Exploring the impact of affect on the effectiveness of comparative versus non-comparative advertisements

Affect is important in advertising, but it has not attracted sufficient attention in the research of comparative advertising. Two studies were conducted to explore how affect influences the effectiveness of comparative versus non-comparative advertisements. Study 1 focused on context-induced affect and showed that participants with positive affect expressed more favourable attitudes toward a comparative advertisement than a non-comparative advertisement. Study 2 addressed the coexistence of context- and ad-induced affects. Results showed that in the condition of positive context-induced affect, participants liked a comparative advertisement more than a non-comparative advertisement when ad-induced affect was positive. However, they evaluated both types of advertisement similarly in a negative manner when ad-induced affect was negative. In the condition of negative context-induced affect, participants expressed more favourable attitudes toward the advertisement eliciting positive affect than the one eliciting negative affect (regardless of ad type). These studies provided theoretical and practical implications, as well as directions for future research.     

Positive versus negative comparative advertising

Two studies examined cognitive responses to comparative advertising that was valenced, i.e., was either negative or positive. Negative comparative advertising featured the advertised brand derogating the comparison brand (I'm OK, you're not OK). Positive comparative advertising claimed superiority over the comparison brand in a nonderogatory manner (You're OK, I'm more OK). Subjects were exposed to either a negative comparative ad or a positive comparative ad. In study 1, the ad featured either a high or low share advertised brand and either a high or low share comparison brand while in study 2, the ad featured advertised and comparison brands with either a strong or a weak reputation. Across both studies, it was found that negative comparative advertising evoked significantly higher counterargumentation and lower claim acceptance than its positive counterpart. Also, when the advertised brand had a high share relative to the comparison brand, counterargumentation was lower and claim acceptance was higher vis-a-vis when the advertised brand had a low share relative to the comparison brand. Findings pertaining to brand reputation were mixed. Managerial and future research implications of the findings are discussed.     

Store format choice in an evolving market: role of affect,cognition and involvement

Store choice has been studied extensively in the literature, but store format choice has had limited research attention. The store format choice for bulk grocery purchase being a rational context is well conceptualized in the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) framework. Attitude behaviour linkages are well explored but there is rare consensus on the components of attitude, their interrelationship and resultant impact on conation. The Theory of Reasoned Action has evolved over time to incorporate perceived behavioral control and past behavior to improve its explanatory capability as TPB; however, it has maintained its unidimensionalist approach and has not tested affect and cognition independently for its impact on behavior. This paper explores a Converging framework of the Affect and Cognition components of attitude and tests their independent impact on store format choice behaviour. The results indicate that Affect operates independently and has stronger impact on format choice especially in more evolved and familiarized contexts whereas cognitive evaluation is strong in relatively newer formats. There seems to be an interplay between Cognition and Affect over time with cognition transitioning into affect as familiarity with choices increases.     

Incivility in political advertisements: a look at the 2012 US presidential election

The 2012 presidential election reached new heights in dollars spent and the rancorous nature of advertisements emanating from candidates and other interested parties. While ‘going negative’ has become a well-known tactic in political campaigns, several observers believe that the level of acrimony crossed the line between civil discourse essential to democratic societies and uncivil haranguing that has little to do with election issues. To explore the nuances of this topic, we open with a discussion of limited cross-disciplinary research on incivility in political discourse so that its essential nature is exposed, differentiating it from more common uses of negativity. Our empirical work examined about 350 television advertisements that were shown between the presidential debates of 2012 and the November elections. Levels of civility and incivility are noted and implications for the future of political advertising are provided.     

Reaching the boiling point: Consumers' negative affective reactions to firm-attributed service failures

While anger is the dominant affective reaction following service failure, little research focused on its potentially damaging effects. Our study examines the impact of anger and related negative affective states on evaluations and behavior following firm-attributed service failure. Gender's moderating role in shaping these consequences is also studied. Scenarios involving failures in a bank and a retail store are used. Overall, angry customers are less satisfied, give lower service evaluations, have higher perceptions of injustice, and give weaker ratings of corporate image. Angry customers also less likely spread positive word of mouth and more likely complain, exhibit negative repurchase intentions, and engage in third-party action. Related negative states differentially impact cognitive evaluations and post-purchase behavior with anger (rage) being the most important predictor in a bank (retail) setting. As the intensity of the negative affective state increases, customers more likely engage in effortful consequences. Gender of the customer and the service employee play minimal roles influencing evaluative and behavioral outcomes.     

