Zhang 2014

European Journal of Marketing
Be rational or be emotional: advertising appeals, service types, and consumer responses:

Hongxia Zhang Jin Sun Fang Liu John Gordon Knight
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Hongxia Zhang Jin Sun Fang Liu John Gordon Knight , (2014),"Be rational or be emotional: advertising appeals, service
types, and consumer responses", European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 48 Iss 11/12 pp. -
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Nancy D. Albers#Miller, Marla Royne Stafford, (1999),"An international analysis of emotional and rational appeals in services
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Nancy D. Albers#Miller, Marla Royne Stafford, (1999),"International services advertising: an examination of variation in
appeal use for experiential and utilitarian services", Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 13 Iss 4/5 pp. 390-406
Anna S. Mattila, (1999),"Do emotional appeals work for services?", International Journal of Service Industry Management,
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Be rational or be emotional: advertising appeals, service types,
and consumer responses
INTRODUCTION
Service businesses continue to grow in importance in the world economy. A good
understanding of services advertising is critical in order to enhance this growth and the viability
of both new and established service firms (Stafford, Stafford and Day, 2002). Some studies have
examined advertising effectiveness from the rational and emotional perspectives (e.g., Johar and
Sirgy, 1991; Stafford, 2005). Rational appeals in services advertising involve detailed information
or compelling and logical arguments (e.g., a Subway advertisement emphasizes a sandwich’s
healthy ingredients). In contrast, emotional appeals in services advertising aim to stimulate
consumers’ emotional responses (e.g., a Hallmark greeting card ad dramatizes a person’s precious
moments in life) (Moore, Harris and Chen, 1995). Although researchers have tried to explore the
effects of ad cues on cognition or intention, prior empirical research relating to the advertising of
different types of services is rather limited (Grove, Pickett and LaBand, 1995; Stafford, 2005). In
particular, the literature is disjointed and fragmented, resulting in a lack of understanding relating
to the differential impact of emotional and rational appeals on advertising effectiveness for
different types of services.
Related to the development of this research, another contribution is the location of the
study within a classification of services context which few prior studies explore. A useful way to
characterize services is in terms of their experience or credence attributes (Ostrom and Iacobucci,
1
1995). Experience services are those that can be evaluated by actually availing oneself of the
service (e.g., hotels), whereas credence services are difficult to evaluate even with experience –
they have to be taken largely on faith (e.g., surgery). Managerially important questions arise. First,
how should advertising appeals (e.g., emotional and rational) be matched with different types of
services? Also, does the match have any significant influence on consumers’ evaluations of the
advertised service? A good understanding of the relationship between advertising appeals and
types of services will be important to service advertisers and marketers.
The current research was conducted in China, which represents the largest emerging
market for services. As many international firms are targeting China for provision of diverse
types of services, it is of great importance that advertisers develop a good understanding of
Chinese consumers’ responses to different kinds of advertising appeals.
To recap, we have conducted three studies to illuminate the relative effectiveness of
emotional versus rational appeals in services advertising. Study 1 provides initial evidence in
terms of the interaction effect of service type and appeal type on ad attitude and consumer
purchasing attention. Study 2 extends research findings from Study 1 by looking at different
sub-categories underneath the experience and credence services, different advertising appeals,
and another two important advertising effectiveness measures (i.e., brand trust and brand attitude).
Study 3 explores the moderating influence of a personality trait, on the interaction effect of
advertising appeal and service type. If Studies 1 and 2 established the interaction effect between
advertising appeal and service type, would the interaction be influenced by individual traits?
Study 3 was designed to examine the moderating effect of affect intensity, a stable and important
2
individual trait that refers to the strength with which individuals experience both positive and
negative emotions (Larsen and Diener, 1987). These three integrated studies should help
marketers and advertisers gain better understanding of the relationship between advertising
appeal and service type.
LITERATURE REVIEW
ADVERTISING AND MESSAGE APPEALS
Among the benefits consumers perceive from advertising, utilitarian (or functional) and
emotional benefits are identified as the two most important ones (Shimp and Andrews, 2013).
Utilitarian benefits are often linked to the consumer’s basic motivation levels, such as his/her
physiological, informational and safety needs, which involve a desire for problem solving or
avoidance (Maslow, 1970). One of the major utilitarian benefits that a consumer seeks from
advertising is information (Shimp and Adrews, 2013). In addition to utilitarian benefits,
advertising also provides emotional benefits, which refer to the aesthetic, pleasurable and hedonic
benefits that ads can provide (Cutler and Javalgi, 1993). Emotional benefits usually relate to
consumers’ underlying needs for stimulation, personal expression, social approval and
self-esteem (Cutler and Javalgi, 1993).
Providing the benefits that consumers seek from advertisements, advertising has
developed two important message appeal strategies: rational (or functional) and emotional
appeals. Stafford and Day (1995) defined rational appeal as a straightforward presentation of
3
factual information, characterized by objectivity. Johar and Sirgy (1991) stated that rational
appeal often focuses on the product’s utilitarian benefits. Examples include messages showing a
product’s superior quality, economy, value, performance and reliability. Emotional appeal, on the
other hand, associates with emotions and feelings, such as adventure, fear, romance and status
(Cutler and Javalgi, 1993). Emotional appeals attempt to stir up either positive emotions (e.g.,
love, pride, humor, joy) or negative ones (e.g., fear, guilt) that can motivate a particular purchase.
APPEAL STRATEGIES AND SERVICE TYPES
Previous literature on message appeal strategies has focused on physical products and
only a limited number of studies have looked into the effectiveness of both rational and emotional
advertising appeals on services. As there is a wide range of services, one of the widely adopted
ways to classify services is in terms of their experience or credence (or utilitarian) attributes (Keh
and Pang, 2010; Sun, Keh, and Lee, 2012). Experience attributes are those that require actual
experience of the service to be evaluated; and credence attributes are those that cannot be
evaluated even with experience—they have to be taken on faith (Simmons, Thomas, and Truong,
2010; Sun, Keh, and Lee, 2012). Examples of experience services include hotels, fast-food
restaurants, and hair salons, whereas credence services include tax consultant, psychotherapy,
physicians, legal and financial investments (Ostrom and Iacobucci, 1995). It may be sometimes
difficult to differentiate experience and credence services; however, it is generally accepted that
credence services (such as legal or medical service) are more difficult to verify than experience
services because they hardly possess any information cues or specified standards by which
4
consumers can evaluate the actual service outcome (Sun, Keh, and Lee, 2012). Relative to
experience services, credence services are often associated with lower levels of pre-purchase
knowledge and higher perceived risks, which in turn prompt greater information search efforts
(Keh and Pang, 2010; Mitra, Reiss and Capella, 1999; Stafford, 1996; Sun, Keh, and Lee, 2012).
With regards to advertising research, the findings are contradictory. Grove, LaBand, and
Pickett (1995) found that services advertisers appeared to use more rational appeals than do
product advertisers. Abernethy and Gray (1997) demonstrated that service marketers included
more information in radio commercials so as to concretize service offerings in consumers’ minds
and lower risk perceptions. In contrast, Cutler and Javalgi (1993) reported that emotional appeals
are seen more often in service advertising. Mattila (1999) revealed that emotional appeals helped
create favorable attitudes towards service brands in novice consumers with little personal
experience of a given service. These inconsistent results may be due to the fact that the studies
were conducted in different countries as well as among different service categories.
Using content analysis of 379 experience service ads and 173 credence service ads
appearing in Israeli print media, Liebermann and Flint-Goor (1996) found that emotional appeals
were more dominant than rational appeals for credence services, but rational appeals were
dominant for experience services. Contradictory findings were reported by Albers- Miller and
Stafford (1999). Their analysis of 498 financial service ads and 452 travel service ads pooled
from eleven countries concluded that rational appeals are more prominent in financial service
advertising, and emotional appeals are more prominent in travel service advertising. As credence
properties are more dominant in financial services, while experience properties are more
5
dominant in travel services, their findings implied that credence services advertising tended to be
dominated by rational appeals while advertisements for experience services tended to be
dominated by emotional appeals. Through content analysis of ads submitted for the UK
Advertising Effectiveness Awards, Mortimer (2008) advocates (p.110) that “practitioners should
consider the use of emotional appeals both for utilitarian and experiential services.”
In contrast to these content analysis-based studies, Stafford (1996) used an experimental

