Marketing is all about attracting customer attention. It is also about evoking feelings and rationals towards your brand. This is where advertising appeals come into picture.
Marketers use a motivating appeal in their advertisements to get their point through. These ad appeals are frequently divided into two categories: emotional and logical/rational. This technique frequently indicates a naïve and erroneous understanding of how things operate.
How you react to things is influenced by your emotions. Psychology defines human mind to be divided into two major categories. One is left brain and one is right brain. We all have one side of brain working more at all times. “People are either left-brained or right-brained, according to this notion, implying that one side of their brain is dominant. According to the hypothesis, if you're generally analytical and systematic in your thinking, you're left-brained. You're right-brained if you're more artistic or creative.” Credit: Healthline
Emotional reactions are hard-wired in your brain. It's a natural reaction. Even the most reasonable advertisement will generate an emotional response. This is a really personal reaction. Consumers bring their own psychological makeup and prior experiences to the table. They contribute their own impressions of the brand, product, or service as well. Consumers' responses to advertising are shaped by these elements. Advertising appeals are not one-size-fits-all. Adults, for example, pay greater attention to emotional information as they become older.
Both advertising appeals are active at some degree. Both come into play, even if one dominates by intention. To justify choices and release a heightened emotional reaction, emotional arguments may require facts, among other things. This has an impact on how people react to a sensible argument. Persuasion is a term used to describe this response. According to research, high persuasion scores are linked to a favorable emotional reaction.
Based on the two sides of human brain, there are two types of appeal: Rational appeal which pleases the left side of the brain and emotional appeal which is pleasant to the right side of the brain. Depending on your target audience, your brand has to decide which type of appeal you want to go for in your advertising.
The difference between emotional and rational appeal is clearly understood in the below LG washing machine advertisement:
Emotional Appeal
Emotional appeals are those that appeal to a customer's social and/or psychological needs in order for them to buy a product or service. Many consumers' purchasing decisions are motivated by emotions, and their sentiments about a brand may be more significant than their understanding of its characteristics or traits. Many product and service marketers consider rational/information-based pitches to be tedious. Many marketers feel that emotional appeals to customers are more effective at selling products than rational appeals. Such an appeal offers a benefit, such as emotional fulfillment or social acceptance. It might also serve as a status signal for the buyer. Emotional appeals focuses on the brand's user experience. Strong images, effective writing, and powerful music may all be used to appeal to your audience's emotions. To elicit action, an emotional advertising appeal relies more on feelings and impressions than logic or reason.
Types of emotional appeal:
Humor appeal
The below ads, feature characteristic of their product in a hilarious way. Brands like Center Fruit, Fevicol, Mentos, Coke, etc… have used humor appeals in many of their campaigns. Humor appeal is hard to execute as what is funny to one might not be funny to others.
Adventure appeal
Soft drink companies like Thumsup (aaj kuch toofani karte hai campaign), Mountain Dew (darr ke aage jeet hai campaign) and car companies like Hyundai, Land Rover, etc… often use adventure appeal to showcase their product/services. The examples are shown in the videos attached below.
Fear appeal
Generally insurance companies, companies like Dettol, mosquito repellent companies like GoodKnight, Hit, and anti-cigarette organizations use these type of advertising appeals. These are to provoke the element of fear in the audience to thus, ultimately provided them with a solution and sell your product.
Sexual & Romantic appeal
Sexual form of advertising appeals are used by perfume and contraceptive brands to showcase the intimacy of their products. Brands like shaadi.com and others use romantic appeals as their services can be showcased easily in that emotional appeal.
Endorsement appeal
These are celebrity endorsement ads that influence audience because of the celebrities who are endorsing the ads. They make the audience feel like the endorser is the one actually using the product.
Digital campaigns like the one of pepsi where they showed celebrities doing a trending dance with the pepsi bottle is a new form of endorsement appeal in the digital world. (#PepsiAurBhiZyadaRefreshing #HarGhoontMeinSwag with Yashraj Mukhate campaign)
Musical appeal
In this form of advertisement, the element of music constitutes and catches most of the consumer attention. Some sounds like those of Whirlpool washing machine (singing whirlpool whirlpool), Vodafone, Idea’s hunny bunny etc… have made their impact in the minds of the audience who have listened to them even once.
Brand appeal
Personal and social appeals
2. Rational Appeal
Rational appeals are on the opposite end of the advertising spectrum. Many advertising strategies are founded on objective data, logic, and reasoning. Even with emotive themes, rational arguments may be highly beneficial in assisting target audiences in determining the worth of a product in an unmistakable way.
While emotional appeals can be effective, they can also be manipulative; intellectual arguments are more real and can help a brand establish authority. They concentrate on the product or service's practical, functional, and usefulness for the customer. It focuses on: (a) product or service features, and/or (b) the advantages of owning or utilizing a certain brand. (c) A product's attribute of issue eradication or problem avoidance.
Which marketing appeal do you prefer for your brand? Rational or Emotional? Do let us know through comments. Stay connected with MonkeyAds for such interesting and informative content on advertising.
The blog is compiled and written by Ms. Vidhi Thakar who is a content contributor on our website. If you have any questions or feedback, kindly please write back to us.