Positive and negative word of mouth (WOM) are not necessarily opposites: A reappraisal using the dual factor theory

Prior research has not systematically investigated the enablers and inhibitors in conjunction to measure consumer behavior toward mobile wallets (m-wallets), focusing either on the adoption or the resistance perspective only. Similarly, antecedents and consequences of the dichotomous nature of word of mouth for m-wallets have also remained obscure so far. The present research proposes to address this void in the accumulated learnings by examining both enablers and inhibitors of mobile wallets (m-wallets) as antecedents of valence of word of mouth (positive and negative; PWOM and NWOM, respectively). Grounded in Dual Factor Theory, this study aims to explore consumers’ continued use intentions resulting from the WOM valence. The findings reveal that enablers (perceived information quality, perceived ability, and perceived benefit) drive PWOM, while the inhibitors (perceived cost, perceived risk, and perceived uncertainty) spur NWOM. Furthermore, the results show that only PWOM drives the continuance intentions of m-wallet users. Therefore, the study proves that the antecedents of PWOM are different from those of NWOM.     

Looking in through outdoor: a socio-cultural and historical perspective on the evolution of advertising humour

This study examines the evolving acceptance and use of humour in advertising over the past century. Sociologists point to humour as an expression of the macro-societal mood. Consistent with this thesis, we analyse two data sets of outdoor advertisements that span over 100 years. We use a socio-cultural and historical perspective to understand the underlying drivers and changes in humour use at both the macro-cultural level and at the micro-industry level in the US. The results reveal the contextual interplay that led to changes in the acceptance of humorous advertisements as well as the evolution of humour styles and elements.     

Taste and nutrition: the uses and effectiveness of different advertising claims in women's magazine food advertisements

A multi-method study was conducted to examine different advertising claims in current food advertising and to determine the effectiveness of different advertising claims on females’ evaluative judgments of food advertisements. Content analysis results of 678 women's magazine food ads indicated functional food ads appeared to adopt nutrition appeals without taste claims and a combined use of nutrition appeals and taste claims, whereas hedonic food ads tended to use taste claims without nutrition appeals. Nevertheless, these food advertising practices were called into question by the results of two experiments, showing the combined use of nutrition appeals and taste claims was the most effective strategy for both hedonic and functional foods. However, for hedonic foods, advertisers need to include more congruent than extremely incongruent claims. Implications for food advertisers and policy-makers were discussed.     

The impact of service robots in retail: Exploring the effect of novelty priming on consumer behavior

This study aims to bridge a gap in the extant research by examining consumer behavior that is unrelated to, but elicited by, service robots. The results of six studies showed that participants primed with robots (vs. humans) were more likely to engage in exploratory consumption behaviors. This effect was mediated through the elicitation of a sense of novelty, affected by the degree of service robots' intelligence and moderated by consumers' subjective knowledge. The study also examines different types of exploratory buying behaviors that have implications for marketers' and retailers’ use of service robots to promote exploratory consumption.     

Anti-counterfeiting advertisements for luxury brands in the post pandemic era: Roles of message type,visual presentation mode,and self-construal

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a significant increase in the demand for counterfeit luxury products, and the black market is expected to grow continuously in the post pandemic era. The present research aimed to examine how verbal and visual aspects of anti-counterfeiting advertising affect the purchase of counterfeit luxury brands. For the verbal element, we included two types of anti-counterfeiting messages: value-expressive and social-adjustive. For the visual element, two modes of visual presentation were compared; participants were presented either with images of counterfeit products only, or with images of both counterfeit and genuine products. The results from two experiments demonstrated that both variables interacted with consumers' self-construal in determining the effects of anti-counterfeiting advertising. Participants with independent self-construal expressed a lower intention to purchase counterfeit luxury products when a value-expressive message was used or when only an image of the counterfeit was included. In contrast, participants with interdependent self-construal exhibited a lower purchase intention when a social-adjustive message was utilized or when images of both the counterfeit and authentic brands were presented side-by-side. Moreover, anti-counterfeiting messages influenced participants’ purchase intentions through the perceptions of social-adjustive and value-expressive benefits, whereas the effect of presentation mode was mediated by the fluency experienced by the participants when processing the advertisement. Our research findings contribute theoretically to the literature on social motives, evaluation mode, comparative advertising, and self-construal, and will assist practitioners in developing effective communication strategies to reduce the consumption of counterfeit luxury brands.     