approach to compare the impact of verbal and tangible cues across experience and credence
service offerings. She found that verbal and tangible cues had a positive effect on re-purchase
intentions in an experience service setting (i.e. a luxury hotel) but had no significant effect in a
credence setting (i.e. an auto repair service). Employing a between-subjects experimental design,
Hill et al. (2004) concluded that individuals are more attentive and motivated to process factual
information when the experience service offering provides hedonic value (such as travel agents)
rather than purely utilitarian value (such as banks).
In view of the conflicting findings reported above, it is clear that more comprehensive
research is needed in order to understand the complexities of the interaction between advertising
appeal and service types on consumer responses. Despite the development of the services market,
the services advertising literature has lagged behind and there is still much to be done on this
topic (Stafford et al., 2011). Drawing on the advertising appeal literature, we propose another
regard in which credence and experience services should differ – the effectiveness of using
emotional vs. rational appeals for these two types of services. More specifically, our view is that
an emotional appeal should be more effective when consumers evaluate experience services,
6
while a rational appeal should be more persuasive when consumers evaluate credence services.
We also investigate the moderating role of affect intensity, an important individual trait, in the
relative effectiveness of rational and emotional appeals for the different services.
STUDY 1
Considerable research suggests that customers’ motivation and ability to process the
information from ads influence their responsiveness to marketing communications (e.g., Shimp
and Andrews, 2013). As consumers may lack confidence in their ability to evaluate the quality of
a credence service (Murray and Schlacter, 1990), the purchase of a credence service is considered
riskier than the purchase of an experience service (Ostrom and Iacobucci, 1995; Mitra et al.,
1999). Previous research implies that both rational and emotional appeals can be effective in
service advertising, but their persuasiveness varies by context (e.g., Liebermann and Flint-Goor,
1996; Stafford, 2005). Given the important distinctions between experience and credence services
in terms of consumers’ ability and confidence in evaluating the quality of services, it is important
to test whether different types of advertising appeals will fit different types of services.
Relative to experience services, credence services are associated with higher levels of
perceived risk arising from lower levels of pre-purchase knowledge, which then incites greater
effort in searching for information (Mitra, Reiss and Capella, 1999). Stafford and Day (1995)
posit that rational (or informative) advertising appeals may help reduce some of the uncertainty
often associated with the purchase of services. Specifically, when facing high uncertainty,
consumers are more motivated to process the arguments in the ads as a way of reducing the
7
associated purchase risks. Then, if the ads for a credence service are to be persuasive, they need
to provide compelling rationales to reduce consumer purchase risks as well as providing a
credible reason to buy the credence service. Compared with credence services, experience
services are associated with high levels of pre-purchase knowledge and less information search
efforts (Iacobucci and Ostrom, 1996). Under such conditions, emotional ads, which rarely convey
factual information, are more effective among well-informed customers (Chandy et al., 2001).
Furthermore, emotion-laden ads may be more user-oriented, and therefore, more capable of
stimulating well-informed consumers to be aware of the benefits of personal usage and
motivating them to choose the product. Thus, it is reasonable to posit that the type of service can
determine the relative efficacy of rational and emotional advertising appeals. Accordingly, we
hypothesize that:
H1: There is a significant interaction effect between service type and advertising appeal
type on ad attitude.
H1a: The use of emotional appeals in experience services advertising results in more
favorable ad attitude than the use of rational appeals.
H1b: The use of rational appeals in credence services advertising results in more
favorable ad attitude than the use of emotional appeals.
type on purchase intention.
H2a: The use of emotional appeals in experience services advertising results in higher
purchasing intention than the use of rational appeals.

