EuroEconomica, Vol 33, No 2 (2014)

Emotional response to advertising

Bogdan ANASTASIEI¹, Raluca CHIOSA²

¹Faculty of Economic and Business Administration, “A.I. Cuza” University, Romania, abo28@yahoo.com

² Faculty of Economic and Business Administration, “A.I. Cuza” University, Romania, ana_raluca_c@yahoo.com

Abstract. Emotions can transcend cultural, linguistic, demographic, and social boundaries. Emotions affect information processing and create a positive attitude toward the ad, which becomes associated with the brand. Objectives. This study investigates the role of pleasure (P), arousal (A) and domination (D) emotions in mobile’s photo camera advertisement and how each of them is influencing consumer attitude towards the advertisement and brand. Prior Work. Holbrook and Batra (1987) developed their own emotional scale based on these three dimensions (PAD), showing that these emotions mediate consumer responses to advertising. Approach. A 1*4 factorial experiment design method was adopted in order to measure the impact of independent variables (emotion type) on dependent variables (attitude toward ad, attitude toward brand). Results. The results revealed that emotions like Pleasure (loving, friendly, grateful) and Arousal (active, interested, excited, entertained) influence consumers' attitudes towards brand and advertising. Value. Marketers need to understand the role of pleasure and arousal emotions when making advertising campaign; an effective promotion leads to persuading consumers. The results indicate that marketing practitioners should measure affective responses when testing an advertisement, as long as this action would predict brand attitude.

Keywords: pleasure, arousal, domination, cell-phone, commercial, brand.

1 Introduction

Studies regarding the product (in a wide meaning, services being also included in this term) hold an important place in the marketing research. This fact is fully justified since the product represents the object of market activity, a point of reference according to which we assess the efficiency of the organization’s economic activity and we monitor all the behavioral reactions of the demand bearers.

Substantiating the offered services research activity is based on a wide range of information that needs to be obtained systematically and structurally from the market. The information offers solutions to a large number of problems, among which those regarding the way services are assessed by users compared to similar services destined to satisfy the same needs of other producers.

Positioning is a concept in marketing which was first introduced by Jack Trout (Trout 1969) and then popularized by Al Ries and Jack Trout in their bestseller book "Positioning - The Battle for Your Mind." - McGraw-Hill 1981.

The concept of authors Al Ries and Jack Trout has been successful in the business world since the publication “positioning is based on the product which can be a tangible good, a service, a company, an organism or even a person. Positioning is not what one does with the product but especially what the product represents for the one who prospects the market.”( Ries and Trout 1982).

The concept of positioning was initially developed in the specialized literature of the seventies (Dubois, L.P., Jolibert, A. 1977) having as object the product and then the brand of the producer. Gradually, its range expanded on the company itself, now being the main way of marking the place the company holds or wishes to hold in the future.

According to Kotler, positioning is “the way the product is defined by consumers on important attributes - the place the product occupies in consumers’ minds relative to competing products” (Kotler 2002).

Positioning proposes a revolutionary method in the attempt to create a “position” in the mind of a potential customer.

The term of “product positioning” is about the decisions and the activities undergone in order to create and maintain in the consumer’s mind a certain concept about the company’s product.

When the company launches a product it tends to position it so that it appears to have the most wanted characteristics on the market. This projected image is very important and it must be continually improved because the customers’ needs and expectations are continually changing and one of the main goals of a major company is the increase of the degree of customers’ satisfaction. (Mandru 2011).

2 Literature Review

Emotional reaction is defined as a reaction to various expressively crucial occurrences, authentic or possible, precedent or predictable. An emotional reply reveals intrinsic attractiveness thoughts occurring as result of self-related actions (Niazi et al., 2012) Emotions have important contributions to the decision making process. They direct our attention to important events that demand a decision, they provide useful information about the desirability of alternative courses of action and they often provide the motivation necessary to implement a chosen course of action (Priesmeyer & Mudge, 2008).

Advertisers have long believed that advertising must arouse some emotion to be effective (Mehta & Purvis, 2006). Several studies focused on the emotional responses to advertising. Thus emotional responses can directly impact advertisement attitudes, brand attitudes and purchase intentions (Stayman & Aaker, 1988; Edell & Burke, 1987; Burke & Edell, 1989). Emotions affect information processing through mood states (Gardner, 1985) and create a positive attitude toward the ad, which becomes associated with the brand (Ray & Batra, 1983).

