Welcome to the Emotion and Advertising
Web Site!
by Jorge Villegas
The ad that you just saw is from Benetton, one of the most aggressive and savvy marketers in the world. Its ads are famous, or infamous, because of its use of emotionally loaded images. Other companies that use an emotional approach are Kodak, Coca Cola and AT&T.
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Advertising Age
Other examples of the use of emotion are easy to pinpoint in the next set of slogans:
| Let's play the old and always interesting: Can you guess the brand?
Now compare them with the next set of slogans:
What are the differences between both sets? Would you agree that the second set appeals to the rational side of a person? Send me an email with your thoughts: jvillega@uts.cc.utexas.edu |
The objective of this web site is to explore the use of emotion in the advertising world. This theme is relevant because a consumer may experience a strong emotional response to a product or service creating the set up for a high effort decision making or in other words, the consumer use central-route processing (Hoyer and MacInnis 1997). For example, if a couple is going to get married, selecting a honeymoon destination is quite an emotional roller coaster. At least in my case!
Products that are bought with a low effort decision making, or peripheral route processing, can also use emotional appeals to increase the involvement of the consumer (Hoyer and MacInnis 1997). For example, in my childhood I periodically went to bookstores with my father, so I have fond memories of some bookstores. Now, If I see an advertisement that shows emotional images of a father and son at a nice bookstore, believe me I am going to buy books there.
Therefore, at all levels of involvement, the use of an emotional approach in advertisements is one of the main tools of the trade.
In a similar view of advertising theory, Plummer and Holman (1981) believe that the traditional hierarchy learning model, or AIDA (Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action), is wrong in its strong emphasis in the cognitive elements. These authors consider that an emotional response is at least as important as the cognitive response, because between them there is an interconnection so relevant that "an emotional response must precede cognitive storage or long-term memory" (Plummer and Holman 1981 p. 2).
If you are interested in exploring the topic of emotion and advertising, you have the following options: