J BUSN RES 1992 25 43-58

43

Advertising Appeal and Tone: Implications for Creative Strategy in Television Commercials
Lalita A. Manrai
Unrverscry of Delaware, Newark

V. Carter Broach, Jr.

Unrverscty of Delaware, Newark

Ajay K. Manrai
Unrversrty of Delaware, Newark

This research mvestlgates the relationship between two components of creative strategy m television advertising-message content and message execution-and the resulting appeal and tone of the commercials The empirical findings mdlcate that message content dlscrlmmates rational commercials from emotional commercials and message execution dlscrlmmates posltlve commercials from negative commercials This research further suggests that emotional commercials have more message content than rational commercials and positive commercials have more executlonal elements than negative commercials Imphcatlons for creative strategy design and dlrectlons for future research are discussed

Introduction
Academic and industry researchers both have studled advertising effectiveness Three measures of advertlsmg effectiveness most commonly studied by researchers are ad recall, message comprehension, and persuasion While both academic (Goldberg and Gorn, 1987, Golden and Johnson, 1983, Stewart and Furse, 1984) and industry (Burke, 1978, Leo Burnett as reported m McEwen and Leavltt, 1976, Mapes and Ross as reported m Ogllvy and Raphaelson, 1982, and McCollum/ Spielman, 1976) researchers have been mterested m similar dependent measures, their approaches have been quite different m terms of the methodology and mdependent vanables studied

Address correspondence to Lahta A Manral, Department of Busmess Admmlstratmn, Umverslty of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716 The authors acknowledge the asslstance prowded by Sharon Harmon and Todd Relt m data collectlon This research m part was supported by a research grant from the College of Busmess and Economtcs at the Umverslty of Delaware Journal of Busmess Research 25, 43-58 (1992) Q 1992 Elsewer Science Pubhshmg Co , lnc 655 Avenue of the Americas,, New York, NY 10010 0148-2963/92/$5 00

J BUSN RES 1992 25 43-58

L A Manral

et al

Stewart and Furse (1984) indicate that The path of these two sets of researchers occaslonally cross but, unfortunately not very often Furthermore, they point out that academic researchers have focused pnmanly on how advertlsmg appeals mfluence advertising effectiveness but have paid less attention to executional devices and other elements of creative strategy Industry researchers, on the other hand, have focused pnmanly upon the relatlonshlp between executional aspects of the ads and effectiveness measures In an early review of research on television advertising, Raymond (1976) noted that findings often have been conflicting and unsatisfactory For example, he concluded that shorter and longer commercials were recalled equally well, and that appeals like sex, humor, fear, etc , did not have a consistent effect Stewart and Furse (1984, 1986) note several shortcommgs of academic and mdustry research that partially explain the above findings These shortcommgs include the sample size, research methodology, and focus of the study Academic research design, procedures, and analytic techniques tend to be well conceived and documented but are limited to studying few independent and dependent measures across relatively few product categories with small sample sizes Conversely, Industry research employs a large number of variables, large sample sizes, and a number of product categories but lacks sophlstlcatlon m terms of research methodology Stewart and Furse (1986) note that m industry studies of Burke (1978), McCollum/ Spielman (1976), and Mapes and Ross (as reported m Ogllvy and Raphaelson, 1982), performance measures were standardized wlthm product categories This procedure restricts one from examining the interaction of product category by executlonal variable Furthermore, it may suffer from range restrictions and It also assumes normality of dlstnbutlon within a product category, which may not hold true Finally, academic research has focused on the mdlvldual consumer, whereas industry studies have been mostly conducted with the commercial as the unit of analysis Thus, there IS need to integrate the efforts of academlclans and practitioners One way to integrate these two approaches m adverttsmg research 1s to study how elements of creative strategy are related to advertising appeals and tones Based on published research, as far as we know, practically no work has been done m this area Of late, interest m television advertlsmg research has grown substantially Researchers have studied a variety of topics related to advertising effectlveness such as televlslon program context effects (Goldberg and Gorn, 1987, Pavelchak et al , 1988, Smgh and Churchill, 1987), role of emotion m advertising (Aaker et al , 1986, Blel and Bndgewater, 1990, Edell and Burke, 1987, Holbrook and Batra, 1987), proposltlonal structure of commercial scripts (Thorson and Snyder, 1984), and mvolvement (Gill et al , 1988) However, the relationship between creative strategy components and commercial appeals and tones continues to be an unexplored topic The goal of our research IS to fill m this gap Although the research reported here 1s different from what has been done so far, It 1s very much related to and IS relevant for researchers m both industry and academia This research provides an understanding of the relatlonshlp between creative strategy and appeals/tones This body of knowledge m turn ~111enable the two groups of researchers to better understand advertising effectiveness We begin with definitions and a brief discussion of the three major components

