INTERCONTINENTAL JOURNAL OF MARKETING RESEARCH REVIEW

ISSN:2321-0346 - ONLINE ISSN:2347-1670 - PRINT -IMPACT FACTOR :0.882

VOLUME 3, ISSUE 7, JULY 2015

A STUDY ON THE IMPACT OF ADVERTISING APPEALS TOWARDS

CONSUMER DECISION MAKING
Dr P. VIDHYAPRIYA 1 Dr M. MOHANASUNDARI 2
1
Associate professor, Department of management studies, Kongu Engineering College.
2
Assistant professor, Department of Management Studies, Kongu Engineering College.

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the impact of advertising appeals on Customer Buying Behaviours
towards selected Fast moving consumer goods (Personal and health Care, Household and cleaning,
Food and beverage and Stationery Items). The study would help the Advertising agencies and FMCG
companies in knowing which type of appeal in advertisement is accepted by the customer and also
find whether the advertisement create positive influence purchase intention or not. This study
confirms that the rational appeal creates significant effect on consumers‟ advertising attitudes when
compared to emotional appeal. It further reveals that rational appeal is a vital influencing factor in the

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decision-making process of customer towards purchase the selected FMCG products

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Keywords: Advertising appeals, Consumer decision making, rational appeal, Emotional appeals,

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Moral appeals, FMCG goods.

INTRODUCTION
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Advertising is one of the key activities for potential business and is equally important as

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producing something using raw material, or as capital, manpower, planning, organizing etc. products

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or services. Publicizing that the business offers to the targeted customers is called advertising which
forms the integral part of marketing, and an essential precondition for selling. Advertising appeals are
designed in a way so as to create a positive image of the individuals who use certain products.

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Belch and Belch (1998) and Schiffman and Kanuk (2007), defines advertising appeal as the

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degree of drawing consumers‟ attention and enhancing their desire to increase their product purchase
intention. Advertising appeal is categorized into rational appeal and emotional appeal (Belch and Chu,
1996)
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Kotler (2003) divided advertising appeal into rational and emotional appeals. Most studies
have focused on the impacts of advertising appeal on attitudes or purchase intentions. Few of them
have compared rational appeal and emotional appeal and have determined which one creates
significant effects on advertising attitude more effectively. This induces the prime motivation for this
study. Most studies have focused on the direct relationship between advertising appeal and purchase
intentions, while few of them have examined the relationship among advertising appeal, advert,
purchase intentions, and attitude simultaneously.

Kotler (1997) pointed out in his study that advertising appeal is the theme of an
advertisement. To make the audience receive a necessary message and create there interests in Ads
advertisers have to put some driving power into the message. This driving power is appeal. Every
advertising appeal represents an attraction, which provoked consumers‟ desires. Advertising appeals
reflect persuasive psychological effects and act as important indices for measuring advertising effects.
FMCG goods and their advertisement are taken for the research objective. FMCG goods are
categorized into 4 main branches such as personal/health care, household/cleaning, food and

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 INTERCONTINENTAL JOURNAL OF MARKETING RESEARCH REVIEW
ISSN:2321-0346 - ONLINE ISSN:2347-1670 - PRINT -IMPACT FACTOR :0.882
VOLUME 3, ISSUE 7, JULY 2015
beverages and stationery items. These goods plays important role in the day to day life of every man,
and their advertisement also plays a vital role in marketing these goods. This research is based on the
advertising appeals in the selected FMCG goods categories, planned to find whether advertising
influence positive intention on purchase of these goods and also investigate which type of appeal is
mostly welcomed by the customers..

LITERATURE REVIEW

Advertising appeal refers to packaging products, services, organizations, or individuals in a

variety of ways that clearly deliver a certain benefit, stimulation, identification or reason to explain
what consumers are thinking about and why they buy products (Kotler, 1991).

Dr.D.Prasanna Kumar & K. VenkateswaraRaju (2013) investigate the impact of advertising

appeals on Customer Buying Behaviour and compare the effectiveness of the different types of
advertising appeals on customer buying behaviour. The results indicate that Advertising appeal has a
significantly positive influence on advertising attitudes. Advertising appeal does not have
significantly positive influence on purchase intention. Emotional advertising appeal is more

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significant than rational appeal.

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Priyanka Shah and Dr.R.K.Balyan (2014) deal with the impact of advertisement appeal and

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media context on consumer response. The study has its foray into personal care product category of
FMCG sector wherein the scope of study was limited to Ahmedabad region. The impact of type of ad

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appeal and media context on the consumer response to advertisement is there, but the impact is low to

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moderate. Varied consumer response is depicted among different socio-economic classes.