Current advertising literature indicates that individuals are persuaded by information that appeals to their emotions. According to scholars, this is because emotion makes information not only more salient (Carstensen & Mikels, 2005), but also more vivid (Tellis, 1950). Advertisments with emotional appeal have been found to be better liked by consumers and have higher levels of brand name and message recall (Friedstad & Thorson, 1986; Stout & Leckenby, 1986) and can be used to influence consumer decision-making by enhancing the effectiveness of rational appeals (Kim et al., 2000).

Emotional response is a powerful predictor of intention and brand attitude, and given the diagnostic capabilities that are missing in other measures of affect (Aad), it is a valuable tool for strategic planning, message testing, and brand tracking (Moris et. all, 2002).

Table 1 Overview of researches using emotions as main variable.

Source: Fleur J.M. Laros, Jan-Benedict E.M. Steenkamp, Emotions in consumer behavior: a hierarchical approach, Journal of Business Research, 58 (2005), 1437 – 1445.

Westbrook (1987) found two emotional factors: positive affect and negative affect. The basic emotions are four positive (contentment, happiness, love, and pride) and four negative (sadness, fear, anger, and shame). There are also 42 specific emotions based on Richins’ (1997) CES. Edell and Burke (1987) identified three factors of emotions: upbeat, warm and negative. Holbrook and Batra (1987) found three other factors: pleasure, arousal, and domination. Moriarty (1991) described eleven types of emotional appeals: excitement, fear, family, guilt, love, nostalgia, pleasure, poignancy, pride, relief, and sorrow. Hoyer and MacInnis (1997) mention that emotional appeals elicit emotions such as love, wanting, joy, hope, excitement, daring, fear, anger, shame, or rejection.

3 Methodology

3.1 Research hypotheses

Based on the literature review, there were formulated the following research hypotheses:

H1: Emotional appeals have an influence on attitude toward the ad (Aad)

H1.1: Pleasure emotion has a positive influence on Aad.

H1.2: Arousal emotion has a positive influence on Aad.

H1.3: Domination emotion has a positive influence on Aad.

H2: Emotional appeals have an influence on attitude toward the brand (Ab)

H2.1: Pleasure emotion has a positive influence on Ab.

H2.2: Arousal emotion has a positive influence on Ab.

H2.3: Domination emotion has a positive influence on Ab.

H3: Attitude toward the ad (Aad) has an influence on attitude toward the brand (Ab)

3.2 Sample unit

The samples were chosen from Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, 2^nd year, 80 students between 21-22 years old.

3.3 Research variables

A 1*4 factorial experiment design method was adopted in order to measure the impact of independent variables (emotion type) on dependent variables (attitude toward ad, attitude toward brand).

3.4 The stimuli

The photo camera as function of the cell phone was selected as the research object, and TV commercials were used in the experimental design (see Table 2). The fourth advertisement has been used for the control group. Its purpose is to ensure that other external factors unrelated to the type of emotional appeal does not affect the results of the research, as it seeks to isolate the impact of emotion type on the dependent variables.

Table 2 Factorial design of the stimuli used for the experiment.

3.5 Measurement instruments

Emotional response was measured using Holbrook and Batra’s (1987) Standardized Emotional Profile (SEP), a scale composed of 27 items (see Table 3), measuring three primary dimensions – pleasure, arousal and domination (PAD). Each of the three constructs was measured using a 7-point Likert scale anchored by “strongly disagree” and “strongly agree”.

Coefficients alpha of the factor analysis indicated that only 10 items should be kept in the Romanian version of the scale: 3 for Pleasure, 4 for Arousal and 3 for Domination.

Attitude towards the ad was measured with a 7-point Likert scale (MacKenzie & Lutz, 1989). consisting of the following items: extremely bad-extremely good, extremely irritating-extremely pleasing and extremely uninteresting-extremely interesting.

Attitude toward the brand was measured with a 7-point Likert scale (Miniard et al., 1990), consisting of the following items: dislike-like, unfavorable- favorable, and negative- positive.