8
H2b: The use of rational appeals in credence services advertising results in higher
purchasing intention than the use of emotional appeals.
Method
Country Selection. China was selected as the country for this research because it is the
largest emerging market for most products and services. There has been a growing interest in the
advertising market in China (Liu, Cheng, and Li, 2009); however, most previous studies focused
on products while service advertising has been largely ignored. Since international services firms
(e.g., banking, medical service, and hotels) are increasingly targeting China, it is of great
importance that advertisers develop a good understanding of Chinese consumers’ responses to
different types of appeal strategies used in services advertising.
Stimulus and Pretest. Thirty-two undergraduate students from a key university in northern
China participated in the first pretest to classify eight services (e.g., restaurant, hospital, hotel,
psychotherapy, airline, dental service, hair salon and financial investment) into experience and
credence types. Almost 81% of the participants classified a restaurant as an experience service,
while 78% categorized a dental service as a credence service, consistent with the findings of
Ostrom and Iacobucci (1995). Thus, Study 1 adopted restaurants and dental service to represent
experience and credence service, respectively.
Ads included in this study were designed by professionals. To control for any pre-existing
knowledge and attitudes, we used a fictitious brand name for the restaurant. The same fictitious
brand name was adopted for the dental service to avoid any impact of brand names. “Enjoyment”
was used as a theme (or executional framework) for emotional appeal as it has been widely
9
adopted for experience services such as restaurants (Shimp and Andrews, 2013). Thus, the
restaurant ad with an emotional appeal included a customer and a waiter in a nice restaurant
setting with a slogan at the bottom of the ad saying “Dining in xxx Restaurant is an enjoyment.”
“Quality” was one of the widely adopted themes for a rational appeal and hence, the rational
appeal ad portrayed an enlarged dish and a chef with a slogan saying “xxx Restaurant is
recommended to you by the experts for its quality service.” “Pain relief” is often used in China as
an emotional theme for credence services such as a dental service. Thus, the dental service ad
with an emotional appeal included a patient and a dentist with the slogan saying that “xxx Dental
Service helps you keep the pain far away.” The rational appeal ad for the dental service also
adopted a “quality” theme, showing an image of advanced dental equipment and a dentist saying
“xxx Dental Service is recommended to you by the experts for its quality service.”
We invited 23 participants to complete a pretest to ensure the emotional ad could be
distinguished from the rational ad, as well as ensuring equivalence in the overall communicability
between the emotional and rational ads. The second pretest ensured that any differences in the
service evaluations between the rational ad and emotional ad were indeed due to the different
advertising appeals used, not the idiosyncratic characteristics (e.g., attractiveness or ease of
understanding) of the ads.
Experimental Design. Service type (restaurant vs. dentist) and advertising appeal
(emotional appeal vs. rational appeal) were varied as between-subjects factors. The experimental
design is a 2 (service type: restaurant vs. dentist) × 2 (advertising appeal: emotional appeal vs.
rational appeal) between-subjects design. The dependent variables are consumer attitude towards
the ad and purchase intention. A total of 137 undergraduate students (mean age = 21.97; 77
females, i.e. 56%) from a major university in northern China took part in this study and were
randomly assigned to the experimental conditions.

10
Procedure. Participants were given a booklet explaining that they were participating in a
study about services. They were instructed to imagine themselves in a real-life situation when
reading the printed materials presented to them. Inside the booklet, color printed ads were
constructed for each service type in identical formats. The participants were randomly assigned to
one experimental condition and only saw one type of ad. After subjects finished reading the ad,
they completed a questionnaire containing several scales on which they indicated their responses
to the ad and the service, as well as indicating how familiar they were with the restaurant/dentist
service. Finally, they responded to some demographic questions.
The scale for attitude towards the ad was adapted from Yi (1990) which has four 7-point
bipolar items (i.e., bad/good, uninteresting/interesting, dislike/like and not irritating/irritating).
Purchase intentions towards the advertised brand were assessed on three 7-point scales (i.e.,
unlikely/likely, impossible/possible, improbable/probable) (Yi, 1990). To confirm that our
manipulations of advertising appeal were successful, participants indicated on a scale of 1 to 7 (1
= strongly disagree; 7 = strongly agree) the extent to which they agreed with the following two
statements: “This advertisement has a very strong appeal to my emotions;” and “This
advertisement contained a lot of rational information.” The ad’s communication effectiveness and
the ease of understanding it were identified as factors that potentially affected participants’
responses, and these two aspects were rated using 7-point scales (i.e., ineffective/very effective
for the communication; and very difficult/very easy to understand).
Results
Manipulation Check. As expected, participants provided higher emotional ratings in the
emotional appeal condition than in the rational appeal condition (restaurant: Memotion = 4.76 vs.
Mration = 3.76; F (1, 72) = 7.10, p <.01; dentist: Memotion = 5.00 vs. Mration = 4.18; F(1, 61) = 5.33, p
11
< .05), and higher rational ratings for rational appeal (restaurant: Mration = 4.43 vs. Memotion = 3.54 ;
F(1, 72) = 6.78, p < .05; dentist: Mration = 4.39 vs. Memotion = 3.14 vs.; F (1, 61) = 13.66, p < .001).
In addition, the ease of understanding ratings for the rational and emotional conditions showed no
significant differences (restaurant: Memotion = 4.57 vs. Mration = 4.84; F (1, 72) = .52, p > .10;
dentist: Memotion = 4.29 vs. Mration = 4.71; F (1, 61) = 1.71, p > .10). Therefore, the manipulations
for this experiment were successful.
Ad Attitude. Confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to test the constructs included
in this study. All of the four items of ad attitude loaded as a single factor for the tested two
service types with high reliability score (restaurant: α = .88; dentist: α = .83). A 2 (experience vs.
credence services) x 2 (emotional vs. rational appeal) ANOVA analysis found a significant
interaction effect between advertising appeal and service type (F (1, 133) = 55.47, p < .001).
Subsequent planned contrasts revealed that in the restaurant condition, the attitude toward the
emotional ad was greater than for the rational ad (Memotion = 3.97 vs. Mration = 2.78; F (1, 72) =
28.87, p < .001); thus, H1a was supported. In addition, the attitude toward the dentist ad in the
rational appeal condition was significantly higher than towards the ad in the emotional appeal
condition (Mration = 4.62 vs. Memotion = 3.36; F (1, 61) = 26.77, p < .001), which provided support
for H1b. The detailed results are shown in Figure 1. Since H1a and H1b were both supported,
Hypothesis 1 that there is a significant interaction effect between service type and advertising
appeal type on ad attitude was supported.
________________________
Insert Figure 1 about here
________________________
Purchase Intention. The three items of the purchase intention measure also loaded as a
12
single factor for both tested brands with a good level of reliability (restaurant: α = .89; dentist: α
= .83). The purchase likelihood ratings were analyzed in a 2 × 2 ANOVA. Results revealed a
significant interaction effect between service type and advertising appeal (F (1, 133) = 70.73, p
< .001), as shown in Figure 2. Planned contrast analysis demonstrated that, as expected, the mean
purchase intention for the restaurant in the emotional appeal condition was significantly higher
than that in the rational advertising condition (Memotion = 4.32 vs. Mration = 3.07; F (1, 72) = 31.08,
p < .001). Thus, H2a was supported. Results showed a reverse pattern in the dentist condition.
Participants indicated greater purchase intention in the rational advertising condition (Mration =
5.04 vs. Memotion = 3.44; F (1, 61) = 39.24, p <.001). Thus, H2b was also supported. Since H2a
and H2b were both supported, Hypothesis 2 that there is a significant interaction effect between
service type and advertising appeal type on purchase intention was supported.
________________________
________________________
Discussion
Results from Study 1 show that participants preferred the restaurant when it was
advertised with an emotional appeal, and preferred the dental service when it was advertised with
a rational appeal. This finding provides preliminary support for our hypotheses that people
perceive an emotional appeal as more effective than a rational appeal when processing an
experience service ad, but perceived a rational appeal as more effective when processing a
13
credence service ad.
STUDY 2
One objective of Study 2 is to examine whether the findings of Study 1 can be extended
to other service sub-categories. Another objective of Study 2 is to test whether the theme of the
rational or emotional appeal has any influence on the relationships between service type and
appeal strategy. Therefore, Study 2 adopted different themes from Study 1. For example, Study 2
adopted “reliability”, another widely adopted theme as a rational appeal for airlines, and “love”, a
theme that is also often adopted as an emotional appeal for airlines.
Furthermore, Study 2 applied another two important advertising effectiveness measures
(i.e., brand trust and brand attitude) to seek convergence for the match between advertising
appeal and service type. Brand trust is an important brand concept which has been increasingly
adopted in advertising research. It refers to consumer confidence in a brand’s reliability and
intentions in a risky situation (Delgado-Balleste, Munuera-Aleman, and Yague-Guillen, 2003).
Brand trust is particularly important for new brands, thus advertising for new brands often
includes brand trust as an effective measurement (Shimp and Andrews, 2013). Past research
reveals that brand trust is highly related to brand attitude or brand purchase intention (e.g., Zboja
and Voorhees, 2006). Despite its importance, brand trust has not been well explored in the context
of services advertising. Another measure included in Study 2 is brand attitude, referring to a
consumer’s overall evaluation of a brand, which has been widely regarded as a key measure of
advertising effectiveness. As Shimp and Andrews (2013) stated, one of the most important
advertising functions is to help consumers develop a positive attitude towards the advertised
brand.
14
The design and procedure of Study 2 were similar to those of Study 1, with a few changes.
For example, the airline ad with an emotional appeal included a young couple looking outside the
window of the airplane with a slogan saying “Fly with xxx Airline and enjoy a trip with someone
that you love”. The rational appeal ad for airlines portrayed an airplane and world map with a
slogan saying “xxx Airline offers you the most reliable service”. A similar principle has been
applied to the design of rational and emotional appeal for the hospital service.
We pretested all advertisements following similar procedures as in Study 1, to ensure the