Advertmng Appeal and Tone

J BUSN RES 1992 25 43-58

of this research study Next, we discuss previous research and develop our research hypotheses Then the following sectlons provide the detads of the pretest and the research study, data analysis and results, and dlscusslon and future research

Definitions Creative Strategy Content and execution are the two most common elements of creative strategy (Berkowitz et al , 1989, Gulltman and Schoell, 1988, Kotler and Armstrong, 1991, Zlkmund and DAmlco, 1989) Content deals with mformatlonal and persuaslonal elements of the message, whde execution concerns the way the message ISpresented and the context m which it 1s presented Thus, content may include mformatlon on features and benefits such as quality, style, dependability, economy, service, etc , and also why the product IS worth buying Execution includes the communicator, action, music, songs, situation, etc Content and execution are the most commonly used elements by researchers concerned with creative strategies m production of advertisements For example, Laskey et al (1989) describe creative strategy as what 1s said m an advertisement (1 e , the message content) as well as how it ISsaid (1 e , the message execution) Several other authors also acknowledge content and execution as the key elements of creative strategy (Ray, 1982, Shlmp and Delozler, 1986) Our research IS concerned with the issue of how content and execution relate to commercial appeal and tone The work of Stewart and Furse (1984, 1985, 1986) on content and executlonal factors was reviewed, and the 13 most commonly used items were included m our research for operatlonahzatton of the two components of creative strategy, i e , content and execution These items included action, claims, color, loudness, music, pace, people, scenes, settings, special audio effects, special video effects, theme, and words Content and execution can be described along quantitative and qualitative aspects We define quantitative aspects to include decisions pertaining to the degree of content such as no action versus a lot of action, no music versus a lot of music, no claims versus a lot of claims, etc Quahtatlve aspects on the other hand include decisions such as the type of music (I e , country versus western), music quality, type of claim (1 e , quality appraisal versus comparison to competing brands), uniqueness of claim, etc Our research 1s concerned primarily with the relationship between the quantitative aspects of the creative strategy and commercial appeal and tone However, since both quantitative and quahtatlve aspects influence commercial appeal and tone, it IS important to separate out or control for the influence of quahtatlve aspects while studying the relationship of quantitative aspects with commercial appeal and tone Although it 1s desirable, it may not be practical to mdlvldually measure/mampulate the different quahtattve aspects There are vu-tually an infinite number of combmatlons of different types of music, settings, people, etc We, therefore, propose to match the commercials m terms of the overall Impact their quahtatlve aspects create on viewers This approach will enable us to isolate and study the effect of quantitative aspects on commercial appeal and tone

46

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Manral et al

One such possible measure of viewers overall responses to these quahtatlve aspects of creative strategy could be their mvolvement with the commercial Some of the recent research (Goldberg and Gorn 1987) has measured mvolvement with televlslon programs m order to match the experimental stlmuh In our research, we propose to capture the quahtatlve aspects of content and execution, 1 e , quality of music, uniqueness of claim, etc , by selecting commercials that match m their involvement scores Commercial Appeal An appeal 1s the basic idea that the advertiser wants to communicate to the audience-the basic reason why the audience should act The underlying reason could be rational or emotional m nature Kotler and Armstrong (1991, pp 426-427) define these two types of appeals Rational appeals relate to the audiences self-Interest They show that the product
will produce the desired benefits economy, value or performance Examples are messages showmg a products quahty, and Emotional appeals attempt to stir up negative or posltlve emotions that can motivate purchase These include fear, gudt and shame appeals that get people to do thmgs they should or stop doing thmgs they shouldnt Commumcators also use positive emotional appeals such as love, humor, pride and JOY

An ad may include both rational and emotional elements In some cases, these two elements may be integrated so well that it 1s difficult to separate them The research evidence 1s somewhat mixed on this issue Ross (1983) suggests that commercials may be high (or low) on both rational and emotional aspects But, more recently, Goldberg and Gorn (1987) focus on commercials that stress rational elements over emotional elements and vice versa In line with the more recent research evidence due to Goldberg and Gorn (1987), we also elected to study commercials that stress rational elements over emotional elements and vice versa Commercral Tone

