Advertising appeals effectiveness: a systematic literature review

Positive, negative and coactive appeals are used in advertising. The evidence base indicates mixed results making practitioner guidance on optimal advertising appeals difficult. This study aims to identify the most effective advertising appeals and it seeks to synthesize relevant literature up to August 2019. Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses framework a total of 31 studies were identified and analyzed. Emotional appeals, theory utilization, materials, results and quality were examined. Across multiple contexts, results from this review found that positive appeals were more often effective than coactive and negative appeals. Most studies examined fear and humour appeals, reflecting a literature skew towards the two emotional appeals. The Effective Public Health Practice Project framework was applied to assess the quality of the studies and identified that there remains opportunity for improvement in research design of advertising studies. Only one-third of studies utilized theory, signalling the need for more theory testing and application in future research. Scholars should look at increasing methodological strength by drawing more representative samples, establishing strong study designs and valid data collection methods. In the meantime, advertisers are encouraged to employ and test more positive and coactive advertising appeals.

Narrative Messages and the Use of Emotional Appeals on Endometriosis Screening Intention: The Mediating Role of Positive Affect

Endometriosis affects around 10% of women globally, yet the awareness and screening rates for this condition are relatively low. Utilizing an online survey-based experiment with a sample of 18-30-year-old young women (N = 326), this study aimed to investigate the efficacy of narrative messages vs. non-narrative messages for promoting endometriosis screening intention, as well as to evaluate the effectiveness of hope appeal vs. fear appeal in narrative messages. The study also examined the potential mediating mechanisms through self-efficacy and positive affect responses that may help elucidate the effect of emotional appeals on behavioral intentions, while taking into account an individual's readiness to change. Findings indicated that narrative and non-narrative messages did not produce significantly different screening intentions. Compared to the use of fear appeal, the hope appeal in narrative messages predicted a higher level of positive affect responses, which was associated with increased endometriosis screening intentions. Individual difference in readiness to engage in endometriosis screening was not found to be a significant moderator. These results have implications for future research utilizing hope appeals in narrative health messaging. The observed significant mediational pathway through positive affect advances understanding of positive discrete emotions as facilitators to health-related cognition and behavior changes.

Investigating the Effects of Intrinsic Motivation and Emotional Appeals Into the Link Between Organic Appeals Advertisement and Purchase Intention Toward Organic Milk

Consumers care about healthy food. Thus, several firms use organic appeals advertising to change consumer attitudes and persuade them to purchase organic food. Organic appeals advertisement often presents content that provides information and knowledge about organic elements of a food product (e.g., health, safety, a lack of chemicals, and rich nutrition). In contrast, non-organic appeals advertisement does not present information about organic elements of a food product. This study aims to clarify the effect of organic appeals advertisement on consumer motivations and behavior. It uses the stimuli-organism-response model and self-determination motivation theory to investigate the relationship between organic appeals advertisement and purchase intention toward organic milk considering the mediating role of intrinsic motivation and the moderating role of emotional appeals. Two experimental designs are used to test the hypotheses. Results show that consumers receiving organic appeals advertisement have a higher intention to purchase organic milk than those receiving non-organic appeals advertisement. Furthermore, intrinsic motivation is found to have a mediating role in the link between organic appeals advertisement and purchase intention. In other words, when consumers receive advertisements of an organic milk product, they have higher intrinsic motivation and hold higher intention to purchase organic milk products. Furthermore, emotional appeals have a moderating effect on the relationship between organic appeals advertisement and intrinsic motivation. The influence of organic appeals advertisement on intrinsic motivation is stronger when emotional appeals are positive and weaker when emotional appeals are negative.

Social Advertising Effectiveness in Driving Action: A Study of Positive, Negative and Coactive Appeals on Social Media

Background: Social media offers a cost-effective and wide-reaching advertising platform for marketers. Objectively testing the effectiveness of social media advertising remains difficult due to a lack of guiding frameworks and applicable behavioral measures. This study examines advertising appeals’ effectiveness in driving engagement and actions on and beyond social media platforms. Method: In an experiment, positive, negative and coactive ads were shared on social media and promoted for a week. The three ads were controlled in an A/B testing experiment to ensure applicable comparison. Measures used included impressions, likes, shares and clicks following the multi-actor social media engagement framework. Data were extracted using Facebook ads manager and website data. Significance was tested through a series of chi-square tests. Results: The promoted ads reached over 21,000 users. Significant effect was found for appeal type on engagement and behavioral actions. The findings support the use of negative advertising appeals over positive and coactive appeals. Conclusion: Practically, in the charity and environment context, advertisers aiming to drive engagement on social media as well as behavioral actions beyond social media should consider negative advertising appeals. Theoretically, this study demonstrates the value of using the multi-actor social media engagement framework to test advertising appeal effectiveness. Further, this study proposes an extension to evaluate behavioral outcomes.

Young drivers' responses to anti-speeding advertisements: Comparison of self-report and objective measures of persuasive processing and outcomes

OBJECTIVE

Self-report measures are typically used to assess the effectiveness of road safety advertisements. However, psychophysiological measures of persuasive processing (i.e., skin conductance response [SCR]) and objective driving measures of persuasive outcomes (i.e., in-vehicle Global Positioning System [GPS] devices) may provide further insights into the effectiveness of these advertisements. This study aimed to explore the persuasive processing and outcomes of 2 anti-speeding advertisements by incorporating both self-report and objective measures of speeding behavior. In addition, this study aimed to compare the findings derived from these different measurement approaches.

METHODS

Young drivers (N = 20, M age = 21.01 years) viewed either a positive or negative emotion-based anti-speeding television advertisement. While viewing the advertisement, SCR activity was measured to assess ad-evoked arousal responses. The RoadScout GPS device was then installed in participants' vehicles for 1 week to measure on-road speed-related driving behavior. Self-report measures assessed persuasive processing (emotional and arousal responses) and actual driving behavior.

RESULTS

There was general correspondence between the self-report measures of arousal and the SCR and between the self-report measure of actual driving behavior and the objective driving data (as assessed via the GPS devices).

CONCLUSIONS

This study provides insights into how psychophysiological and GPS devices could be used as objective measures in conjunction with self-report measures to further understand the persuasive processes and outcomes of emotion-based anti-speeding advertisements.