Why Narrative Ads Work: An Integrated Process Explanation

We propose and test an integrated process explanation for why narrative ads in general are more persuasive than non-narrative ads. A study involving a random sample of 25 narrative and 25 non-narrative TV commercials and 484 nonstudent research participants confirmed that a set of four process variables—emotive response, ad hedonic value, ad credibility, and perceived goal facilitation—collectively mediate the positive effects of narrative (versus non-narrative) ads on attitude toward the ad (A_ad) and brand attitudes. The results also supported moderated mediation processes, with type of featured product and product involvement as important moderators. Implications for theory as well as practice are discussed.     

Product placements in movies and on Broadway

On the basis of 17 characteristics of 100 Belgian radio commercials (amount of information and brand quotes, humour, emotionality, eroticism, music, action-impulse, and so on), three types of radio spot were identified: image-dominant and emotional/creative spots, information-dominant and emotional/creative spots, and information-dominant and non-emotional/not creative spots. The affective and cognitive attitudes towards each commercial, as well as attitudes towards the brands and purchase intentions, were measured in a sample of 100 respondents. Overall, the information-dominant, emotional/ creative type of commercial resulted in the most positive attitudes towards ads and brands. The other two types of ad performed less well. The components of the attitude towards the ads were strongly correlated with the attitude towards the brands. In particular, the affective reactions and, to a lesser extent, the perceived degree of informative-ness of an ad significantly explained attitude towards the brand.     

Does gay-themed advertising haunt your brand?

This study is designed to investigate the effect of gay-themed advertising as well as consumers’ gender, tolerance towards homosexuality (low vs high tolerance) and consumers’ brand commitment (low vs high commitment) on attitude towards ad and attitude towards brand. The study result suggests that people exposed to non-gay-themed ads had more positive attitudes towards the brand than did people exposed to gay-themed ads. The study findings suggest that ads featuring homosexual imagery could lead to negative brand evaluation. The study finds that heterosexual males exposed to such ads had less favourable attitudes towards the advertising and brand as well. The study finds that subjects with high tolerance towards homosexuality have more positive attitudes towards the ad and brand, and have higher purchase intention than do subjects with low tolerance. Furthermore, the results suggest that people with high brand commitment had more favourable attitudes towards ad and brand. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.     

Attitudes toward the extension and parent brand in response to extension advertising

This paper investigates how ads for extensions can trigger different reactions with respect to consumers' attitudes towards new line and brand extensions of familiar brands. Using a structural equation model, the authors research the influence of attitude towards the ad (Aad), parent brand quality, and perceived fit on attitude toward the extension (Aext), and resulting feedback effects on attitude toward the parent brand (Apb) with a sample of 509 Belgians. Results are compared between two types of advertising strategies (informational vs. positive emotional). The findings indicate that informational appeals, in comparison to emotional appeals, reduce the effects of parent brand quality and fit, but Aad is all the more important. In terms of feedback effects to the parent brand, Aext transfers more easily to Apb with an informational appeal than with a positive emotional appeal. On the other hand, Aad directly influences Apb for positive emotional appeals, but not informational appeals.     

Metaphor as Visual Thinking in Advertising and Its Effects: Focus on Brand Familiarity and Product Involvement

One of advertisers' favorite communication techniques is the visual metaphor. In fact, metaphor usage perennially increases in ad images. This study, which looks at consumers with varying levels of brand familiarity and product involvement, investigates how their attitudes and purchase intentions of are influenced by the persuasive effects of visual metaphors in various advertising conditions. The findings reveal that consumers' attitudes and purchase intentions are enhanced more by visual metaphor-based ads than nonmetaphor-based ads when the advertised product is in a low-involvement product category. Nonmetaphorical ads are found to have a more positive influence with high-involvement products than do metaphorical ads. The results show a significant three-way interaction effect. When the advertised product is in a low-involvement product category, visual metaphors lead to favorable brand evaluations and higher purchase intentions in the ads for a low-familiarity brand. However, nonmetaphors are more persuasive than visual metaphors only for the low familiarity brand in a high-involvement product category. Theoretical and practical implications are addressed in the discussion.     