The tone of a commercial refers to the positive or negative orientation of the message (Kotler and Armstrong, 1991) The posmve tone dramatizes the sltuatlons to be gamed through product or service use, while the negative tone dramatizes the sltuatlons to be avoided through product or service use (Cohen, 1988) Both rational and emotional appeals could have posltlve and negative onentatlons Thus, commercials could be classified mto four different categories RatlonalPosltlve, Rational-Negative, Emotional-Positive, and Emotional-Negative All four categories of commercials are used m our study Previous Research and Hypotheses

Advertlsmg theoreticians and practltloners alike have had considerable mterest m explammg how rational versus emotional elements affect viewers One theory potentially relevant to such an explanation is the Elaboration Llkehhood Model of attitude change (Petty, et al , 1983) The Elaboration Llkhhood Model contends

Advertising Appeal and Tone

J BUSN RES 1992 25 43-58

that there are two distinct routes to attitude change One route, called the central route, could be interpreted as viewing attitude change as a predommantly rational procedure Indlvlduals exert the cognitive effort necessary to evaluate issue-relevant arguments about an advocated position, and their attitudes are a function of this mformatlon-processmg activity The other route, called the peripheral route, could be interpreted as viewing attitude change as a predommantly emotional procedure Individuals exert mmlmal cogmtlve effort by making inferences about an advocated position based on cues from the persuasion context, and their attitudes are a function of these positive or negative cues Shlmp (1981) appears to adopt such an interpretation He argues that consumers use two relatively distinct processes when forming attitudes toward ads, one cogmtlve and the other emotional In the cogmtlve, or, rational process, consumers form attitudes toward ads by consciously processmg message content itself In the emotronal process, consumers form attitudes toward ads from the feelings the ad content evokes We, therefore, propose that the content of the message 1s an lmportant determinant of commercial appeal, and hypothesize that H,A Message content dlstmgulshes ratlonal commercials from emotlonal commerclals

The next question to be addressed 1s which of these two types of commercials, 1 e rational versus emotional, contains a larger message content Shlmps (1976) work on methods of commercial presentation employed by national televlslon advertisers provides some insights mto this issue He presents four different categories of creative strategies These include Indlvldual-Oriented, Story-Oriented, Product-Oriented, and Technique-Oriented A comparison of these four categories suggests that the first two categories, 1 e , Indlvldual-Oriented and Story-Oriented, would be used primarily for creating emotional appeals and the last two categories, 1 e , Product-Oriented and Technique-Oriented, would be used primarily for creating rational appeals Shlmp (1976) reports that advertisers of beverages and personal hygiene products primarily used the first two categories, 1 e , emotional appeals, whereas advertisers of automobde and other transportation services used the first three categories, 1 e , used both emotional and rational appeals This may be due to the fact that basic message content for the two product categories 1s substantially different In the case of automobiles, there 1s the posslblhty of substantive message content (L e , product differentiation based on feature and benefit differences) Beverages and personal hygiene products, on the other hand, have relatively less substantive message content and thus may be selling more on emotional grounds We, therefore, hypothesrze that
H,B Rational commercials have a larger message content that emotional commercials

The issue of what role message content and message execution may play m determmmg the tone of the ad also has not been studied so far The tone of an ad seems to describe the valence of the message appeal For example, as negative from positive appeals stated before, Cohen (1988) differentiates as the negative appeal dramatizes the situation to be avoided through the use of the product, while the positive appeal tnes to dramatize the situations to be gamed through the use of the product This emphasis on dramatization

J BUSN RES 1992 25 43-58

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Manral et al

(which may mvolve use of action, music, settings, etc ), suggests that execution style plays a cntlcal and central role m creating the tone of a commercial It IS, therefore, hypothesized that
H,A Execution dlstmgulshes posItwe commercials from negative commercials

