International Journal of Management Studies, Business & Entrepreneurship Research

ISSN: 2545-5893(Print) 2545-5877 (Online)

Volume 4, Number 4, December 2019
http://www.casirmediapublishing.com

EFFECT OF EMOTIONAL APPEAL USED IN TELEVISION

ADVERTISEMENTS ON PURCHASE DECISION OF CONSUMER: A
LITERATURE REVIEW

Bitrus Fulani Kwajaffa & Stephen Pembi

Department of Marketing, University of Maiduguri, Borno State, Nigeria
Department of Business Administration, Adamawa State University, Mubi-Nigeria
E-mail: stephenpembi@gmail.com

ABSTRACT
Advertisement is an important tool to introduce brand to people and television is one of the major source of
which can differentiate one brand to the others. Previously, advertisers were only focusing on the utility
features of the product but now the scenario has changed. Advertisers are pinpointing and using the
emotions of the local public in their TV commercials. This review majorly focuses on emotional appeals
used in TV commercials and its effect on the consumers’ buying decision. Literature review has been done
from various journals, published papers and information collected from various sources which contributed to
the work.
Key word: Advertisements, Appeal, Emotional, Consumer, Decision

INTRODUCTION
In this age of globalization, competition has become a regular feature. Today, the markets
have become a battleground and one has to strive hard for their survival and growth. To
survive in the highly competitive market, companies have to take advantage of advertising
and other sales promotional techniques in crating the differentiation among the product of
competitive brands. In the present scenario, there are number of companies who are
offering almost similar products like soaps, biscuits, oral care and cosmetics. So
marketing mix help in selecting the product and the brands. Marketing mix has four
subsets that s, product, price, place and promotion. Advertising is a component of
promotional mix, which is used to create awareness about product, persuading the
customers to choose a particular brand and help in taking purchase decisions. The major
aim of advertising is to impact on buying behaviour. However, this impact about brand is
changed or frequently strengthens peoples’ memories. Memories about the brand consist
of those associations that are related to brand name in consumer mind. These brand
cognitions influence consideration, evaluation and finally purchases (Romaniuk & sharp,
2008).

Advertising appeal is defined as suppliers’ application of a psychologically motivating

power to arouse consumers’ desire and action for buying while sending broadcasting
signals to change receivers’ concepts of the product. Hence, advertising appeal is applied
to attract the consumers’ attention, to change the consumers’ concept of the product and
to affect them emotionally about a specific product or services (Schiffman & Kanuk, 2007).
Previously, advertising focuses on the rational appeal, where advertiser focuses on the
product or services benefits or features like quality, prices, durability and value. But
because of competition, this type of appeal hardly makes any differences among the
competitive products. So, for creating the brand and symbolic image for the product in the

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 International Journal of Management Studies, Business & Entrepreneurship Research
ISSN: 2545-5893(Print) 2545-5877 (Online)
Volume 4, Number 4, December 2019
http://www.casirmediapublishing.com

market, emotional appeal is being used by the advertiser. This type of advertising appeal
will help in making a deep impact on the memory of the consumer and they will remember
the advertisement more than the advertisement in which rational appeal is being used.

The idea that positive and negative emotions are having a relationship with consumer
decision making toward advertising goes back at least to the Lavide and Steiner model but
in their model, the role of emotion is limited to “liking and preference”. The model also
reflects the thinking of the time when emotion was assumed to be post-cognitive, a
function not a determinant of thinking (Schachter & Singer, 2015). Hence, fast moving
consumer goods (FMCGs) sectors are also taking the advantage and using the emotions
like love, happiness, sadness in advertisement which help the advertisers in attracting,
penetrating and influencing the consumer purchase decision. It was found that youth are
more sensitive to emotion toward advertisement. Though, companies successfully
assigned the role of emotional types on student’s decision making and the researcher
examined the relationship among brand, youth and education (Klein, 2012). This study will
try to reveal how emotional appeal which affects the consumer behavior towards the
products like food and beverages, household items and personal care products.

Researches related to Emotional Appeal and Consumer Behaviour

Ahmed, Sarfraz; Ahmad, Ageel, Nisar, Qasaim, Ali, Azeem & Muhammad (2017)
conducted a study on “Does advertising influence consumer’s brand preferences and
consumer’s buying behaviour in Malaysia” where they collected the responses from 250
respondents with the use of questionnaire and they analysed the effect of advertisement
on brand preferences. The result of their finding shows that television advertisement
plays a positive role in creating brand preference in the mind of customers. Majorly
advertisements which are using emotion help to create the brand preference among the
consumers. Giehlito, Cammayo & Dulin (2016) carried out a research on impact of
advertising on consumer behavior. Their study revealed that the respondents considered
emotional appeal, promotional adverting, facts and statistics, bribe and unfinished
advertisement as the top sources of information which affect their buying decision and the
least source considered is endorsements by celebrities.