overall equivalence for attractiveness and ease of understanding for different ads. The focus of
Study 2 is on the differentiating effects of both rational and emotional appeals on brand trust and
brand attitude based on the following two hypotheses:
type on brand trust.
H3a: The use of emotional appeals in experience service advertising results in more
favorable brand trust than the use of rational appeals.
H3b: The use of rational appeals in credence service advertising results in more
favorable brand trust than the use of emotional appeals.
type on brand attitude.
H4a: The use of emotional appeals in experience service advertising results in more
favorable brand attitude than the use of rational appeals.
H4b: The use of rational appeals in credence service advertising results in more
favorable brand attitude than the use of emotional appeals.

15
Method
Experimental Design. The experiment was a 2 (service type: experience vs. credence) × 2
(advertising appeal: emotional vs. rational) between-subjects design. A total of 84 MBA students
from a key university in northern China (mean age = 29.67; 40 females) were randomly assigned
to each of the experimental conditions.
Procedure. The procedure was similar to that used in Study 1, except for the dependent
measures. Participants indicated their level of brand trust using a three-item, 7-point scale
(trustworthy, competent, and honest), adapted from Sirdeshmukh, Singh and Sabol (2002).
Participants were also asked to rate their attitudes towards the advertised service brand using a
four-item, 7-point scale (bad-good, unsatisfactory-satisfactory, dislike-like,
unfavorable-favorable), adapted from Bakir, Blodgett and Rose (2008). Participants then
completed the manipulation check measurements as in Study 1.
Results
Manipulation Check. Participants gave a higher emotional rating in the emotional
condition than in the rational condition (airline: Memotion = 5.67 vs. Mration = 3.76; F (1, 40) = 16.84,
p < .001; hospital: Memotion = 5.86 vs. Mration = 4.67; F (1, 40) = 7.91, p < .01). The reverse is true
for the rational rating.
Brand Trust. The three items in the measurement of brand trust loaded as a single factor
in both brands with satisfactory reliability scores (αairline = .76, αhospital = .78). As predicted, the
service type × appeal type interaction was significant (F (1, 80) = 7.65, p < .01; see Figure 3).
16
Subsequent analyses showed that participants in the experience service condition perceived the
airline to be more trustworthy in the emotional appeal condition than in the rational advertising
condition (Memotion = 4.68 vs. Mration = 4.11; F(1, 40) = 4.15, p < .05). In contrast, participants in
the credence service condition perceived the hospital to be marginally more trustworthy in the
rational appeal condition (Mration = 4.71 vs. Memotion = 4.13; F (1, 40) = 3.57, p = .06). Since H3a
and H3b were both supported, Hypothesis 3 was supported.

________________________
________________________
Brand Attitude. All of the four items of brand attitude were loaded as a single factor with
good reliability scores for both brands (αairline = .83, αhospital = .88). The results of a 2 (service type:
experience vs. credence) × 2 (advertising appeal: rational vs. emotional appeals) ANOVA showed
a significant two-way interaction between service type and advertising appeal (F (1, 80) = 12.54,
p < .001; see Figure 4). As predicted by H4a and Hb, subsequent planned contrasts showed that
participants evaluated the airline brand more favorably in the emotional appeal condition than the
same brand in the rational condition (Memotion = 5.06 vs. Mration = 4.13; F (1, 40) = 8.58, p < .01),
whereas the subjects had a marginally more favorable attitude towards the hospital under the
rational advertising condition (Memotion = 4.48 vs. Mration = 5.14; F (1, 40) = 4.33, p < .05). Thus,
Hypothesis 4 was supported.
________________________
________________________
17
Discussion
The results of Study 2 provide further support for the conclusion that the type of service
(experience vs. credence) influences the effectiveness of rational and emotional appeals when
respondents process brand information and form key brand-related concepts (such as brand trust
and brand attitude). Participants perceive the service to be more trustworthy in the emotional
appeal condition than in the rational appeal condition when evaluating experience services,
resulting in more favorable brand attitude in the emotional advertising condition. In contrast, they
trust the credence service more in the rational appeal condition, thus developing more favorable
attitude towards the brand in the rational advertising condition. Furthermore, rational advertising
provides factual reasons to buy a particular service and decreases consumer uncertainties; while
emotional advertisements are designed to shock consumer emotions and seldom contain concrete
service attributes. This finding appears to be in contrast with Stafford and Day’s (1995) study on
US consumers, which may indicate cultural differences in consumer evaluations of service
advertising.
STUDY 3
Advertising studies have provided support for the linkage between individual differences
in personality traits and attitude formation (Haugtvedt, Petty and Cacioppo, 1992; Moore et al.,
1995). For example, Haugtvedt et al. (1992) show that need for cognition influences attitude
formation through the process of differentiating strong from weak arguments underlying the
message. The existing literature has shown that individuals differ widely in the intensity of their
emotional responses to affect-laden stimuli (e.g., Larsen and Diener, 1987). If individuals
18
experience emotions with greater magnitude of intensity when exposed to an emotion-laden
stimulus, they should also favor emotional appeals more. This study adopted an important
individual trait called “Affect Intensity” that refers to individual differences in the strength with
which people experience their emotions, regardless of the valence of these emotions (Larsen and
Diener, 1987). People with high affect intensity, compared to those who have low affect intensity,
may consistently experience their emotions with greater strength when exposed to emotionally
provocative stimuli. High intensity individuals may also be more easily persuaded by emotionally
charged advertising appeals than are low intensity individuals.
Conversely, when the ad is non-emotional in nature, we expect no significant differences
in consumer responses reported by high versus low intensity individuals. Given these
relationships, a two-way interaction between affect intensity and ad appeal is expected to occur,
showing a significant polarization of responses by high versus low affect intensity respondents in
the emotional ad condition, and no significant differences in responses in the rational ad
condition. Specifically, high affect intensity consumers’ attitudes toward the service in the
emotional appeal condition are more favorable than low affect intensity consumers. There should
be no significant differences in consumer responses between high and low affect intensity
subjects in the rational ad appeal condition. Thus, we only hypothesize the effect of affect
intensity in the emotional appeal condition.
H5: There is a significant interaction effect between a subject’s affect intensity and
advertising appeal type on the subject’s emotional responses.
H5a: When evaluating an experience service ad that uses an emotional appeal, subjects
of high affect intensity will demonstrate more favorable emotional responses than those
with low affect intensity.
H5b: When evaluating a credence service ad that uses an emotional appeal, subjects of
19
high affect intensity will demonstrate more favorable emotional responses than those
with low affect intensity.
H6: There is a significant interaction effect between a subject’s affect intensity and
advertising appeal type on the subject’s brand attitude.
H6a: When evaluating an experience service ad that uses an emotional appeal, subjects
of high affect intensity will demonstrate more favorable brand attitude than those with
low affect intensity.

