A Study of Consumer Attitudes towards Advertising Appeals Used in Television Commercials

Abstract

The purpose of the present research is to study consumer attitudes towards various advertising appeals and to examine the relationship between these attitudes and a set of antecedents, namely consumer demographics, consumer judgements about and feeling from the advertisements, consumer personality traits, consumer decision-making styles, attitude towards the brand before ad exposure, and purchase intention before ad exposure. newlinePrimary data for this study was collected in five phases using five sets of samples. The respondents targeted for the purpose of the study were aged between 21 and 60 years, and with household income between Rs 3.5 lakh p.a. and Rs 18.5 lakh p.a. Based on the TAM data available, four out of the top ten most advertised product categories cars, smartphones, life insurance, and cellular service were covered by this study. Four of the samples comprising 327, 310, 319 and 302 respondents respectively, were exposed to two television commercials in one product category each one with mainly rational appeal and the other with mainly emotional appeal and the responses were collected with the help of a questionnaire. The responses related to the respondentsand#8223; judgements about and feelings from the commercials, their attitude towards the advertising appeals used in the commercials, and their attitude towards the advertised brand. Data on respondent demographics, personality traits, and decision-making styles was also collected. In the case of the fifth sample comprising 297 respondents, two television commercials, each with a social dimensional appeal (appeal based on a social cause), were shown to the respondents and data were collected using the same questionnaire. The data was analysed with the help of SPSS using statistical tools such as t test, analysis of variance, Pearson correlation analysis, and multiple regression analysis. newlineFindings of the study confirm that there is a relationship between the respondentsand#8223; judgements about the advertisement and their attitude towards the advertising ...