Tineke Faseur

Different Positive Feelings Leading to Different Ad Evaluations: The Case of Coziness, Excitement, and Romance

This study contributes to the debate about the valence-based versus the multi-dimensional views of feelings. By conducting an experiment using 317 subjects, we compared the differential impact of three different positive feelings on ad effectiveness. Support for the multi-dimensional view of feelings was found in the sense that ad- and context-evoked coziness, excitement and romance had a different impact on attitudes to ads. Moreover, in the area of context effects further support for the multi-dimensional view of feelings was found: the exciting, the romantic and the cozy ads scored best after recounting a feeling-congruent story.

On the Effectiveness of Ego- and Other-Focused Ad-Evoked Emotions: The Moderating Impact of Product Type and Personality

Emotional advertising is generally believed to be persuasive. However, not all emotional advertising is equally effective. Previous research has illustrated the importance of the pleasure dimension of emotions in the sense that positive emotions usually induce more positive attitudes than negative emotions. This paper deals with another dimension of emotions – the ego-other-focus dimension of emotions – referring to the degree to which these emotions make people see themselves as independent from or interdependent with others in a specific situation. Our findings indicate that, for a privately consumed product, ads evoking an egofocused emotion score better than ads evoking an other-focused emotion, whereas the reverse is true for a publicly consumed product. This match between product and emotion does not matter for introverts, but is important for extravert people. As such, we show that not only the pleasure dimension, but also the ego-other-focus dimension of emotions determines the effectiveness of emotional advertising.

Communicating the Right Emotion to Generate Help for Connected Versus Unconnected Others

This study investigated the effectiveness of positive versus negative and of other-focused versus mixed- (ego- and other-) focused feelings evoked in advertisements promoting help for connected versus unconnected needy people. Results showed that when help is asked for people to whom respondents feel connected, positive (vs. negative) and mixed-focused (vs. other-focused) feelings led to more positive ad evaluations and increased respondents’ helping intentions. When help was needed for unconnected people, the negative ads were most effective. Furthermore, it was investigated whether the effect of other-focused versus mixed-focused feelings on ad evaluations and helping intentions was mediated by people’s motivation to help.