H6b: When evaluating a credence service ad that uses an emotional appeal, subjects of
high affect intensity will demonstrate more favorable brand attitude than those with low
affect intensity.
Larsen and Diener (1987) reported a direct relationship between affect intensity (an
individual trait) and emotional responses. Furthermore, a respondent’s attitude formation is often
directly influenced by the emotion he or she has experienced (Moore et al., 1995). Because high
affect intensity individuals respond with stronger emotional reactivity than their low intensity
counterparts, it may also be plausible to speculate that high affect intensity individuals tend to
rely more on their emotions as inputs to attitude formation. As a consequence, the effect of
emotional responses on attitude should be stronger for high affect intensity respondents than for
low affect intensity respondents irrespective of the service type. Thus, the emotional response is
the underlying mechanism through which affect intensity influences attitude formation. Since
affect intensity manifests itself only in response to an emotional stimulus (Larsen and Diener,
1987), we examine whether affect intensity has any influence on ad-induced emotional responses
and brand attitude when subjects are exposed to the emotional ad condition.
H7: Emotional responses mediate the relationship between affect intensity and brand
20
attitude in the emotional appeal condition.
Method
Experimental Design. The experiment was a 2 (service type: airline vs. hospital) × 2
(advertising appeal: rational vs. emotional appeals) × 2 (affect intensity: high vs. low)
between-subjects design. The advertising stimuli used were the same as in Study 2. One hundred
and seventy undergraduates (55% female, mean age = 22.16) from a major university participated
in this experiment and were randomly assigned to the experimental conditions.
Participants and Procedure. In the first stage of the study, 350 participants were recruited
from a key university in Northern China. The original Affect Intensity Measurements (AIM) were
measured on a 40-item, six-point scale (Larsen and Diener, 1987). Items on the AIM scale are
designed to capture the intensity of both positive and negative emotional experiences. High and
low affect intensity groups were determined by upper and lower quartile splits. The lower quartile
group in the current study consisted of 86 subjects with scores ranging from 89 to 142. The upper
quartile consisted of 87 subjects with scores between 171 to 220.
For the second phase of the study, the high- and low- intensity groups were invited to
participate in an experiment similar to Studies 1 and 2. A total of 170 participants participated in
the experiment. Subjects were presented with different advertisements of the two service types
and asked to report their emotional responses and brand attitudes. The measurement of emotional
responses was selected from a list of positive emotional objectives from the literature
(Chowdhury, Olsen and Pracejus, 2008). Using 7-point scales, participants indicated the strength
of their emotional reactions to the ad. The list of emotions included: feeling good, happy, relaxed,
positive, cheerful, content, touched and interested. Brand attitude was measured using the same
scale adopted in Study 2 (Bakir et al., 2008). Finally, the subjects responded to miscellaneous
21
measures including the manipulation check questions to ascertain the extent to which subjects
perceived the two versions of the target ad to be emotional versus rational.
Results and Discussion
Manipulation Check. Data analysis showed that participants agreed that, in comparison
with the rational ad, the emotional ad appealed more strongly to their emotions (airline: Memotion =
4.84 vs. Mration = 2.72; F (1, 84) = 53.05, p < .001; hospital: Memotion = 5.02 vs. Mration = 3.43; F (1,
82) = 19.81, p < .001), and was less information oriented (airline: Memotion = 3.88 vs. Mration = 5.79;
F (1, 84) = 33.94, p < .001; hospital: Memotion = 3.71 vs. Mration = 5.40; F (1, 82) = 22.92, p < .001).
Emotional Responses. All the items of the emotional response measurement produced a
single factor for both brands with high levels of reliability (αairline = .93, αhospital = .92). With
emotional responses as the dependent variable, the results revealed significant affect intensity ×
advertising appeal interaction (airline: F (1, 82) = 4.21, p < .05; hospital: F (1, 80) = 5.68, p < .03;
see Figures 5 and 6). When exposed to the emotional appeal, high affect intensity individuals
responded with significantly stronger emotions than low intensity participants (airline: Mhigh =
4.60, Mlow = 3.41; F (1, 41) = 7.56, p < .01; hospital: Mhigh = 4.55, Mlow = 3.63; F (1, 40) = 5.62, p
= .05) for both the airline and hospital brand. Thus, Hypothesis 5 that there is a significant
interaction effect between the respondent’s affect intensity and advertising appeal type on
emotional responses was supported. As expected, irrespective of the service type, there was no
significant difference in the intensity of the emotional responses exhibited by high versus low
affect intensity individuals when both groups were exposed to the rational ad (airline: Mhigh =
3.95, Mlow = 3.92; F (1, 40) < 1, p > .90; hospital: Mhigh = 4.12, Mlow = 4.51; F (1, 40) = 1.00,
p > .10). It is evident that high affect intensity individuals experienced stronger emotional
reactions only when exposed to the emotional ad.