Srivastava (2016) conducted an empirical study on understanding the influence of

emotional and humour brand advertisements on consumer’s behavior towards brands and
their purchase behavior of brands. The study utilizes primary sources of data involving
202 respondents within the age-group of 18-55 years. They are shown a combination of 6
advertisements, which consisted of 3 emotional and 3 humorous advertisements of
FMCG sector. The conclusion of the study was emotional advertisement compared to a
humorous advertisement is more effective measured in terms of brand image, likeability,
purchase intentions and brand recall as per present study. This study gives an insight on
impact of emotional and humour advertisement on likeability, brand recall and purchase
intention.

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 International Journal of Management Studies, Business & Entrepreneurship Research
ISSN: 2545-5893(Print) 2545-5877 (Online)
Volume 4, Number 4, December 2019
http://www.casirmediapublishing.com

Gupta, Sukhmami & Mohir (2016) carried out a study on how television advertisement
played a role in transforming the lifestyle of rural consumers. A survey was conducted
where data was collected from 400 respondents’ household who have TV sets. Those
respondents were aged between 25-44 years where their major occupation was farming.
These respondents agreed that TV advertisement were the driving forces that make them
yearn for improvement in lifestyle. The study also revealed that advertising appeal help in
changing the lifestyle of the rural people because emotional advertising appeal help them
to mould and change their attitude towards the products.

Farooq, Shafique; Khurshid & Ahmad (2015) also proposed that comic factor in the field of
advertisement through TV advertisement affects the interest, attention, desire and
actions of the consumer which leads to change in the buying behavior of the consumer due
to the TV commercials. Bisht (2013) revealed from her study that there is a positive
relationship between TV advertisement and purchase decision of youth, since they are
more informational conscious as they give emotional response to the advertisement rather
than environmental response. The study also reveals that TV advertisement also leads to
trial purchase. Muhammed (2012) conducted a study on emotional appeal advertisement
from the aspect of brand preference, purchase decision and brand recall where he uses chi-
square in conducting the analysis and the result show that companies show
advertisements of their product to influence consumer towards a brand. Consumer
perception of a brand can be in positive or in negative that depends upon the types of
advertising appeal used.

Kumari (2012) conducted the study on “changing purchase behavior of Indian customers”
which resulted in the way Indian consumers are spending their money on various items
has changed in recent years. With the ever-increasing penetration of internet and social
media, the purchasing behavior of Indian consumers has change dramatically.
Urbanisation is taking place in India at a dramatic pace and is influencing the lifestyle
and buying behavior of the consumers. The present study is based on the perceptions,
buying behavior and satisfaction of the consumers in Indian market. The Indian
consumers are noted for the high degree of value orientation. India has a lucrative market
even though the per capita income in India is low and it remains a huge market, even for
costly products. Consumer behaviour is complex and very often not considered rational.
The recent trends which are found in the Indian market are celebrity influence, online
shopping, freebies and popularity of eco-friendly products. The buying process involves
brand beliefs formed by passive learning, followed by purchase behavior which may or may
not be followed by evaluation. Visual symbols and images are important because they can
be remembered easily and associated with the brand. Advertisement campaigns should
include high repetition of short duration messages. Television is usually more effective
than print media because it is a low-involvement medium suitable for passive learning.
Marketers can try to convert low-involvement products into higher involvement ones by
linking them to some involving issues. Consumers undertake variety seeking buying
behavior in situations characterized by low consumer involvement but significant
perceived brand differences. In such cases, consumers often do a lot of brand switching.

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 International Journal of Management Studies, Business & Entrepreneurship Research
ISSN: 2545-5893(Print) 2545-5877 (Online)
Volume 4, Number 4, December 2019
http://www.casirmediapublishing.com

Brand switching occurs for the sake of variety rather than because of dissatisfaction.
Challenger firms will encourage variety seeking by offering lower prices, special deals,
coupons, free samples and advertising that presents reasons for trying something new.

Anwar (2012) conducted a study on “young consumer’s attitude towards television

advertisements in the internet age” in which 50 respondents age group of 18-24 years were
taken. For the analysis, mean, standard deviation and percentage method was used for
analyzing the data. The study revealed that despite the growth of internet usage among
young consumers, television advertisement is still the medium with most exposure
compared to other traditional and non-conventional mediums. It was also seen that brand
awareness and brand recall is considered to be the most important propose that a TV
advertisement serves. Another important fact that came was humour appeal
advertisement which is preferred the most, followed by the advertisement portraying
luxurious appeal by young consumers. It was also found that advertisement
endorsements by film celebrities and sports personalities are most preferred by the
respondents. Advertisement portraying experts endorsing the products in TV are less
preferred and the analysis further reveals that young consumers possess overall favourable
attitude towards television advertisements and its role in impacting their buying
behaviour.