Next we address the issue of the extent of dramatlzatlon, 1 e , executlonal elements used m posltlve versus negative commercials Negative commercials have been found to be more attention getting than positive commercials For example, Newhagen and Reeves (1989) found that recogmtlon of visual and audio mformatlon m pohtlcal commercials was quicker and more accurate for negative ads than for positive ones Several theoretical explanations have been offered for such findings One hne of reasoning 1s based on the sleeper effect found m studies of Moore and Hutchmson (1983) and Silk and Vavra (1974) The sleeper effect suggests that negative commercials are likely to stimulate attention and processmg, create brand famlharlty, and thus may increase hkmg of the brand over time Another theoretical explanation m favor of negative commercials 1s the dlstractlon effect Negative commercials are likely to distract and thus may inhibit counterarguing (Moore and Hutchmson, 1983) Thus, the distraction effect may make a negative commercial more attention getting and thus enable it to cut through the clutter or noise better than positive commercials This may suggest that to create the same dlstmctlve effect, posltlve commercials need to use more dramatization than do negative commercials Thus, we hypothesize that
H,B PosItwe commercials have

more executional elements than negative com-

merclals Researchers have also acknowledged that message content and execution may interact m creating advertising effects Wright (1973) suggests that the method of execution may influence the cogmtlve processes of counterargumentation, support arguments and source derogation and, thus, may influence acceptance of the message content Shlmp (1976) also acknowledges the importance of studying content-execution interaction m advertising effectiveness He found that national television advertisers of different product categories varied slgmficantly m then executlonal styles This variance implies that advertisers take into conslderatlon message content when deciding the execution styles and vice versa Shlmp (1976) further suggests that execution style may facilitate or mhlblt a receivers processmg of message content due to differential attention and dlstraction effects Likewise, the execution also could influence information processing due to the mood effects The interactive effect of content and execution on advertising effectiveness has been well documented as discussed above These effects may be mediated by commercial appeal and tone resulting from commercial content and execution Thus, commercials dlffermg m content and execution may differ m their effectlveness because they convey different appeals and tones to the audience Four different categories of commercials were studied m our research Rational-Positive, RatlonalNegative, Emotional-Positive, Emotional-Negative We propose that these categones will be dlscnmmated by commercial content and execution Thus It 1s hypothesized that H, Commercial
content and execution defined by Its appeal and tone Jomtly determine the commercial category

Advertising Appeal and Tone

J BUSN RES 1992 25 43-58

In the next section, we provide details of the pretest conducted four different categones of commercials mentloned above Pretest

to select the

Ninety-six undergraduate busmess students enrolled m a mid-size umverslty on the East Coast participated as a part of the requirement for mtroductory marketing class The native language of all partlclpants was English and most of them were p_unors A total of 80 commercials was pre-tested The participant group size ranged from 9 to 12 and a group of participants was shown 10 commercials Subjects were asked to divide 100 points between the rational appeal and emotional appeal mdlcatmg the relative extent to which these appeals were present m each commercial Sublects also rated each commercial on a 7-point scale ranging from extremely negative to extremely positive Finally, subjects evaluated the commercial on a set of 3, 7-point semantic differential scales, 1 s , Not at all unusual-Extremely interesting, and Not at all releunusual, Not at all interesting-Extremely vant-Extremely relevant The first 2 scales are slmllar to those used by Goldberg and Gorn (1987) to measure mvolvement with the commercials In addition, a third scale Not at all relevant-Extremely relevant was included m view of the growing emphasis by researchers on personal relevancy as a measure of mvolvement (Ceb and Olson, 1988, Zalchkowsky, 1985) The cY-rehablhty of this 3-item scale was 0 79 On the basis of the above data, 4 commerctals were selected that fit the categories of ratlonal-powtlve, rational-negative, emotional-posltlve, and emotional-negative commercials All of these commercials were for servlcesipubhc services and matched m mvolvement scores A brief descrlptlon of these 4 commercials 1s given m Table 1 The mean scores for appeal and tone of the four commercials are given m Table 2 These mean values of appeal and tone were compared pauwlse to check for differences and matches m the groups using t tests Emotional-Positive and Emotlonal-Negative commercials differed slgmficantly on their tone scores but matched on their appeal scores Likewise, the Rational-Positive and Rational-Negative commercials differed slgmficantly on their tone scores but matched on their appeal scores Furthermore, the 2 posltlve commercials differed slgmficantly on their appeal scores but matched on their tone scores Likewise, the 2 negative commercials also differed slgmficantly on their appeal scores but matched on their tone scores The sigmficant test statistics, i e , t values, degrees of freedom, and p values, are also provided m Table 2 The 4 commercials had similar mvolvement scores The average scores generated from the set of 37-point scales were 3 67 (Shearson), 3 85 (AIDS), 3 45 (Prologue), and 2 92 (Medical Malpractice) None of the pauwlse comparisons of mvolvement scores was statlstlcally significant at the 0 05 level Research Study Participants For the mam research study, an addItIona 118 undergraduate busmess students at the same university were recruited as subjects The subjects were randomly assigned