Table 3 Standardized Emotional Profile (SEP) by Holbrook and Batra (1987).

3.6 Experimental procedure

Each participant was randomly assigned to one of the four conditions (20 participants x 4 groups) and was given a link to fill out the questionnaire (unique IP setting). The subjects were not informed about the objectives of the study. They were told that a company is testing a new product commercial; after that, the stimuli were randomized and the instructions were given. Emotional responses were measured by asking respondents to indicate the extent to which (from 1 to 7) they felt a list of emotions while watching TV commercials in equal percentages of respondents. Then, subjects answered questions concerning attitude towards advertising and attitude towards brand. SPSS 13.0 was used in data analyses.

4 Research results

Reliability and validity analyses of the samples were also performed. The reliabilities measured using Chronbach's alpha were 0.94 for pleasure, 0.94 for arousal, and 0.97 for domination. The reliability testing showed satisfactory levels of Cronbach’s Alpha for attitude toward the ad (α = 0.90) and attitude toward the brand (α = 0.93).

Manipulation check indicated that emotions were rated by subjects exposed to emotional tv commercials according to ad seen. Thus, Pleasure ad conveyed pleasure emotion (F_1.94= 49.02, p< .001), Arousal ad conveyed arousal emotion (F_1.94= 8.18, p< .001), and Domination ad conveyed domination emotion (F_1.94= 13.88, p< .001).

Hypothesis Testing

H1: Emotional appeals have an influence on attitude toward the ad (Aad)

Table 4 indicates that the Pleasure emotion significantly affects attitude towards the ad (R₂ = 0.14, p= 0.00, F= 26.37), Arousal emotion significantly affects attitude towards the ad (R₂ = 0.48, p= 0.00, F= 46.69), while Domination emotion no significantly affects attitude towards the ad (R₂= 0.04, p= 0.06, F= 7.65). Rational appeal has no significant effect on Aad (R₂= 0.10, p= 0.93, F= 0.07).

H2: Emotional appeals have an influence on attitude toward the brand (Ab)

Table 4 indicates that the Pleasure emotion significantly affects attitude towards the brand (R₂ = 0.72, p= 0.00, F= 21.75), Arousal emotion significantly affects attitude towards the brand (R₂ = 0.76, p= 0.00, F= 57.73), while Domination emotion no significantly affects attitude towards the brand (R₂= 0.02, p= 0.21, F= 1.57). Rational appeal has no significant effect on Ab (R₂= 0.19, p= 0.22, F= 1.49).

H3: Attitude toward the ad (Aad) has an influence on attitude toward the brand (Ab)

The linear regression indicates there is a significant relationship between attitude towards the ad and attitude towards the brand (R₂= 0.69, p= 0.00, F= 23.81). Therefore attitude toward advertising influences positively attitude toward brand.

Table 4 Linear Regression Results.

5 Discussions

Hypotheses, both supported and rejected, are presented in table 5.

Table 5 Summary of Hypotheses.

The study revealed that when it comes to TV commercial, emotions like pleasure and arousal influence consumers' attitudes towards brand and advertising.

Attitude towards advertising and attitude towards brand are significantly influenced by feelings such as: loving, friendly, grateful (Pleasure dimension), active, interested, excited, entertained (Arousal dimension). Emotions like sad, fearful, suspicious (Domination dimension) have no impact on how consumers perceive the commercial or the brand.

Another finding is that the more consumers like advertising, the more likely they create a favorable attitude towards the brand, suggesting that emotions are important in assessing advertising effectiveness.

Marketers need to understand the role of pleasure and arousal emotions when making advertising campaign; an effective promotion leads to persuading consumers. The results indicate that marketing practitioners should measure affective responses when testing an advertisement, as long as this action would predict brand attitude.

6 Limitation and future research

There are some limitations. First, the nature of the object of the research – the photo camera of the cell phone - influence the results. Choosing another product category may lead to other results, depending on the level of involvement. Also more than one product category should be investigated in the future. Second, the number of subjects per experimental group may be considered small. Future research should be based on a minimum of 300 respondents and should include other categories than students so that the results could be generalized. Third, the stimuli used in the experiment may have biased the results; exposure to the ads occurred in artificial scenario, existing brands were studied and only one media were used.

7 References

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