22
________________________
Insert Figures 5 and 6 about here
________________________
Brand Attitude. The items of brand attitude loaded as a single factor for both brands with
satisfactory reliability scores (αairline = .73, αhospital= .95). The results of a 2 × 2 ANOVA (affect
intensity: low vs. high × advertising appeal: rational vs. emotional) showed a significant
interaction effect between affect intensity and advertising appeal for both service types (airline: F
(1, 82) = 4.97, p < .05; hospital: F (1, 80) = 4.70, p < .05; see Figures 7 and 8). Participants
evaluated the airline in the emotional appeal condition more favorably when they were high
affect intensity (Mhigh = 5.06, Mlow = 4.18; F (1, 41) = 7.29, p < .05); similarly, the high affect
intensity participants preferred the hospital brand with an emotional advertisement more than did
low affect intensity individuals (Mhigh = 4.98, Mlow = 4.22; F (1, 40) = 4.73, p < .05), which
supports Hypothesis 6 that there is a significant interaction effect between respondent affect
intensity and advertising appeal type on brand attitude. As predicted, the responses towards the
hospital or airline service ad in the rational advertising appeal condition did not differ
significantly between high and low affect intensity participants (Hospital: Mhigh = 5.40, Mlow =
5.03; F (1, 40) < 1, p > .10; airline: Mhigh = 4.42, Mlow = 4.67; F(1, 40) < 1, p > .50).
________________________
Insert Figures 7 and 8 about here
________________________
Mediation Analyses. To explore the potential mediation role of consumer emotional
responses on the relationship between affect intensity and brand attitude in the emotional appeal
23
conditions, three conditions have been evaluated (Baron and Kenny, 1986).
Data analysis results showed that affect intensity, the predictor variable, had a significant
and positive effect on emotional responses, the mediator (airline: β = .39, t = 2.75, p = .01;
hospital: β = .35, t = 2.37, p = .03). This finding satisfied the first condition of a mediation effect.
Results also satisfied the second condition because affect intensity exhibited a significant and
positive relationship with brand attitude, the dependent variable (airline: β = 0.39, t = 2.70, p
= .01; hospital: β = 0.33, t = 2.18, p = .04). The third condition for mediation was also satisfied
because a significant and positive relationship existed between emotional responses and brand
attitude (airline: β = .85, t = 10.50, p = .01; hospital: β = 0.58, t = 4.55, p = .01). Results also
provided additional evidence for mediation. For example, if emotional response was included as a
second predictor in the regression equation (affect intensity being the first predictor), the
previously significant influence of affect intensity on brand attitude was eliminated (airline: β
= .06, t = .69, p = .49; hospital: β = .14, t = 1.00, p = .32). Emotional responses, however, still
remained a strong predictor of brand attitude (airline: β = 0.83, t = 9.32, p = .01; hospital: β = 0.54,
t = 3.91, p = .01). Overall, the results supported Hypothesis 7 that emotional responses to the ad
mediate the relationship between affect intensity and brand attitude when subjects are exposed to
an ad using an emotional appeal.
Discussion
Taken together, the results of Study 3 provide clear evidence that high affect intensity
respondents, compared with their low affect intensity counterparts (1) manifested more positive
emotional and attitudinal responses to the emotional advertising appeal but (2) showed no
significant differences in their responses when exposed to the rational appeal. The results also
showed that ad-induced emotional responses served as a mediator through which affect intensity
24
influenced brand attitude. More specifically, participants with high affect intensity generated
stronger emotional responses, which led to more favorable attitudes towards the service brand in
the emotional advertising appeal condition. At the same time, participants with low affect
intensity generated lower emotional responses, which led to less favorable attitudes towards the
service brand in the emotional advertising appeal condition.
GENERAL DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

The generally intangible nature of services provides a considerable challenge to marketers
charged with developing appropriate advertising strategies, and it is often difficult for marketers
to communicate the benefits and attributes of a service offering. Furthermore, the intangibility of
services can cloud consumers’ ability to differentiate one provider from another. Such generality
– as opposed to specificity – can lead consumers to view an entire class of providers (e.g.
“dentists”) as similar. Attempting to overcome intangibility requires helping consumers to
perceive an abstract service in a more tangible way, but how is this to be achieved? Consumer
choices can be based as much (perhaps more) on affective-emotional factors as on
rational-factual information (Holbrook and O’Shaughnessy, 1984). Relating this to advertising
research, the relative effectiveness of emotional and rational appeal elements requires thorough
examination; it is important for marketers to know what type of appeal is most appropriate for
what type of offering. Holbrook and O’Shaughnessy (1984) contrast “logical, objectively
verifiable descriptions of tangible product features” and “emotional, subjective impressions of
intangible aspects of the product”; however, they point out that both types of meaning are
contained in virtually any communication – only their relative balance varies.
As indicated in the literature review, previous research mainly relies on content analyses
25
and has provided contradictory findings regarding the dominance of emotional or rational appeals
in different types of services advertising. In their analysis of progress and missed opportunities in
the advertising research literature, Stafford et al. (2011) conclude that the services advertising
research field is in a state of “arrested development”; they argue for an emphasis on experimental
work that provides understanding of how consumers respond to different message strategies. In
contrast to content analyses of ads that most commonly contain both types of appeal
simultaneously, an experimental approach enables teasing out of the elements and determination
of the relative impact of one or other appeal type by testing them separately.
Extending previous research from Liebermann and Flint-Goor (1996), and Albers-Miller
and Stafford (1999), our study uses an experimental approach to provide useful insights into the
differential effects of emotional and rational appeals when advertising experience or credence
services. Our research adds to knowledge of consumer decision making by bringing together two
very relevant streams of consumer research: services marketing and advertising. We find that
purchase preferences regarding an experience service are increased when an ad contains
emotional elements; conversely, purchase preferences regarding a credence service are increased
when an ad contains a rational appeal. Furthermore, an experience service is deemed more
trustworthy in the emotional appeal condition than in the rational appeal condition. Conversely, a
credence service is deemed more trustworthy in the rational appeal condition than in the
emotional appeal condition. In addition, we find that high affect intensity individuals reported
higher levels of affective reactivity and more positive attitudes towards the service than did their
low affect intensity counterparts when exposed to emotional advertising stimuli. These findings
enhance our understanding of the reasons why strong, emotionally charged ads vary so widely in
their effects on consumer responses. The findings also offer an important theoretical extension
that the effectiveness of emotional appeals may be contingent on consumer individual

