Advertising is an integral component of business, and the impact it has on consumer buying behavior is undeniable. A recent study revealed that social media advertisements featuring attention-grabbing details and celebrity endorsement had positive results on customer attitudes towards products promoted (Lee & Hong, 2020).
Other factors also have an effect on the relationship between advertising exposure, product attitudes and purchasing intentions. They include:
Awareness
Advertising’s primary function is to raise consumer awareness of a product or service through dissemination of relevant details such as features, benefits and advantages that enable informed purchasing decisions.
Ads build credibility by providing external information such as customer testimonials, awards and market research findings. Furthermore, ads often incorporate creative details that catch the eye and form connections with consumers through creative messages that grab their attention and establish rapport between themselves and the brand.
Kim and Moon conducted a study which demonstrated that advertisements that induce feelings of pleasure or displeasure from consumers is an accurate barometer of their response toward advertisements. Such feelings correlate with brain region activations – particularly the gyri – which respond to rewards or threats respectively. Neuromarketing, an emerging discipline using neuroscience tools to understand unconscious and subconscious consumer responses has seen over seventy-six articles written about neuromarketing since 2009.
Information Dissemination
Advertising disseminates product information to consumers and increases awareness of new offerings on the market. Furthermore, it helps them understand which brands meet their product needs more readily; consequently, consumers may become more inclined to buy the advertised product and develop brand loyalty with it.
Unfortunately, awareness cannot always be created solely through advertising (Kusumasondjaja & Tjiptono, 2020). A combination of internal and external data sources must be utilized in order to inform consumer purchasing decisions.
This research seeks to examine the structural relationship among advertising, customer satisfaction with it, perceived value and behavioral intentions of its target customers. This investigation includes six evaluative dimensions of advertising (relevant news, entertainment, brand reinforcement, stimulation, empathy and familiarity), two constructs of perceived value (utilitarian and hedonic), satisfaction with advertising significantly influences perceived value and behavioral intention whereas perceived quality significantly modifies this association between ads and purchasing behavior and loyalty of target customers.
Emotional Appeals
Employing emotional appeals in your marketing campaigns is an effective way to connect with audiences on an intimate level and set yourself apart from competitors who build campaigns around product pricing, features and functionality.
Emotional appeal (also referred to as pathos) involves using visuals, videos and words to elicit emotion in your audience – whether positive or negative depending on what message is being delivered.
Positive emotional triggers like happiness or pride can create strong associations between your brand and customers who experience these emotions, building brand recognition and loyalty over time. Conversely, ads that use fear or urgency as emotional drivers may motivate immediate action to take place.
Emotional appeals may work effectively when used appropriately and understood by your target audience; however, too frequently or misused may turn them against you. Make sure that any emotional content is balanced with logical arguments to prevent skepticism and disengagement from occurring. Likewise, avoid overusing negative emotions like fear or anger as too many negative messages could create a bad impression of your company or product.
Persuasive Intent
Consumer buying behavior refers to the decisions consumers make when making purchasing decisions for products and services, including exploring their motivations and actions for selecting them (Little & McCord 2004).
Marketers employ various tactics to influence consumer purchasing behavior. Some examples include celebrity endorsements, creative characteristics and attention grabbing details. Celebrities have the power to spark excitement in people which may lead them to purchase the products they endorse.
This study’s results indicate that advertising has a substantial effect on consumer buying intention and brand loyalty, with perceived quality acting as a moderating variable. Furthermore, perceived quality played an influential role in moderating these predictions; these findings imply marketers can use human attention as a monetizable asset to increase sales and profits by using persuasive messages that appeal to Logos, Ethos and Pathos; however this requires understanding consumers’ beliefs, values, attitudes towards advertisements as well as understanding consumer beliefs/values/attitudes towards advertising as part of this strategy.