Name: Bhavani Singh Rathore

Roll No: 141206

TITLE: RESPONSE TO ADVERTISING APPEALS: A

GENDER BASE STUDY

Authors: Pragya Keshari and Sangeeta Jain

Publication: Journal of Marketing and Communication

January April 2014

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CONSUMER RESPONE TO ADVERTISING APPEALS: A GENDER BASED STUDY

Literature

Advertising is a used by marketer to grab the attention, effect the behavior of the
consumer and motivate them to purchase advertised product or service. As
advertisement is an important part of marketing, it is also expensive and an
effective advertisement strategy can help in success of an organization. Therefore
advertisers are always concerned to know how advertising affects consumer
behavior, and how it works, in order to formulate an effective advertisement
strategy.
Consumer response is how individuals react
to a drive or cue, how they behave -constitutes their response. There are various
models which explain the response of consumer to advertisements. Cognitive
response model is based on cognitive response and assumes that consumer
preferences are not changed by advertising and that consumers decision are only
rational. The second model is pure affect model which focuses on affective
responses, the familiarity and feeling advertisements can evoke.
Advertisement appeal refers to the approach used
to attract the attention of consumer and influence their feeling towards product
service or cause. It is normally categorized in as emotional and rational appeal.
While emotional appeal is an attempt to stir up positive or negative emotion that
can motivate purchase, rational appeal contains fact about the product, its tries to
appeal by relating to audience self-interest and showing that the product will give
desired benefits.

Objectives of the Study:

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CONSUMER RESPONE TO ADVERTISING APPEALS: A GENDER BASED STUDY

To compare the response of consumers to rational and emotional appeal

advertising.

To compare the response of male and female consumers to rational appeal

advertising.

To compare the response of male and female consumers to emotional

appeal advertising.

Methodology:

THE STUDY The study is descriptive in nature undertaken to compare the response
of consumers towards rational and emotional advertising appeals. The study also aims
to explore how male and female consumers respond to the advertisements showcasing
the two appeals.

THE SAMPLE The sample of the study was drawn on random basis from males
and females of different age-groups of Indore and Ujjain city of Madhya Pradesh. The
total sample size was 348, with break-up of 180 males and 168 females. Non
probability judgment sampling was used to select sample from the population.

TOOLS FOR DATA COLLECTION The primary data required for the purpose of
study was collected through a self-designed instrument with 35 items/statements. Five
point scale ranging from strongly agree (5) to strongly disagree (1) were used to
collect response. The respondents are asked to go through three sets of rational

advertisements and then answer the 35 statements. The same procedure was repeated
after showing another three sets of advertisement containing emotional appeal.

DATA ANALYSIS The data collected was analyzed using independent sample ttest and paired sample t-test.

Summary:

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CONSUMER RESPONE TO ADVERTISING APPEALS: A GENDER BASED STUDY

Advertisement affects consumers daily lives, informing them about products and
services and influencing their attitude, beliefs and ultimately their purchase.
Advertisement is an important part of marketing mix under promotion mix and an
effective advertisement strategy can affect the behavior and motivate consumer to
purchase advertised products or service. How advertisement affect consumer
behavior is been of interest to many researchers since decades. Many researchers
have been trying to find out which creative appeal or advertising strategy work best
in developing positive attitude and motivating consumers to purchase advertised
product.
This study is descriptive in nature and is undertaken to understand the
consumer response to two advertising appeals i.e. emotional and rational appeal.
This study also aims to analyze and compare the response of male and female
consumers to these two advertising appeals.
The result of the study indicates that there is a
difference in the way consumer respond to rational and emotional advertisement
appeal. Rational appeal has positive impact on response of consumers as compared
to emotional appeal. Rational appeal provide logical reason to consumer to purchase
advertised product or service. Example advertisement message showing product
quality, economy, value or performance contain rational appeal. Since it provides
factual content it is more credible and results in positive beliefs. While rational
appeal motivates consumer by information and logical arguments, emotional appeal
focuses on familiarity, feelings and emotions trigged by the advertisement to
motivate purchase of the product or services.
Some previous researches suggest that appeal that generate emotional response
results in more positive reaction, higher level of recall and generate greater

September 6, 2014

CONSUMER RESPONE TO ADVERTISING APPEALS: A GENDER BASED STUDY

consumer involvement as compared to rational appeal. Ruiz and Sicilia (2004) in

their research shows that individual with high cognitive need respond better to
rational appeal advertisement and people with high affective needs respond better
to emotional appeal.
As against many past research which concluded that male and
female respond differently to emotional and rational appeal advertising, the result

of the present study does not show any significant difference in response of both the
genders to emotional and rational appeal and advertising.
The result of the study have implication for marketing
managers, advertising managers, and organizations as it provides information
about which appeal is more effective in generating positive response. This Study
can help them reduce advertisement expenditure in effective campaigns and design
an effective advertisement strategy that can change the behavior of consumers,
develop positive attitude and motivate them to purchase the advertised product or
service.

September 6, 2014