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ADVERTISING: Articulating the Message
LESSON 6
Message Appeals
A message appeal refers to the approach
used to influence consumers’ attitude
toward the product, service, or cause.
Hundreds of different appeals can be used as the basis
for advertising messages. We concentrate on five broad
appeals:
Rational appeals, emotional appeals, fear appeals,
humour appeals and combined rational and emotional
appeals
1. Rational Appeals
Focus on the consumer’s practical, functional, or utilitarian need for the
product or service and emphasize features of a product or service and/or the
benefits or reasons for owning or using a particular brand
2. Emotional Appeals
Relate to the customer’s social and/or psychological needs for purchasing a
product or service
3. Fear Appeals
Used by ads to evoke this emotional response of fear and arouse individuals
to take steps to remove the threat
4. Humour Appeals
To attract and hold consumers’ attention
5. Combined Rational and
Emotional Appeals
1. Rational Appeals
-Feature appeals:
Focus on the dominant
traits of the product or
service
-Comparative appeals:
Directly or indirectly names
a competitor(s) in an ad and
compares one or more
specific attributes
1. Rational Appeals
-Favourable price
appeals:
Makes the best price
offer the dominant point
of the message
-News appeals:
Some type of news
announcement about the
product, service, or
company dominates the
ad
1. Rational Appeals
-Product/service popularity appeals:
Stress the popularity of a product or
service by pointing out the number of
consumers who use the brand, the
number who have switched to it , the
number of experts who recommend it
and/or its leadership position in the
market (E.g. #1 dermatologist
approved acne cream)
-Reminder appeal (also seasonal):
Builds brand awareness and/or keeps
the brand name in front of consumers
and sometimes specific products
especially for a season
2. Emotional Appeals
 Bases for emotional appeals:
 Personal states or feelings
 Social-based feelings
 Emotional integration (defn)
 Brand associations
3. Fear Appeals
 Relationship between fear levels and
messages acceptance (persuasion)
 Four cognitive appraisal processes that
mediate the individual’s response to the
threat
4. Humour Appeals
 Best remembered of all advertising messages
and most talked about (“Did you see the
commercial about the...?”)
 Disadvantage: Not every product or service
lends itself to a humorous approach
5. Combined Rational Appeals
and Emotional Appeals
 Consumer purchase decision often based on
both appeals
 Emotional bonding technique
 Teaser advertising: (defn + picture or
example)
Extra: Source Characteristics
 Source: the person involved in
communicating a marketing message either
directly or indirectly
 Direct source: (defn)
 Indirect source: (defn)
Source Characteristics
 Credibility: (defn)
 Internalization: (defn)
 Spokespeople: (defn)
 Endorsements: (defn)
 Sleeper effect: (defn)
 Attractiveness: (defn)
 Similarity: (defn)
 Familiarity: (defn)
 Likability: (defn)