ad] to avert their faces [from one another].” Ads also show the solutions to such problems—the products featured in the ads.

There are “several types of affiliation”: romance, courtship (dating), family togetherness, and friendship. The AT&T telephone ad that encouraged people to “reach out and touch someone” appeals to the need for affiliation.

3. The Need to Nurture.

The need to nurture is the need “to take care of small, defenseless creatures,” such as children and pets. Taking care of children and pets can involve feeding, helping, supporting, consoling, protecting, comforting, nursing, healing, and guiding them. Both men and women have the need to nurture.

4. The Need for Guidance

The need for guidance is the opposite of the need to nurture. These pitches are made by celebrities; fantasy figures (the Green Giant, Betty Crocker, Mr. Goodwrench); authority figures, real and imagined (“When E. F. Hutton talks, people listen”); or icons of “tradition or custom” or of “American history.” Kool-Aid appeals to the need for guidance through tradition, stating, “You loved it [Kool-Aid] as a kid. You trust it as a mother.”

5. The Need to Aggress

Everyone has the need to behave aggressively, to aggress. Ads that appeal to this need must be careful, in doing so, not to alienate consumers so that they do not turn “public opinion . . . against what is being sold.” Jack-in-the-Box offended customers by destroying the company's mascot, the Jack-in-the-box, until the violence was “toned down.”

6. The Need to Achieve

Ads that appeal to this need evoke the need to excel, to “accomplish something difficult” by overcoming “obstacles . . . . surpass others,” and “attain a high standard.” Athletes are often featured in such ads. However, ads may create their own “role models,” as Dewar's Scotch ads do in their profiles of successful people.

Ads based on the need to achieve often use superlatives: “best,” first,” “finest,” to suggest the “need to succeed.” Ads for sales and bargains also belong in this category, because they suggest that one has seized “an opportunity” and come “out ahead of others.”

7. The Need to Dominate

Fowles sees the need to dominate as a “craving to be powerful—perhaps omnipotent.” This need, he suggests, can be associated with “the need to . . . control one's environment' and a desire for “clout.”

Like the other needs, this one is universal, as applicable to women as it is to men.

8. The Need for Prominence.

This need, says Fowles, is related to “the need to be admired and respected, to enjoy prestige and high social status.” Wealth does not have to symbolize prominence, as Fowles points out by referencing the American Express advertisement, in which 'we learn that the prominent person is not so prominent without his American Express card.”

9. The Need for Attention.

Distinguishing the need for attention form the need for prominence, Fowles points out that the former concerns the need to be “looked up to”; the latter, to “the need to be looked at.” he cites a Brooke Shields advertisement in which the actress wears Calvin Klein jeans not so that men will pursue her, but so that she will stand out from other young women.

10. The Need for Autonomy

We tend to want to do things our own way, to be independent and to set our own tasks, according to our own agendas. “ The focus here is upon the independence and integrity of the individual,” Fowles says, and it is opposite to the need for guidance.

11. The Need to Escape.

“Escape” can be actual, literal escape or to figuratively and emotionally escape from the responsibilities and routines of everyday life. The latter type of escape is motivated by a search for pleasure and the freedom to do as we please. The need to escape can include other people besides oneself; a group can escape together as easily as a solitary individual.

12. The Need to Feel Safe

It's only natural to want to feel safe, and advertisements can appeal to this need directly, by showing models who are safe, or indirectly, by showing models who are in danger, because, even when we're at risk, we feel the need to be safe. Product durability often plays upon this need, as do references to natural ingredients.

13. The Need for Aesthetic Sensations.

“Aesthetic” refers to persons, places, or things that are beautiful or otherwise bring pleasure. Everyone has a need to see, hear, smell, taste, or touch beautiful objects, visit beautiful places, meet beautiful people, and dine on delicious food. Anything that satisfies the need for aesthetic sensations can be used to make this type of appeal.

14. The Need to Satisfy Curiosity.

This need involves “a need for information” and addresses people's natural sense of curiosity. In advertisements, Fowles says, “ Trivia, percentages, observations counter to conventional wisdom . . . all help [to] sell products,” and “any advertisement in a question-and-answer format is strumming this need.”

15. Physiological Needs.

Physiological needs are the needs of the body: food, drink, and sleep, among them. Many food advertisements make this basic appeal.

Styles

Fowles also identifies three “styles” that many advertisements employ to influence “the way a basic appeal is presented”: humor, celebrity endorsements, and “time imagery.”

Although humor can backfire, overwhelming the advertisement's message or offending people, “softer appeals” using a humorous approach can be effective.

Celebrity endorsements can backfire when celebrities behave obnoxiously or offend people, but this approach can work well; it allows famous men and women to “introduce” a sponsor's product, using one or more of the basic appeals, such as the need for guidance, the need to achieve, the need for aesthetic sensations, the need for affiliation, and the need to escape.

Time imagery can supply advertisers with historical heroes, traditions, and artwork, appealing to such needs as those for achievement, guidance, aesthetic sensations, affiliation, and escape. Nostalgia, the fond remembrance of times past, is an example of a time imagery approach.

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How does Fowles's analysis pertain to horror fiction? We offer examples in upcoming posts.