26
characteristics (Chandy et al., 2001; Moore, Harris and Chen, 1996). In summary, these findings
serve to resolve the confusion that has arisen from conflicting results provided by content
analyses discussed above, and have both theoretical and practical implications.
Theoretical Implications. Our findings can be interpreted in terms of the value-expressive
versus utilitarian appeal dichotomy that is deemed effective in the advertising domain (Johar and
Sirgy, 1991; Snyder and DeBono, 1985). The value-expressive strategy involves building
symbolic appeal or creating an image of the product user (Shimp and Andrews, 2013). The
persuasive effectiveness of a value-expressive emotional appeal strategy depends on
self-congruity – a match between the product’s value-expressive attributes and the audience’s
self-concept (Johar and Sirgy, 1991). Conversely, the route to persuasion involving a
utilitarian-rational appeal involves a functional congruity process. A further consideration is the
level of conspicuity in consumption of the service. Experience services are more likely to be
consumed in a conspicuous manner than are credence services. As pointed out by Albers-Miller
and Stafford (1999), conspicuousness increases the perceptions of social risk, so group influence
is more likely to influence decision making in regard to experiential services. This group
influence might be expected to be heightened in cultures that have a cultural tendency towards
risk avoidance, and particularly social risk avoidance (Hofstede, 2001). Therefore, it seems
logical that a value-expressive strategy, incorporating mainly emotional rather than rational
appeals, will prove more effective for experience services than for credence services –
particularly in a collectivist society, such as China.
The Elaboration Likelihood Model postulates dual mechanisms by which advertising
messages persuade prospective consumers to evaluate messages and claims (Petty and Cacioppo,
1986). A high uncertainty level increases motivation to scrutinize carefully issue-relevant
information; this invokes a central persuasion route involving analytical cognitive thinking. A low
27
elaboration likelihood level involves a peripheral persuasion route and involves intuitive
heuristic-based mechanisms or “System 1” thinking (Kahneman, 2011). The central persuasion
route equates to “System 2” or analytical thinking. As credence services are associated with high
levels of uncertainty than experience services, our research findings are consistent with dual
processing theories of information processing. Specifically, the route to persuasion involving an
emotional appeal can be viewed as a form of peripheral processing in an experience service
context; whereas the rational route to persuasion equates to central processing in a credence
service context.
Johar and Sirgy (1991) referred self-monitoring as a personality trait distinguishing “those
who strive to be the type of person called for by each situation ...in making a good impression.”
Such people react favorably to image-oriented emotional ads. “The more the target market
consists of high self-monitoring consumers, the greater the persuasiveness of the
value-expressive appeal, and the more the target market consists of low self-monitoring
consumers, the greater the persuasiveness of the utilitarian appeal” (Johar and Sirgy, 1991, p.30).
Our findings on affect intensity suggest that affect intensity may be well related to
self-monitoring – a topic meriting further investigation.
Managerial Implications. Our findings suggest a strong need to tailor ad appeal designs to
fit different service categories. In today’s marketplace, consumers are bombarded with many
services advertisements. As consumers usually differentiate services on the basis of credence and
experience attributes, properly matching the advertising appeal design with the service type
remains an important task for services advertisers. A “right” match may enhance consumers’
processing of the ad, achieve a high level of advertising effectiveness, and drive positive purchase
behavior. An emotional appeal strategy would be more effective than a rational appeal strategy if
the service was dominated by experience attributes. Vice versa, if a service is dominated by
28
credence attributes, the advertiser should consider using rational appeal rather than emotional
appeal. For example, Starbucks, famous as an experience provider, thrives on touching true
stories that appeal to the target consumer’s heart; Pizza Hut, also an experience provider, depicts
harmonious scenes of happy families in their emotional advertising strategies in China. In
contrast, Accenture, a prominent global consulting company, emphasizes its expertise and high
performance when marketing its credence service; private hospitals, another credence service
category, depict advanced equipment and world-famous physicians to help communicate the
benefits of their service offerings.
The finding that affect intensity influences response to an emotional appeal, but not to a
rational appeal, strongly suggests that individual characteristics should be taken into
consideration when designing ads for services. If target consumers have high levels of affect
intensity, the advertisement should consider adopting an emotional appeal strategy, irrespective of
the service type. Emotional appeals will be more influential in driving action among high
intensity consumers. Conversely, if target consumers have low levels of affect intensity,
advertisers may not need to place too much attention on matching the service type with the
appeal strategy. Affect intensity may serve as a good tool for testing consumer responses to
services advertisements. Improved insight into the link between affect intensity and consumer
behavior can serve as an important basis for more clearly defining and selecting market segments.
LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE STUDY
Before any extensive generalizations can be drawn from our findings, certain limitations
of our study must be considered. One limitation lies in the sample of university students.
Although university students (aged between 18 to 25) is generally regarded as a key market
29
segment for most services in China (such as hotels and airlines), they may not represent other
older and more affluent segments. Having said this, university students are relatively
homogenous in terms of their age, educational level and income so this similarity can reduce the
potential effects of these potential covariates in the results. In addition, this study was conducted
in China which has its unique social and cultural characteristics. Thus, caution may be needed
when extrapolating the findings to other countries.
Another limitation pertains to the practical use of affect intensity for market segmentation.
As individual differences in affect intensity proved to be related to preferences, the types of
appeals that may be successful with one segment may not be so effective with another segment.
Therefore, to enhance the advertiser’s ability to identify relevant market segments, some linkage
may need to be established between affect intensity and demographic variables such as
occupation, age, gender, personal lifestyle, etc. Although our research controls for a variety of
confounding factors to enhance internal validity, generalizations would depend on additional
work that incorporates other respondent samples, other service industries, a different set of ads
and a large body of execution cues (e.g., visual or music embellishment).
Future research could also consider other moderators such as perceived uncertainty. For
credence services, consumers’ perceived risk is high, perhaps making them more susceptible to
rational argument. The effects may be different when consumers perceive the purchase
uncertainty to be limited. Further studies to clarify these issues are certainly warranted. Besides,
the rational appeals tested in the studies were based on “quality” and “reliability”, respectively.
Although “quality” and “reliability” are among the most adopted rational appeals in service
advertising, they are not the only type of rational appeal. Future study should look into other
types of rational appeal (such as price competitiveness) in order to develop better understanding
of the effectiveness of different types of rational appeal in different types of services. Similarly,
30
future research should also examine the effects of different types of emotional appeal in services
advertising. In addition, the current research has not examined scenarios using both rational and
emotional appeals simultaneously in an ad; this could be explored in future studies.
Last, a cross-cultural study may also be an interesting pursuit. National culture is often
employed to explain differences in consumer response to advertising (Shimp, 2013). An
individualistic culture is often characterized by low-context communications, whereas a
collectivistic culture is more dominated by high-context communications (Hofstede, 2001).