The Power of Creative Advertising and Consumers’ Perceived Risk

Despite the growing importance of creative advertising as an effective marketing tool, little is known about the process through which it influences preexisting attitudes for familiar brands and factors that moderate its effectiveness. To fill this gap, A 2 advertising type (creative vs. normal) by 2 product category (high risk vs. low risk) experiment was conducted. Four creative ads and four normal ads were developed for some familiar brands and were exhibited for participants. Results indicate that creative ads significantly lead to more favorable ad credibility, ad attitude, brand attitude, and purchase intention than normal ads. Perceived product risk was found to moderate the effectiveness of creative ads.     

The effectiveness of fear appeals in ‘green’ advertising: An analysis of creative,consumer, and source variables*

This study focused on the effectiveness of fear appeal messages used to arouse a threat in green advertising. An experiment recruited 175 participants to test the influence of the advertising appeal (fear vs. non-fear appeal), source (for-profit vs. non-profit organizations), and involvement with the environment on attitude toward the ad (A_ad), attitude toward the product (A_p) and purchase intention (PI). Results revealed that a fear appeal in a green ad negatively affected A_ad and A_p and that participants who were highly involved with the environment were more likely to have positive attitudes toward the green ad and advertised green product as well as a stronger intent to purchase it. The source type in the green ad did not affect ad effectiveness and involvement with the environment did not moderate the effects of either appeal or source.     

Understanding Interactive Online Advertising: Congruence and Product Involvement in Highly and Lowly Arousing,Skippable Video Ads

Interactive online media are an increasingly preferred format for users and advertisers, and skippable online video advertisements are common on social media networks such as YouTube. The specific features and influences of this interactive marketing tool demand further consideration. Focusing on effective tactics, this article investigates the influence of introducing high-arousal and low-arousal stimuli on skippable ad effectiveness (i.e., ad acceptance, ad attitude, brand attitude, and ad intrusiveness), with the potential moderation of context congruency and product involvement. A pretest and three studies confirm that high-arousal ads are watched for longer time and are more effective in congruent contexts. Users' product involvement determines the intrusiveness of high- and low-arousal skippable ads. These findings, along with their practical implications for this novel setting, provide further directions for research too.     

Ad processing and persuasion: The role of brand identification

This article examines the relationship between ad learning and ad-based persuasion; it proposes that consumer identification of the advertising brand positively affects attitude toward the ad, which in turn enhances positive brand attitudes. A model integrating learning and attitudinal responses to ads was tested with aggregate readership recognition scores and attitudinal measures for different ads. Results suggested that identification of the advertiser is a crucial operation in ad processing. Ads that facilitated identification of the brand appeared credible, which contributed to enhancing their persuasive impact. Neither the degree of overall attention devoted to an ad previous to brand identification, nor subsequent extensive elaboration of the ad's copy, affected ad or brand attitudes. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Consumer Responses to English Accent Variations in Advertising

Abstract

With the growing use of different types of English accents in international advertising, it is important for marketers to understand the factors that influence the credibility of the spokesperson in order to select the most persuasive character. This study investigates the effects of a spokesperson's accent on spokesperson's perceived credibility across high and low involvement products and products of different country-of-origin. Two different accents-the standard English accent and the local Singaporean English accent (Singlish)-were tested. Results indicated that accent, product country-of-origin and product involvement significantly influence the spokesperson's perceived credibility and attitude towards the ads. The accent effects appeared to be strong enough to offset the country-of-origin, gender and product involvement effects, attesting to the importance of considering this factor in advertisements. Specifically, the Standard English accent outperformed the Singlish accent in terms of spokesperson credibility, attitude towards the ad, attitude towards the brand and purchase intentions. However, the Singlish accent outperformed the Standard English accent in terms of attention to the ad. Implications for marketers are discussed.     