50

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Mama] et al

Table 1. Descnptton

of the Selected Commerctals

Descrlptlon The commercial featured several sltuatlons deplctmg free usage of consumer goods by people m presumably commumst countries A male voice-over described how the firm was takmg a lead m promotmg capltahsm m these unexpected places Background music was used throughout The commercial featured the close-up of a temale face The actress warns that AIDS IS a sexually transmltted disease for which there IS no cure A l-800 telephone number was superlmposed on the screen at the end of the commercial The commercial featured a female telephone operator m front of a computer screen A male voice-over descrtbed the advantages of the referral service The telephone number was prommently featured m the beguuung and end of the commercial The commercial featured an actor who described the consequences of medlcal malpractice Display of surgical tools was used to capture attention The name and telephone number of the law firm were superlmposed on the actor and the surgical tools

Category/Commercial EmotIonal-Positwe Shearson, Lehman, Hutton (an Investment firm)

EmotIonal-Negative PreventIon of AIDS (a pubhc service announcement)

RatIonal-Posltlve Prologue (a physIcIan referral

service)

RatIonal-Negative Medlcal Malpractice (a law firm)

Associates

to 1 of the 4 commercial categories The cell sizes were fairly balanced m terms of males and females Each of the Emotional-Poatlve and Emotional-Negative commercials was seen by 2 different groups of size 30 each, while each of the Rational-Positive and Rational-Negative commercials was seen by 2 different groups of size 29 each Data from two subjects whose native language was not Enghsh was excluded from analysis We were concerned that such subjects might not comprehend the commercial message equally well compared to subjects whose native language was Enghsh One of these excluded subjects saw the ratlonal-posltlve commercial and the other saw the rational-negative commercial Thus for data analysis, group size for ratlonal-posltlve and rational-negative commerclals was 28 each after excluding one subject from each of these categorles The subjects participated m this study as a part of the requirement for mtroductory marketing class The course IS designed to be taken by undergraduate Juniors The age range of the college students m the experiment indicates that most partlclpants probably were Jumors

Adverttsmg Appeal and Tone

Table 2.

J BUSN RES 1992 25 43-58

51

Pre-Test

Mean

Vhes

and

r-Tests for Appeal and Tone

Tone** for Pdlrs* Evs RE+ r-Tests Commerctal vs Efor Patrs** R+ vsR

Appeal
Medo Commercldl Category Rdtlondl Vtllles Emotlondl

(Pcrcentdge) r-Tests Commerndl

IZ+ vs R+

Shedrson E+

39 00

61 00

I =

1
=

-l 20

+I I= DF = p=ow.l

-662 16

2 x0
IX I 78

AIDS E-

37 7x

62 22

DF

p = 0 01

Prologue R+

66 67

33 33

+-I t=

-492

DF = 16 p=ooo
Medlcdl mdlprdctlce 60 77 3Y 23

RAppeal _. Neganve and tone based categones E + , Emouonal PosItwe, E - , EmotIonal Negatwe, R + , RatIonal PosHwe, R - , RatIonal

**7-pomt scale wtb 1 bemg extremely negatwe and 7 bemg extremely posItwe ***Test stattshcs reported here I value, DF = Degrees of Freedom, and p value for each comparison Note, other eompansons, namely E+ vs E- and R+ vs R- for Appeal, and E+ vs R+ and E - vs Rstatlstwzally not ngmticant at p = 0 05

for Tone, were

Age
18 or less 19 20 21 22 or more

Percent

2 5 69 19 5

Operatlonahatlon

of Vanables

Scales similar to those used m the pre-test were used to operatlonahze commercial appeal, tone, and mvolvement As regards operatlonahzatlon of creative strategy, the 13 items mentioned earlier were used, 1 e actlon, claims, color, loudness, music, pace, people, scenes, settings, special audio effects, special video effects, theme, and words These 13 items were measured on 7 point scales ranging from No/Not at all to A lot of/extremely (examples No action at all-A lot of action, Not fast paced at all-Extremely fast paced)