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Long-Yi Lin (2011),investigated the impact of advertising appeals and advertising

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spokespersons on advertising attitudes and purchase intentions. And compare the effectiveness of the
influences of different types of advertising appeals and different types of spokespersons on purchase
intentions. A 2*2 factorial experiment design method was adopted. The cell phone industry was

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selected as the research object, and print advertisements were used in the experimental design and
concluded that Advertising appeal has a significantly positive influence on advertising attitudes, and
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rational advertising appeal is more significant than emotional appeal, spokespersons have a

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significantly positive influence on advertising attitudes, and a celebrity spokesperson is more
significant than an expert, advertising attitudes have a significantly positive influence on purchase
intentions.
Muhammad Nabeel (2012) ,analysed by Chi square and Crosstable and establish that the
consumers are highly dependent on advertisements from the aspect of brand preference, purchase
decision and brand recall. The companies show advertisements of their products to influence
consumers towards a brand. Consumer perception of a brand can be in positive or in negative that
depends upon the type of advertising appeal used.

Muhammad Rizwan et al (2013), investigated the role of emotional and rational appeal in
Television advertising attitude. Research showed the practical importance of rational appeal in TV ads
and how people respond towards such appealing attitude of ads.

Anil Mishra (2009) investigates that consumers see the advertisements as a person therefore,
demographic and psychographic traits are very important in developing the advertising appeal.
Advertising appeal affects the level of trust and the kind of relationship that the consumer has with the
product. Advertising appeal helps in positioning the product in the mind of the consumers. As per the

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 INTERCONTINENTAL JOURNAL OF MARKETING RESEARCH REVIEW
ISSN:2321-0346 - ONLINE ISSN:2347-1670 - PRINT -IMPACT FACTOR :0.882
VOLUME 3, ISSUE 7, JULY 2015
finding of the study he advertising appeal works on the whole brain concept as the dimension are
logical as well as emotional.

DATA AND METHODOLOGY

The main aim of this survey is to know about whether advertising attitudes have a
significantly positive influence on purchase intentions on FMCG goods and problems faced by the
improper message in advertisement. The study also aims at finding at which type of appeal is
welcomed by the customer and what features appeal to them the most. Primary data was collected
through questionnaires distributed to 350 respondents. The entire questionnaire received was screened
for errors, incomplete and missing responses. After that, only 330 responses were considered to be a
complete and valid for analysis.

FINDINGS AND RESULTS

Table – 1 Demographical Characteristics of respondents

Name of the Variable Frequency Percentage

Gender
Male 177
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53.6
Female
Age
153
R 46.4

18 to 20 years 59
.O 17.9
21 to 30
31 to 40 years R223
36
67.6
10.9
41 to 50 years R 7 2.1
51 to 60 years
M 5 1.5

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Education Qualification
SSLC 13 3.9
HSC 25 7.6
Graduate
W 113 34.2
Postgraduate
Illiterate W 163
8
49.4
2.4
Others
W Occupation
8 2.4

Business 58 17.6
Government Employee 27 8.2
Pvt Employee 70 21.2
Profession 28 8.5
Housewife 21 6.4
Student 117 35.5
Other 9 2.7
Family Income of the Respondent
Less than 10000 37 11.2
10001 to 20000 90 27.3
20001 to 30000 66 20.0
30001 to 40000 39 11.8
40001 to 50000 48 14.5
More than 50000 50 15.2

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 INTERCONTINENTAL JOURNAL OF MARKETING RESEARCH REVIEW
ISSN:2321-0346 - ONLINE ISSN:2347-1670 - PRINT -IMPACT FACTOR :0.882
VOLUME 3, ISSUE 7, JULY 2015
From table -1 it is inferred that majority of the respondents are male and the most of the
respondents are in the age group of 21 to 30.

Table - 2 Descriptive Statistics for Remembrance of Advertisement

Remembrance of Advertisement Mean Rank

By Celebrity/Endorser 4.00
By Product 4.13
By Concept (Theme) 3.86
By Tagline 3.57
By Music/Songs/Dance 3.61
By Offers 3.51
By Moral message 3.34
By Colours 3.64

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From the above table-2, it is clear that Product has high mean value(4.13) and Moral message
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has low mean value (3.34). Product message will influence the customers to remember the

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advertisement.

