Brand Loyalty Through Emotional Advertising Media Essay

Many authors have discussed about what is emotional advertising and its importance over rational advertising but very little work has been done on building brand loyalty through emotional advertising. In this paper I will give a theoretical based view of how we can generate brand loyalty through emotional advertising. Plus what are the drivers of emotional appeal and how to achieve emotional satisfaction through advertising and its experience.

Keywords:

Emotional advertising, brand loyalty, drivers of emotional appeal, emotional satisfaction and experience

Introduction

McGuire (1969) argues that there is no difference between emotional appeals and rational appeals in terms of the effectiveness or emotional appeals are more effective. Holbrook and Hirschman (1982) suggested that emotional appeals come from the emotional, experiential side of consumption. Choi and Thorson (1983) found that emotional ads were better than rational ads by most recall measures. Emotional appeals make a brand liked or friendly (Batra and Ray 1985). Where, Kotler and Armstrong (1991, 426-427) define emotional appeal as an: “attempt to stir up either negative or positive emotions that can motivate purchase. These include fear, guilt, surprise and shame appeals that get people to do things they should or stop doing things they shouldn’t. Communicators also use positive emotional appeals such as love, humor, pride, hope and joy.”

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An appeal, according to Manrai et al. (1992), is the basic idea behind an advertisement or the basic reason why an audience should act. Emotional appeals are often strategically employed to influence consumers indirectly and make the consumer feel good about the product (Calder and Gruder 1989) relying on feelings for effectiveness (Aaker et al 1992).

When it comes to changing the message receiver’s beliefs about the advertised brand (Stafford 1993), Emotional appeal ads may have rational appeal components while rational appeal ads can have emotional appeal component respectively. Stafford (1993) suggests that both types of meanings occur in all ads and only case by case does the balance vary. However, Aaker, Stayman and Hagerty (1986) found a positive relationship between the level of warmth created by a commercial and the attitude toward the ad Page, Goldberg and Gorn (1987) also reported more positive reactions for emotional appeal advertisements than for informational appeal advertisements. Thorson and Heide (1990) also found that emotional advertisements may be more effective and memorable than rational advertisements.

One of the most critical concerns advertisers express about television advertising is the potential decline of the persuasive impact on TV spots because of increasing clutters in the media environment. To make advertising appeals more distinctive and hence, perhaps more persuasive, advertisers frequently use dramatic emotional ads messages designed to “shock the emotions and make the brain itch” (Moore 1989)

Such advertising executions often feature high impact, sensually evocative appeals that stimulate strong positive emotions (e.g., the Hallmark greeting card ads dramatizing precious moments and nostalgic memories in life). However, advertisers also employ graphic and sensational negative emotional advertising messages such as those used by insurance companies, healthcare institutions, drug and alcohol abuse clinics, food manufacturers exploiting consumers’ fears of cancer and cardiac diseases (Alsop 1988), and public service agencies making appeals to prevent child abuse or to promote the use of contraceptive devices (LaTour and Pitts 1989).

I have gone through the definitions of emotional advertising from different authors given in different times. Their thoughts and findings are similar somewhat but also vary as the time changes, from these definitions we can get a clear view about emotional advertising and to some extend its importance. Emotional advertising leave a deeper effect and can persuade viewers immensely, but can emotional advertising also develop band loyalty? Very less work is being done from this perspective. I will talk about brand loyalty through emotional advertising and what are the drivers of emotional advertising.

Emotional Advertising

The human spirit is a rich reservoir of powerful emotions; Passion, ambition, vanity, love, desire, fear, hope and much, much more. Emotional advertising arouses these emotions to get our attention, to touch us more deeply and to persuade us more effectively. Emotional advertising discovers how a product truly fits into a person’s life and how it satisfies an emotional need. When that truth is revealed and understood, it becomes possible to create a more honest, relevant and lasting relationship between the consumer and the product. Ideas and the executions that are conceived and created to awaken, stir and stimulate emotional responses produce advertising that is new, unexpected and audacious, advertising that is most persuasive and provides the greatest return on investment.

Emotional Advertising drivers

“Emotions matter because if we do not have them, nothing else would matter” (Elster 1999)

To make an ad impactful one should be very careful while choosing the drivers because these drivers are the soul of the ad, only wisely chosen drivers can make an ad generate brand loyalty through its experience. In my opinion the basic drivers of emotional appeal are given as under:

Figure shows Drivers of Emotional Appeal

Brand Loyalty through Emotional Advertising

Basic purpose of emotional advertising is to engage more and more viewers into the ad and ultimately influence them to buy the product. As we know that marketing’s basic function is to target the need of people while emotional appeal aim the hidden feelings behind that need, and then eventually through this we can create brand loyalty.

Figure 2 shows brand loyalty through emotional advertising

Emotional Satisfaction through Advertising and Experience

Future belongs to emotional advertisement. Most of the advertisers try to find out those minor points which were never taken out before, they seek to create something new which is not new and they try to explore that side of emotions that have yet not being tested. The best strategy is to blend emotional appeal with rationale appeal, but in this more percentage is of emotional appeal and less is of rationale appeal. As we have discussed earlier that emotional appeal is to target the hidden emotion of the viewer and then relate it with the advertised product.

Emotion is very important is advertising, here we take an example of Dove. When dove started is Campaign for Real Beauty theme is 2004. Prior to this time, the brand communicated largely rationale benefits, such as its moisturizing properties and mildness. It mainly used testimonial-style advertising, but, with little sense of uniqueness, vibrant or conceiving personality, its growth was limited. The Campaign Real Beauty aimed to build the brand at an emotional level by conveying a more self-governing, independent, natural and iconic vision of beauty. In doing so, Dove made women who were tired of trying to live up to the idealized and unachievable standards shown by other brands.

Almost overnight, Dove changed from being dull and inactive into a highly distinctive and admired brand with a resulting huge uplift in sales across its entire range and finally it paid off in the shape of growth of its brand loyalty.

Future Research