Procedure The participants

were given a bnef mtroductlon to and practice session on the scales to be used and types of questions to be answered In the begmmng of the study, the participants were shown one of the four types of commercials and were

52 Table 3.

J BUSN RES I!392 25 43-S

Manrat

et al

Mdln

Study

Mcdn

Vdhes

dnd f-Tests (Pcrwntdgc)

for Appedi ._

dnd Tone Tone**

Appcdl Mcdn Commcrcidl Cdtcgory* Rdtlondl VdlUC\ Emotlondl

r-Tc\ts

for Pdw\*** Ev\R

Medn

t-Tests for

Commcrcldl

Vdlue\

Commercial

Pairs* * * R+ vsR

E + VI R +

Shcdrwn E+

75 Yt)

64 IO

I = 451 AIDS E72 77

67 63

DF

= 56

p = 0 OtI

1
r= DF

-3x1

c r = DF 1023

Prologue R+

5) 46

40 54

= 56 = 54

p = 0 00

p=OOO
hkdlLdl 60

77

44 2q

mdlprdcticc RAppeal and tone based categones E + , Emotmnal PosItwe. E - , EmotIonal Negatwe, R + , Rattonal Posmve, R - , RatIonal Negative **7-pomt scale wth 1 bemg extremely negatwe and 7 bemg extremely posltwe ***Test statlstlcs reported here f value, DF = Degrees of Freedom, and p value for each comparison Note, other compansons, namely E+ vs E- and R+ vs R- for Appeal, and E + vs R+ and E - vs R- for Tone, were statlstlcally not slgmticant at p = 0 05

asked to evaluate the same usmg a set of 13 scales that described the selected Items of creative strategy discussed earher Partlclpants also completed questlons relating to the appeal and tone of the commercial slmllar to those used m the pretest Questions also were asked to check the mvolvement with the commercials and to obtain demographlc mformatlon Data Analysis and Results Appeals and Tones

Commercial

The mean values for commercial appeal and tone for the 4 commercials are given m Table 3 The mean values of appeal and tone were compared using t tests The results are consistent with our pretest results and confirm that the emotional commercials differed from the ratlonal commercials m appeal but matched m tone Likewise, the posltlve commercials differed from the negative commercials m tone but matched m appeal The significant test statlstlcs, 1 e, t values, DF (Degrees of Freedom) and p values, are also provided m Table 3 Creatrve Strategy Components

The 13 items used to evaluate the creative strategy were factor analyzed Two factors were retained for which the elgenvalues were greater than unity These 2 factors explamed 74 6% of total vanance The factor loading matrix was rotated

Advertmng Appeal and Tone

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using vanmax procedures for ease of interpretation In the rotated factor loading matnx, the items that loaded heavily (loading value 2 0 50) on the first factor were music, color, actlon, loudness, pace, scenes, settings, people, special audio effects, and special visual effects The items that loaded highly on the second factor were words, theme, and claims This pattern of loading 1s consistent with the exlstmg descnptlon of creative strategy The first factor describes the execution aspect of the creative strategy, whereas the second factor describes the content Accordmgly, these two factors were labeled execution and content Two new scales (composite vanables, one for each factor) were constructed using the average score of the Items that leaded heavdy on that factor The rehablhty of these 2 new scales was tested using Cronbachs alpha model The alpha value of the first scale Execution was 0 94 and the alpha value of the second scale, Content, was 0 76