People from low-context cultures may like direct advertising or advertising with rational appeals,
whereas those from high-context cultures often accept emotional appeals (Rossman 1994;
Albers-Miller and Stafford 1999). This difference implies that national culture may play an
important role in consumer responses to different types of service advertising. The current study
utilizes a sample from China, a population that is regarded as a collectivist culture. A
cross-cultural study including both individualistic and collectivist cultures would be able to test
whether culture has an impact on the relationships tested in this study.
31
FIGURE 1
The Impact of Service Type and Advertising Appeal on Ad Attitude (STUDY 1)

FIGURE 2
The Impact of Service Type and Advertising Appeal on Purchase Intention (STUDY 1)
32
FIGURE 3
The Impact of Service Type and Advertising Appeal on Brand Trust (STUDY 2)
FIGURE 4
The Impacts of Service Type and Advertising Appeal on Brand Attitude (STUDY 2)
33
FIGURE 5
The Impact of Affect Intensity and Advertising Appeal on Emotional Response in
Experience Service Advertising (Airline) (STUDY 3)

FIGURE 6
The Impact of Affect Intensity and Advertising Appeal on Emotional Response in Credence
Service Advertising (Hospital) (STUDY 3)
34
FIGURE 7
The Impact of Affect Intensity and Advertising Appeal on Brand Attitude in Experience
Service Advertising (Airline) (STUDY 3)

FIGURE 8
The Impact of Affect Intensity and Advertising Appeal on Brand Attitude in Credence
Service Advertising (Hospital) (STUDY 3)
35
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Acknowledgements
This research was funded by two grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China
awarded to Hongxia Zhang (Grant No. 71172031) and Jin Sun (Grant No. 71002006,
71372004), respectively. This research was also supported by Beijing Higher Education
Young Elite Teacher Project (Grant No. YETP0894)and Program for Young Excellent
Talents UIBE.
40
Hongxia Zhang is the Professor of Guanghua School of Management, Peking University. She has
special expertise in marketing communications, brand strategies and cross-cultural consumer
studies. Her publication has appeared on Journal of Busines Research, Journal of Marketing
Management, CyberPsychology & Behaviour, Acta Psychologica Sinica.
Jin Sun is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of International Business and
Economics. Her research interest includes consumer behavior and services marketing. She has
published in Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of International Marketing and other
journals.
Fang Liu is an Associate Professor of Marketing in the School of Business, University of Western
Australia, Australia. She has special expertise in marketing communications, brand strategies and
cross-cultural consumer studies. Dr. Liu has published dozens of peer-reviewed journal articles,
book chapters, and conference proceedings in these areas. Prior to her academic career, Dr. Liu
has worked in the area of international trade for a few years.
John Knight is an Associate Professor of Marketing at Otago University. He has published in

Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Advertising Research, Journal of Business
Research, Journal of Marketing Management, Industrial Marketing Management, and also a
wide range of science and medical journals. This research was funded by two grants from the
National Natural Science Foundation of China awarded to Hongxia Zhang (Grant No. 71172031)
and Jin Sun (Grant No. 71002006, 71372004), respectively. This research was also supported by
Beijing Higher Education Young Elite Teacher Project (Grant No. YETP0894) and Program for
Young Excellent Talents UIBE. Please address all correspondence to Jin Sun.
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European Journal of Marketing

Be rational or be emotional: advertising appeals, service types, and consumer responses:

*Related content and download information correct at time of download.

Service businesses continue to grow in importance in the world economy. A good

or compelling and logical arguments (e.g., a Subway advertisement emphasizes a sandwich’s

healthy ingredients). In contrast, emotional appeals in services advertising aim to stimulate

different types of services.

types of services will be important to service advertisers and marketers.

types of services, it is of great importance that advertisers develop a good understanding of

Chinese consumers’ responses to different kinds of advertising appeals.

To recap, we have conducted three studies to illuminate the relative effectiveness of

appeal and service type.

ADVERTISING AND MESSAGE APPEALS

advertising is information (Shimp and Adrews, 2013). In addition to utilitarian benefits,

self-esteem (Cutler and Javalgi, 1993).

APPEAL STRATEGIES AND SERVICE TYPES

more information in radio commercials so as to concretize service offerings in consumers’ minds

were conducted in different countries as well as among different service categories.

dominated by rational appeals while advertisements for experience services tended to be

In contrast to these content analysis-based studies, Stafford (1996) used an experimental

rather than purely utilitarian value (such as banks).

to provide compelling rationales to reduce consumer purchase risks as well as providing a

stimulating well-informed consumers to be aware of the benefits of personal usage and

favorable ad attitude than the use of rational appeals.

favorable ad attitude than the use of emotional appeals.

type on purchase intention.

purchasing intention than the use of rational appeals.

purchasing intention than the use of emotional appeals.

importance that advertisers develop a good understanding of Chinese consumers’ responses to

different types of appeal strategies used in services advertising.

experience and credence service, respectively.

We invited 23 participants to complete a pretest to ensure the emotional ad could be

understanding) of the ads.

randomly assigned to the experimental conditions.

service. Finally, they responded to some demographic questions.

bipolar items (i.e., bad/good, uninteresting/interesting, dislike/like and not irritating/irritating).

unlikely/likely, impossible/possible, improbable/probable) (Yi, 1990). To confirm that our

manipulations of advertising appeal were successful, participants indicated on a scale of 1 to 7 (1

for the communication; and very difficult/very easy to understand).

Manipulation Check. As expected, participants provided higher emotional ratings in the

for this experiment were successful.

appeal type on ad attitude was supported.

Insert Figure 1 about here

Insert Figure 2 about here

theme that is also often adopted as an emotional appeal for airlines.

Furthermore, Study 2 applied another two important advertising effectiveness measures

adopted in advertising research. It refers to consumer confidence in a brand’s reliability and

intentions in a risky situation (Delgado-Balleste, Munuera-Aleman, and Yague-Guillen, 2003).

of services advertising. Another measure included in Study 2 is brand attitude, referring to a

We pretested all advertisements following similar procedures as in Study 1, to ensure the

brand attitude based on the following two hypotheses:

type on brand trust.

favorable brand trust than the use of rational appeals.

favorable brand trust than the use of emotional appeals.

type on brand attitude.

favorable brand attitude than the use of rational appeals.

favorable brand attitude than the use of emotional appeals.

to each of the experimental conditions.

four-item, 7-point scale (bad-good, unsatisfactory-satisfactory, dislike-like,

completed the manipulation check measurements as in Study 1.

Manipulation Check. Participants gave a higher emotional rating in the emotional

for the rational rating.

and H3b were both supported, Hypothesis 3 was supported.

Insert Figure 3 about here