Does Emotional Appeal Work in Advertising? The Rationality Behind Using Emotional Appeal to Create Favorable Brand Attitude
Article Details
Pub. Date
:
Jun,
2013
Product Name
:
The IUP Journal of Brand Management
Product Type
:
Article
Product Code
:
IJBRM11306
Author Name
:
Tapan K Panda, Tapas K Panda and Kamalesh Mishra
Availability
:
YES
Subject/Domain
:
Marketing
Management
Download Format
:
PDF Format
No. of Pages
:
17
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Abstract
The paper attempts to assimilate the current thinking on the use of emotional appeals in advertising, positioning and communication in order to build a favorable attitude towards a brand. It elucidates the areas where emotional appeals would work best, while pointing out the possible pitfalls in employing such a strategy across the board. Further, an attempt has been made to interpret the current body of knowledge on the subject and create a context for general application of emotional appeal in advertising. The paper identifies products and services for which emotional advertising appeals will be more suitable. It also elaborates the risk involved in using emotional appeals. Factors influencing effectiveness of emotional appeals are discussed in detail and guidelines are drawn for effective use of emotional appeals. The authors have suggested future direction of research in the area of use of advertising appeal and its influence on brand attitude formation.
Description
Advertising is a critical component of the marketing mix for any brand. Thus, an
understanding of effective advertising appeals for particular product or service types is
important to national and international brand promotion.
In advertising, brand recall always matters. It is the brand recall at the point of
purchase that guides the success or failure of a brand. In earlier advertising theories, it is
believed that undying support for brand recall was a conspiracy orchestrated by
manufacturers who believed more in functional messaging than in the power of emotional
bond that advertising can create for the brand leading to favorable associations.
In the seminal work on major influences of advertising on the attitude of customers,
researchers (Callahan, 1974) have highlighted a few critical issues related to emotional
responses to advertising. From that time onwards, many authors have worked in this area
and have found that advertising evaluations are deliberated by negative affects and
stimulated by positive effects. This also establishes the fact that liking/preference towards
an advertisement may lead to development of positive attitude towards a brand leading
to higher purchase intention. In various models of advertising effectiveness testing, brand
knowledge comes first and this leads to development of attitude and brand evaluation.
George and Berry (1981) proposed a model in which ‘primary affective reactions’ or ‘ad
evoked feelings play an important role. This plays the role of a gatekeeper on brand
information processing. Other authors have tested the role of evoked emotions and have
found that ad-evoked feelings have a direct influence on attitude towards the advertised
brand and purchase intention. They have also observed that they have indirect influence
thus having a mediating effect on consumer attitude towards the advertisements.
Wang et al. (2009) and Bulbul et al. (2010) have showed that different types of
executions on the basis of emotion on various copy platforms like humor, eroticism, fear
and love lead to different advertising evoked feelings and difference in the formation of
attitude towards (1) the advertisement and brand recognition; and (2) attitude towards
the brand and purchase intention.