Relatronshlp between Creatwe Strategy and Commercial Appeal and Tone

Empmcal tests of hypotheses H,A, H,B, H,A, H,B, and H, were done via several dlscnmmant analyses and t tests We begm with the presentation of results of the dlscnmmant analyses to test the hypotheses dealing with dlstmctlon of commercial appeals and tones, 1 e , hypotheses H,A, H,A, and H, Then we present results of several t tests relating to the hypotheses dealing with the du-ectlonahty of effects, 1 e. hypotheses H,B and H,B SubJects ratings of commercials on appeal and tone scores were used to determme category membership to be used as dependent variables Their scores on the 2 components of creative strategy, i e , execution and content scales (composite vanables), were used as independent vanables Dlscnmmant analysis 1s particularly suitable here for testing hypotheses H,A, H,A, and H, This 1s because the dependent vanables are categoncal, 1 e , appeal and tone based categones and the independent vanables are Interval scale, 1 e , components of creative strategy The purpose of constructmg dlscnmmant function(s) 1s to answer the question Are the appeal and tone based categories significantly different with respect to their means on the 2 components of creative strategy when these 2 components are considered Jomtly Three different types of dlscnmmant analyses were performed to test hypotheses HIA, H2A, and H, (see Table 4) The first dlscnmmant analysis was done by usmg categories formed on the basis of emotional versus rational commercials as dependent vanables (collapsmg across posltlve and negative tones) and tested hypothesis H,A The second dlscnmmant analysis was done by usmg categories formed on the basis of posltlve versus negative commercials as dependent variables (collapsmg across emotional and ratlonal appeals) and tested hypothesis H,A Hypothesis H, was tested m the third dlscnmmant analysis The appeal and tone scores were combined and four resultmg categones (I e , Rational-Posltlve, Rational-Negative, Emotional-Positive, and Emotional-Negative) were used as dependent vanables Table 4 gives the coefficients and statlstlcal slgmficance of dlscnmmant functions for the three different types of analyses described above In the first dlscnmmant analysis on the two appeal based categones (Emotional versus Rational), the vanable content dlscnmmated the emotlonal commercials

54

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L A Manral et al
Analyses Results Standardized Function Coefficients and
Function 2
Coeff Chl-Sq

Table 4. Summary of Dlscrlmmant Statistlcal Sq@kince

Analysis No Dlscrlmmant Analysis Groups Appeal-2 Categories

Independent Variables Execution

Function 1 Coeff 0 15 5 70 (LO 05) Chl-Sq

Content Execution Tone-2 Categories Content Execution Overall-4 Categones Content

-0

0 96 1 02 84 10 GLO 00) -0 17

1 02 12 06 (LO 00) 18

-005
99 10 (60 1 01 00)

Functmn 2 IS relevant only m the case of 4 group dwxlmmant analysts The chl-square test IS an overall/Jomt test of 2 dwnmmant functions m this case

from rational commercials (standardized dlscnmmant function coefficient 0 96) Thus, hypothesis H,A was supported In the second dlscnmmant analysis on the two tone-based categories (poatlve versus negative), the variable execution dlscnmmated the positive commercials from negative commercials (standardized dlscnmmant function coefficient 1 02) Thus, hypothesis H,A was supported The results of the third dlscnmmant analysis with overall four groups (based on appeal and tone) indicate that both the functions are slgmficant at the 0 05 level Furthermore, function 1, 1s dominated by the variable execution (standardized dlscnmmant function coefficient 1 02), whereas function 2 1sdominated by the varlable content (standardized dlscrlmmant function coefficient 1 01) These results provide support for hypothesis Hj, which predicted that commercial content and execution will Jomtly determine the commercial category defined by its appeal and tone Next, to address the issue of dlrectlonahty as hypothesized m H,B and H,B, we conducted several t tests Group means for variables execution and content were compared across rational versus emotional commercials (collapsmg over posltlve and negative tones) and across posltlve versus negative commercials (collapsing over rational and emotional appeals) Mean values for the variables, content and execution, for the appeal and the tone based categories, and the results of the t tests are summarized m Table 5 As regards the dlrectlonahty predlctlons, hypothesis H,B was supported, but hypothesis H,B was not supported Hypothesis H2B predicted that positive commerclals would have more executlonal elements than negative commercials The mean vail 2s of composite vanable Execution for categones of posltlve and negative commercials were 4 60 and 2 52, respectively Thts difference was highly significant (t (114) = 122 60, p = 0 00) Hypthesls HIB predicted that rational commercials ~111 have more content than emotronal commercials The means were slgmficantly different (t (114) = 5 76, p = 0 02) However, the

Advertising Appeal and Tone

Table 5.

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RES 1992 25 43-S

55

Maln Study Mean Values

and r-Tests for Executton

and Content Content**

Mean Values t-tests for E vs

Execution** Mean Values Categories I-tests for + vs - ***

RI**

Emottonal E

3 62

5 18

Ratlonal R

3 40

4 73

I r=576 DF = 114 p = 004 J

PosItwe +

4 60

+-I

5 01

I = 112ho

DF = II4 p = 0 00 Negattve 2 52 J 4 89

*Category membership based on evaluation of commercAs by SubJects on Emotional vs RatIonal appeal and Posltwe vs Negatw tone l *Exec.utlon and content are composite vanables The mean scores reported are on a 7-pomt scale wth 1 bemg low and 7 bemg %gh ***Test statlstlcs reported here r-values, DF = Degrees of Freedom, and p value for each comparison Note, other compansons namely E vs R for Exe&Ion and + vs - for Content, were statlstlcally not slgmficant at p = 005 mean scores of composite variable Content for category of emotional commerclals was higher (5 18) than that for category of rational commercials (4 73) This result 1s contrary to the prediction that rational commercials will have higher mean scores