Ad framing effects for consumption products: An affect priming process

This research examines why positively framed messages work more effectively than negatively framed messages in product advertising by establishing an affect priming process model. Findings from Experiment 1 showed that positively framed ad messages evoked higher levels of positive affect and lower levels of negative affect than did negatively framed ad messages. Accordingly, positively framed ad messages generated more favorable ratings on ad believability, ad liking, and brand attitudes. Most importantly, this research demonstrated the process by which frame‐evoked affect exerted influence on brand attitudes via its impacts on priming affect‐congruent cognitive responses. Experiment 1 also found that positively framed ads encouraged participants to be attentive to and elaborate on messages more so than negatively framed ads. Findings from Experiment 2 further showed that ad framing effects were moderated by the type of product attributes being featured. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Brand familiarity as a moderating factor in the ad and brand attitude relationship and advertising appeals

Studies examining the effects of advertising appeals have yielded conflicting results. Some have found that an emotional appeal is more persuasive than an informational appeal, while others have demonstrated the opposite. The objective of the current study was to explore a theoretical explanation for the conflicting results in advertising appeal research. The findings of this study support the theory that brand familiarity determines the effectiveness of advertising appeal. The study results additionally support the theory that attitudes toward the ad predict the consumer’s attitude toward the brand. In addition, the study found that brand familiarity moderates the strength of the relationship between ad attitude and brand attitude. Other aspects and the implications of these findings are discussed in this paper.     

Paradoxical side effects of green advertising: how purchasing green products may instigate licensing effects for consumers with a weak environmental identity

Abstract

Research into green advertising has mainly investigated how green appeals can enhance product attitudes, sales, and brand image. But what happens after people have purchased a ‘green’ product advertised in a green ad? In two experiments, we show that purchasing a green product may have paradoxical post-purchase effects, such that it may lower intentions to engage in subsequent environmentally friendly behaviour (a so-called licensing effect). Importantly, our results show that these post-purchase effects are moderated by environmental identity: only people with a weak environmental identity show these paradoxical post-purchase licensing effects, people with a strong environmental identity are more likely to continue behaving in an environmentally friendly way.     

Advertising for extensions: Moderating effects of extension type,advertising strategy,and product category involvement on extension evaluation

This paper investigates how advertisements for extensions contribute to consumers’ attitudes towards new line and brand extensions of highly familiar brands. We investigate the relative importance of attitude toward the advertisement (Aad), parent brand quality, and fit between the extension and the parent brand for extension evaluations with a sample of 754 Belgians. Hierarchical regressions showed that Aad is the major influencer of extension evaluation. The importance of Aad, quality, and fit on extension evaluation is moderated by extension type (line or brand extension), advertising strategy (informational, positive emotional, negative emotional), and product involvement (low or high involvement). Quality transfer from the parent brand was more outspoken for line than for brand extensions; Aad was relatively more important for low product involvement and fit for high involvement conditions. Informational appeals, compared to emotional appeals, reduced the effects of parent brand quality and fit, but Aad was all the more important.     

Effects of comparative advertising format on consumer responses: The moderating effects of brand image and attribute relevance

In this research we distinguish between ads that compare two different brands (Across-Brand Comparison or ABC ads) and those that compare different versions of the same brand (Within-Brand Comparison or WBC ads). Results from an experiment indicate that when comparative ads use attributes that are relevant to product performance, ad type and brand image interact such that an ABC ad leads to less favorable consumer perceptions than a WBC ad when image of the sponsor brand is low but not when it is high. However, when the ads use attributes that are irrelevant to product performance an ABC ad leads to less favorable consumer outcomes than a WBC ad, regardless of the image of the sponsor brand. We further propose and show that ad believability mediates these effects. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed and directions for future research are provided.     

Effects of underdog (vs. top dog) positioning advertising

The study investigates individual differences in attitudes towards brands being positioned as underdogs in advertising from an emotional perspective. We argue that the personality trait of empathic concern moderates the underdog effect on brand attitude and that the moderating effect is mediated by empathic response to the advertisement. We conducted three experiments with ads using top-dog and underdog appeals. Those who have stronger empathic concern showed more favourable attitudes towards the brand advertised through underdog positioning, and the effect of empathic concern was mediated by the empathic response to the underdog positioning advertisement. For managers, targeting consumers who have high levels of empathic concern could result in more favourable attitudes towards underdog businesses when using underdog appeals.     