Explaining the use and effects of humour in advertising: an evolutionary perspective

Prior reviews have outlined the state of research of humour in advertising and showed that some findings deserve further explanations. This paper makes the point that evolutionary psychologists’ explanations of the functions of humour can provide new or alternative explanations for these findings and suggest new research avenues. The evolutionary functions of humour have been widely discussed in the literature, but advertising researchers have neglected biological nature and biological evolution as additional or alternative explanations for humour in advertising. The paper contributes to the advertising literature and broadens perspectives for research on humour in advertising by reviewing research on the evolutionary functions of humour, by showing how these functions can explain the use, effects, and moderators of humour in advertising beyond the explanations provided in prior literature, and by suggesting new propositions for future research on humour in advertising.     

Positive uncertainty: the benefit of the doubt in advertising

Positive uncertainty refers to uncertainty surrounding an anticipated positive outcome. It provides consumers with the opportunity to imagine and speculate on a product's or experience's potentially positive characteristics. Research has shown that when uncertainty is associated with something positive, consumers may prefer uncertainty to certainty. In a between-subjects experimental design with a large US (n = 446) and Japanese sample (n = 453), the present study demonstrates that positive uncertainty increases consumers’ positive feelings when they evaluate a product, particularly for high-involvement products that allow consumers to imagine and speculate about potentially positive product benefits. Unexpectedly, the study findings are consistent across the two different markets, which vary substantially in terms of consumers’ level of uncertainty avoidance. Specifically, results show that future-framed advertisements are effective in generating positive uncertainty and that positive uncertainty generates positive attitudes, both in countries scoring high (Japan) and low (USA) on uncertainty avoidance.     

From elicitation to consumption: assessing the longitudinal effectiveness of negative emotional appeals in social marketing

Abstract

Negative emotional appeals are used frequently in social marketing. Focusing on guilt and fear appeals, existing theories fail to explain emotional appeal effectiveness in changing consumption behaviour over time. To address this limitation, an elicitation–consumption framework is developed for fear and guilt appeal use. An agenda for further research, outlining three research questions and four propositions, is also presented. This framework integrates the study of how emotional appeals are communicated with how they are experienced during decision-making; complementing current theorising by offering a framework for experimental testing of the delayed, longitudinal effects of social marketing campaigns. The elicitation–consumption framework aids practitioners seeking to design effective emotional appeals by encouraging an effects-based communication approach.     

Role of downward versus upward social comparison in service recovery: Testing a mediated moderation model with two empirical studies

This paper extends prior research into the role of social comparison in service recovery by investigating the role of both downward and upward social comparison. Social comparison theory and attribution theory are applied to explore the differences in how upward and downward inter-customer comparison affects post-recovery satisfaction and word-of-mouth intentions. The mediating role of distributive justice perceptions and the moderating effects of the attribution of inter-customer differences in service recovery and customers’ justice sensitivity are also examined. Two online scenario-based experimental studies show that downward social comparison leads to greater satisfaction and lower negative word-of-mouth intentions. In addition, distributive justice mediates the relationship. Finally, attribution of difference in inter-customer influence and individual-level justice sensitivity moderate these effects. Besides its conceptual contributions, the findings from this paper may help managers design more effective service recovery strategies.     

Resolving the complexity in Gen Z's envy occurrence: A cross-cultural perspective

Envy is an impactful emotion on consumer behaviors, yet envy is quite complex to be comprehended due to its two different forms (malicious and benign). Therefore, it is significant to find out the factors occurring envy to consume to understand the impact and consequences of envy. This empirical study improves our understanding of envy occurrence (malicious or benign) in Generation Z (Gen Z) consumers by comparing two countries (the United States and Mexico) as representing individualistic and collectivistic cultures. We apply complexity theory as a basis for the configurational model, which we test using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis. We use three configurations—personality, attitudes, and attached importance to participants on social networking sites—to explore causal recipes leading to malicious and benign envy. The findings of this study highlight the differences in Gen Z consumers' envy occurrence regarding configurational factors. In addition to said factors, this research indicates that culture plays a significant role in Gen Z's envy occurrence, thus contributing to the current knowledge set.     

A Field Test of the Effectiveness of Different Print Layouts: A Mixed Model Field Experiment in Alternative Advertising

This article investigates the effectiveness of bathroom print ads. Using liquor as the product domain, field study data (n = 146) indicate a high level of ad (60%) and product category (80%) recall. Contrary to the literature and the researchers’ hypothesis, respondents had a significantly higher level of recall for copy dominant than for visual dominant ads. Hypotheses suggesting that color advertisements would outperform non-color advertisements and interactions between ages and visual-based versus copy-based stimuli and gender and visual-based versus copy-based stimuli were not supported by the data. The implications for practitioners of the effectiveness of copy rich ads and suggested directions for future research are discussed.