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Table-3 Content of the advertisement

Advertisement content R Mean

The ad message is understandable M 4.43
The advertisement is believable
I. C 3.84
The ad's message is relevant to me
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The benefits described in the ad are believable to me.
3.6
3.71
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After viewing this ad, I would consider purchasing the product 3.83

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This ad is much better than other ads for products in this product category 3.85
This ad is consistent with company image 3.73
This ad is creative/interesting 3.8
This ad is informative 3.68
This ad is memorable 3.73

From the table-3, it is clear that advertisements that are understandable have high mean value.
Secondly advertisements having unique concept are welcomed by customers, thirdly advertisement
should be believable. Advertisement relevance to customer, benefits described in advertisement has
very low mean value.

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 INTERCONTINENTAL JOURNAL OF MARKETING RESEARCH REVIEW
ISSN:2321-0346 - ONLINE ISSN:2347-1670 - PRINT -IMPACT FACTOR :0.882
VOLUME 3, ISSUE 7, JULY 2015
Table No- 4 Chi-Square Tests for purchases of FMCG category and message
creative/interesting in Advertisement

Value df Asymp. Sig.

(2-sided)
Pearson Chi-Square 21.368a 12 .045
Likelihood Ratio 24.138 12 .019
Linear-by-Linear
11.204 1 .001
Association
N of Valid Cases 330

It is observed from the above table - 4 that the chi-square value is (21.368) and significance value is
(0.045) which is less than the critical value for this study (p=0.05). There is a significant difference in
purchases of FMCG category and the creativity in the Advertisement. The creativity in advertisement
mainly influencethe buying intention of the customer.

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Table No.5. Chi-Square Tests for Gender and Most important appeal in Advertisement

Value df
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Asymp. Sig.

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(2-sided)
Pearson Chi-Square 18.362a 7 .010
Likelihood Ratio 18.909
R 7 .008
Linear-by-Linear
Association R
.001 1 .979

N of Valid Cases M330

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It is observed from the above table - 5 that the chi-square value is (18.362) and significance
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value is (0.010) which is less than the critical value for this study (p=0.05). There is a significant

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difference gender and appeal message expectation in advertisement

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Table No.6 Chi-Square Tests for appeal and consider purchasing the product

Value df Asymp. Sig.

(2-sided)
Pearson Chi-Square 26.464a 16 .048
Likelihood Ratio 21.430 16 .163
Linear-by-Linear
1.832 1 .176
Association
N of Valid Cases 330

It is observed from the above table- 6 that the chi-square value is (26.464) and significance
value is (0.48) which is less than the critical value for this study (p=0.05). Hence, there is asignificant
difference between appeal and purchasing the product after viewing advertisement

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 INTERCONTINENTAL JOURNAL OF MARKETING RESEARCH REVIEW
ISSN:2321-0346 - ONLINE ISSN:2347-1670 - PRINT -IMPACT FACTOR :0.882
VOLUME 3, ISSUE 7, JULY 2015
SUGGESTION AND CONCLUSION

Advertising appeal has a significantly positive influence on advertising attitudes, and rational
advertising appeal is more significant than emotional appeal, this study also verifies that rational
appeal creates a more significant effect on consumers‟ advertising attitudes, further revealing that
rational appeal is an important factor in the decision-making process for purchase. Majority of the
respondents are viewing advertisement for FMCG products in television, so it has been concluded that
advertising agencies and FMCG companies have to target their audience with different rational
appeals for same product category. It is also suggested to use combination of other appeals for the
effectiveness of the advertisement which leads to success in the competitive world.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anil Mishra (2009), Indian Perspective about Advertising Appeal, International Journal of
Marketing Studies, Vol.1 no.2.

Dens & De Pelsmacker, Consumer response to different advertising appeals for new products:
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DrD.Prasanna Kumar & K. VenkateswaraRaju (2013), The Impact Of Advertising Appeals On

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Customer Buying Behavior, International Journal Of Research In Commerce & Management,

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volume no. 3 (2012), issue no. 11 (November)

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Long-Yi Lin (2011), the impact of advertising appeals and advertising spokespersons on
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Muhammad Nabeel (2012), Effects of advertising appeals on consumer brand perception, Journal
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Muhammad Rizwanetal (2013),The Role of Advertising Appeals, Role of Celebrity & Expert in
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2278-487X, p-ISSN:2319-7668, PP 52-57

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www.icmrr.org 21 icmrrjournal@gmail.com