Using food pictorial metaphor in the advertising of non-food brands: An exploratory investigation of consumer interpretation and affective response

Using visual metaphors in ads is one of the communication techniques that brands have adopted to grab consumers' attention. The phenomenon of using food pictorial metaphors in non-food brand ads has spread in recent years, and given food's sensory nature, using this cue for a non-food brand can affect the way in which consumers interpret such ads. This research seeks to understand whether and how consumers perceive and process such a rhetorical figure. An exploratory qualitative approach is taken in two studies by using semi-structured interviews to explore consumers' reactions to different types of ads with food visual metaphors. The results reveal the predominance of congruency as a key processing mechanism of the ad at three levels: (a) between the food pictorial metaphor and the brand product category, (b) between the food visual metaphor and the brand itself, and (c) between the visual metaphor and the headline. Moreover, the food appetizing dimension, ad creativity, aesthetic appreciation of the ad, and consumers' aesthetic sensitivity are all revealed to play major roles in attitudes toward the ad.     

Modeling the Effects of Green Advertising on Brand Image: Investigating the Moderating Effects of Product Involvement Using Structural Equation

ABSTRACT

?This experimental study examined consumers’ response to green advertising for high- and low-involvement products by measuring its effect on consumers’ intention to purchase such brands. The present study enhances our understanding of the moderating role of product involvement and extends the structural equation tests of the four causal models. A dataset of 169 respondents is used to examine the role of brand image and brand attitude in the context of green advertisements. Consistent with earlier findings, the suggested model provides a good fit of the data and results indicate that positive attitude toward green advertisements, brand image, and attitude toward the brand enhances the chances of consumers’ purchase intention of such brands. The study also verifies that product involvement moderates the positive relationship between attitude toward green advertisements and brand image such that at higher levels of product involvement, attitude toward green advertisements has a stronger effect on brand image.     

Ad Creativity via Augmented Reality Technology in Online Video Ads: the Differential Role of Novelty,Message Usefulness,and Ad-Consumer Association

This study aims to examine the role of ad creativity in YouTube video ads featuring augmented reality (AR) technology. Through an online experiment, we compared people who hold positive preexisting attitudes toward a familiar brand, people who hold negative preexisting attitudes toward a familiar brand, and people who are unfamiliar with a brand in terms of their perceived creativity of a video ad featuring AR technology. Further, we explored the differential effect of three dimensions of ad creativity, namely, message usefulness, ad novelty, and ad-consumer association, on short and long-term brand name recall, short and long-term brand message recall, ad attitudes, and brand attitudes. Results demonstrated that for a familiar brand, people’s perceived creativity of an ad is biased by their preexisting brand attitudes. For an unfamiliar brand, since people do not hold preexisting attitudes toward it, their perceived creativity of an ad for the unfamiliar brand is mostly shaped by their ad evaluations. Moreover, results revealed that the three dimension of ad creativity play different roles in ad effectiveness.     

It is not about what you read,but how you read it: the effects of sequencing rational and emotional messages on corporate and product brand attitudes

The study aims to examine the effects of message sequencing on attitudinal responses, namely on the effects of rational to emotional and emotional to rational message sequences on consumer attitudes toward the corporate and product brand. A between-subjects experiment was conducted using a stratified random sample. Participants were exposed to advertisements that communicate marketing messages either in a rational to emotional sequence or in an emotional to rational sequence for a product advertised by an organization. All attitudinal responses to the corporate and product brand were collected through a questionnaire that was given at the end of the experiment. The findings suggest advertisements that communicate marketing messages in an emotional to rational sequence produced more favorable attitudes toward the product brand among consumers as compared to advertisements that communicate in a rational to emotional sequence. However, no significant differences were found on consumer attitudes toward the corporate brand. These results remain true regardless of gender.