Dlscusslon and Future Research

The findings of this study provide insights on the relationship between the elements of creative strategy and the resulting appeal and tone of commercials Two major components of creative strategy were studied m this research, 1 e , content and execution Whde the overall findings on relationship between creative strategy components and commercial appeal and tone are qmte m line with what one would expect, there are some counter-mtmtlve findings that suggest the need for rethinking on creative strategy design For example, content, or the subject matter and choice of words, 1s expected to play a more dominant role m ratlonal commercials than m emotlonal commercials But our findings mdlcate that emotional commercials have more content than rational commercials One possible explanation for this finding could be the relative compatlblhty of verbal and visual components m the 4 commercials The work of Edell and Staehn (1983) suggests that visual elements will act as dlstractors when they differ from the content of the verbal message It IS possible that m the 2 ratlonal commercials, the visual components were less compatible than m the 2 emotional commercials As a result, the dlstractlon effect would have reduced the mformatlon acqulsltlon from the verbal content m the case of ratlonal commercials

56

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This notlon of verbal-visual compatlblhty and the resulting distraction could also possibly explain why content or choice of words did not dlfferentlate positive versus negative commercials but execution did It 1s possible that positive and negative commercials were not as much different along the verbal dimension as they were along the visual dimension This would have made execution more dommant m dlstmgulshmg posltlve versus negative commercials These posslblhtles can be explored m future research, 1 e , m addltlon to lookmg at the content and executlonal elements, we need to study the relative compatlblhty of verbal and visual elements Another posslblhty 1s to study the executlonal elements as tradeoff dlmenslons, 1 e , audio versus visual, verbal versus nonverbal, or as combmatlons such as audloverbal, audio-nonverbal, visual-verbal, and visual-nonverbal The findmg that the executlonal elements, tradltlonally considered to be the context or the background, play a slgmficant role m determining the tone of the commercial suggests that executlonal elements need to be given much more emphasis than received at present Execution IS not only important to attract the audiences attention and retam Interest, but It might as well be that how it IS said 1s more important m generating a positive or negative tone than what 1s said Furthermore, the finding that positive commercials have more executlonal elements than negative commercials suggests that to create a posltlve tone, the creative strategy designer should use more dramatlzatlon, lllustratlon, etc , whereas the negative tone can be generated with relatively less dramattzatlon and illustration An important theoretical issue that the content versus execution dlstmctlon opens up 1s that of hemispheric processing theory This theory asserts that the two hemispheres of the human brain speclahze m processmg different kinds of mformatlon and also process the mformatlon differentially (Hansen, 1981) The left hemisphere speclahzes m the hngulstlc and verbal mformatlon, whereas the nght hemisphere speclahzes m processing plctorlal and nonverbal mformatlon In terms of the processing style, the left hemisphere processes mformatlon m detail whereas the right hemisphere processes mformatlon hohstlcally Proposlttons have also been made relating different emotions to different hemispheres Consldermg the audio, visual, verbal, and nonverbal aspects of creative strategy, it would be interesting to study how the hemlspherlc theory could possibly explain the relatlonshlps between creative strategy, commercial appeals, and tones and the commercial effectiveness measures such as ad recall, comprehenslon, evaluation, and behavioral intention A related topic worth studying would be how difference m cerebral dominance (left versus nght brain dominance) influences information processing Finally, these findings need to be replicated m other settings and across other product categories This 1s the first study of its kmd Consldermg the extensive preparatory work mvolved to select commercials that had the desired characterlstlcs of appeal and tone and that matched m mvolvement and product category, we limited our research to four commercials m the servlces/pubhc services category Future research could replicate this study across a variety of consumer and mdustnal goods, as well as across other settmgs Such rephcatlons should help m generahzatlon of the findmgs to the population of televlslon viewers as a whole In short, there 1s plenty of scope for future research, and the findings of this research should stimulate interest m several related areas

Advertlsmg

Appeal and Tone

J BUSN RES 1992 25 43-58

57

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