Saad (2011) conducted a research on the emotional appeal and its effect on the brand
loyalty of the customers towards the product. He studied the beauty products like dove
and seen that after using the emotional appeal in the TV advertisements, people were
more attached to the product and become brand loyal. Zain-ul-abideen & Salman Saleem
(2011) carried out a study on ‘effective advertising and its influence on consumer buying
behaviour. They concluded the research in Islamabad”. They came to know that
emotional response plays a pivotal role in establishing strong association with the
consumer buying behaviour. They conducted the research in Islamabad, Rawalpindi and
Lahore and they compared both emotional advertising and environmental responses.
They concluded that buyers are getting more affected by the advertisements which were
crating the emotions with the help of audio, video and appeal which makes them to buy
the product.

Ashaduzzaman & Asif-ur-rahman (2011) conducted a study on “impact of television

advertisement on buying pattern of women in Dhaka city” which found that television
advertising plays an important role on changing the consumer behaviour and also provides
new patterns for purchasing or using any type of goods and services, it is the most
convenient way to reach the female consumers because they are more deployed by
advertisement promises that the product will give them something special for satisfaction.
The paper aims to assess the impact of television advertisement on purchasing decision of
women for acquiring goods and services. Their study was based on a survey of 460
randomly selected women from three places, which is Dhanmandi, Jhigatola and circular
Road of Dhanmondi area in Dhaka city. The results revealed that advertisements play a
vigorous role in familiarizing a new product in the family list and taking right decision

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 International Journal of Management Studies, Business & Entrepreneurship Research
ISSN: 2545-5893(Print) 2545-5877 (Online)
Volume 4, Number 4, December 2019
http://www.casirmediapublishing.com

during shopping. 74.3% of the respondents after watching TV advertisement want to buy
the new product introduced in the market and 66.3% are of the negative opinion.

Bishnu, Vinod & Sharma (2009) carried out a study on “the impact of TV advertising on
buying behavior: a comparative study of urban and rural teenagers” which aims to
establish whether the residential background of consumers has a varying influence on their
buying decisions due to the influence of TV advertising. The study was conducted on 866
teenagers of Haryana (431 males and 435 females) of which 440 were rural and 426 were
urban. The data was analysed by applying percentages, means and ANOVA. The
study suggests that rural teenagers like television advertising more than their urban
counterparts. TV advertising has enhanced their involvement in product selection and
purchase, they prefer to buy TV advertised products and it is helpful in buying the new
products. The urban teenagers do not buy TV advertised products if they do not require
those brands. They also like the advertisements of the products that they are using and
believe that products are as good as expected from TV advertisements. Male teenagers’
buying behavior is more influenced by television advertisement than their female
counterparts.

Kotwal, Gupta & Davis (2008) studied the impact of TV advertisement on buying
pattern of adolescent girls. They found out that advertisement played a vital role in
introducing a new product in the family list and making better choice during shopping.
The girls’ utilized pocket money received every month for shopping. The adolescent girls
are influenced by TV advertisement and when they purchase clothing, they were guided
by fashion, friends and boutiques. The respondents preferred to buy branded and
standardized product which are more advertised on television. Varaprasdreedy (2006) in
his study “role of advertising in creating brand personality” says that brand personality
being potent tool needs to be leveraged to achieve key objectives for existing and new
brands. Consistency is also important, failing which dilution of brand personality or
absence of it may occur. Other mix elements like distribution, pricing, promotion and
packaging (apart from advertising) should support and strengthen brand personality.

CONCLUSION
All the studies are related with emotional appeals which depict that emotional appeal
used in TV commercials that affect the consumer buying behaviour. The studies also
enlighten the fact that emotional appeal plays a significant role in creating the preference
and brand image of the products in the market. The study reveals that youngster and
women are mostly affected by the emotional TV advertisement. It was also seen that
humour appeal are most common appeal which are used in TV commercials which connect
with the viewers. Finally, it can be concluded that if emotions are used in the proper
manner in TV advertisement, it can help in increasing brand loyalty and brand recall
which will help the marketers to make their base in the market.

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Volume 4, Number 4, December 2019
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ISSN: 2545-5893(Print) 2545-5877 (Online)
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http://www.casirmediapublishing.com

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