In advertising, a hard sell is an advertisement or campaign that uses a more direct, forceful, and overt sales message. This approach works in opposition to a soft sell.
Theorists have examined the value of repetition for hard sell versus soft sell messages to determine their relative efficacy. Frank Kardes and others have concluded that a soft sell with an inferred conclusion rather than an overt hard sell can often be more persuasive.
Famous quotes containing the words hard and/or sell:
“I’ve been complimented for my scorekeeping, and sometimes it’s hard to tell whether it’s a backhanded compliment or not. Are the men surprised when a woman does a good job as a judge?”
—Sheila Harmon-Martin, U.S. political scientist and boxing judge. As quoted in the Chronicle of Higher Education, pp. A13-A14 (June 2, 1993)
“This instinctive repulsion which tradespeople inspire in men of sensitive feeling is one of the very rare consolations for being so impoverished which are given to those of us who don’t sell anything to anybody.”
—Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961)