A change of heart : the effect of heartwarming advertisements on brand affinity

The purpose of this study was to examine if evoking heartfelt responses to advertisements would yield greater brand affinity. It was hypothesized that a heartwarming response would yield greater brand affinity because it was a mixed emotional experience that produced both positive and negative emotions simultaneously. Across two studies, participants were shown both control and heartwarming advertisements for five brands. After each video, all participants were prompted to respond to every measure, regardless of condition. Heartwarming perceptions of the advertisements, overlap of self, feelings of love, and a mixed emotional experience were all significant mediators of video condition and brand affinity. Once they were accounted for, video condition was no longer marginally predictive of brand affinity. These results have clear practical implications for marketers and advertisers looking to create the most effective form of advertisements. By inducing a heartwarming experience, you are developing a stronger relationship with your consumer and ultimately increasing brand affinity. HEARTWARMING EXPERIENCES AND BRAND AFFINITY Introduction We seek meaning and relationships, and brands that fail in establishing both are lost amongst the crowd. Marketing campaigns and advertisements that appeal to our emotions are not only successful because they target our psychological composition, but profitable because they create a connection with the consumer which ultimately leads to greater brand preference and affinity. Brands and businesses should capitalize on the psychology behind marketing in order to better understand their consumers and develop the most effective advertisements to yield the greatest return of investment. Emotions are Important in Marketing and Advertising Historically, advertising evaluation was dominated by metrics which measured ‘thinking’ rather than ‘feeling’, hindering the growth of emotional advertising (Wiles and Cornwell 1990). However, over the past years, research has expanded beyond the initial hierarchical approaches, processing models, and appraisal theories and moved into the realm of affective content marketing. Heath, Brandt & Nairn (2006) found that favorability toward brands is strongly correlated with emotional content in advertising, not with factual content. From these results, it can be inferred that emotional content in advertising has an influence on brand favorability in the absence of any apparent contribution from a rational message. Even further, one could conclude that emotional content is responsible for building brand relationships. These results raise question to the assumption of most advertising models that the factual messages of advertisements give it its persuasive power. HEARTWARMING EXPERIENCES AND BRAND AFFINITY Similarly, a study conducted by Baldwin et al. (1996) highlighted how strong attachments develop over time that encourage the development of meaning and invoke strong emotions towards the object of attachment. His research found that attitudes can develop without any direct contact with the specific object of attachment and thus, it is possible for a consumer to have a positive attitude or attachment towards an object without ever having any contact or experience with it. Therefore, it is possible that advertisements can create an attachment between consumer and brand without the consumer ever even coming in contact with the brand or product. Brands That We Like, Love, and Feel Attached to Are More Likely to Get Our Money Emotions in advertising are important because brands that we like, love, and feel attached to are more likely to get our money. Thus, marketers look to create brand liking and develop a relationship with their consumer. A study conducted by Shimp (1981) analyzed the influence of affective advertising in terms of feelings the advertisement evoked. They proposed that it is possible for attitudes towards ads to be “transferred” to the brand itself. In other words, ad liking can become brand liking. According to their research, we can conclude that consumers form their preferences on the basis of elements such as liking, feelings, and emotions induced by the advertisement rather than product/brand attribution information. Similarly, when Slater (2000) was studying the relationship between attachments and brands, he found that love and warm feelings were the strongest distinguishers of consumers’ emotional attachments to brands (specifically, Coke and Hallmark). All of these results are consistent with the research from Shimp & Madden (1988) which suggests attachments reflect an emotional bond. HEARTWARMING EXPERIENCES AND BRAND AFFINITY We Know That Positive Emotions Can Make Us Like and Feel Attached to the Brand Something to note in the literature is that a relationship with a brand is largely reliant on a consumer’s positive emotions. By evoking positive emotions within a consumer, brands are in a better position of creating a strong relationship and increasing brand affinity. Brown et al. (1998) conducted a meta-analyses involving positive and negative ad-evoked feelings to determine whether the effects of positive and negative feelings on advertising responses are identical and/or bidimensional. They found that ad-evoked feelings had a substantial impact on brand evaluations and that positive and negative feelings had a disproportionate effect on advertising responses. Positive emotions from an ad influence consumer preferences and are less likely to be discounted in contrast to negative emotions. Under certain conditions, the effect of negative emotions is weakened, whereas positive emotions have an effect regardless of condition. Much of what researchers in this field know today touch on the notion that positive affect produces a “rose-colored-glasses” effect, making everything appear more desirable (Pham, 2007). Thus, greater loyalty, monetary spend, and favoritism are associated with brands when consumers feel positive emotions. Similarly, a study by Pham et al. (2013) found that, in comparison to negative, neutral, or informative commercials, advertisements that induced positive feelings resonated greater within consumers as compared to the rest. Their results showed that consumers reported more favorably to ads that emphasized positive themes, demonstrating that the emotional content of ads can directly affect a consumer’s brand affinity. But, is a good advertisement as simple as inducing positive affect in a consumer? Could it be possible that inducing a little bit of sadness into a positive experience could prove effective? HEARTWARMING EXPERIENCES AND BRAND AFFINITY What About Mixed Emotions? We know emotions are not black and white and at times there is a combination of the two. Mixed emotional experiences occur when both positive and negative feelings occur simultaneously. For example, past research has found that we are more likely to experience such mized emotions during a point in our life where we are reminded of some sort of meaningful ending (Ersner-Hershfield et al. 2008). But what do we know about mixed emotions in terms of advertising? Research has shown positive emotions play a strong role in consumer preference but what about the effect of a mixed emotional experience? In the realm of mixed emotions and psychology there are conflicting results on the idea that mixed emotions yield positive or negative attitudes. Williams and Aaker (2002) found that certain individuals have more negative attitudes toward mixed emotional appeals, not as a result of the negative emotion in the stimulus, but rather because of the experience of the third independent emotion of discomfort. These mixed emotional appeals resulted in heightened levels of discomfort in certain individuals who in turn reported more negative attitudes. However, we have reason to believe the opposite as well. Lerner, Small, and Loewenstein (2004) found that the experience of sadness often motivates people to restore a loss in some way, such as by acquiring new goods. Thus, individuals who experience feelings of sadness from advertisements could in turn look to fill that void by purchasing more product. Not Just a Mixed Emotional Experience, But Heartwarming. Although there is a wider range of literature today, most still only assess the relationship between emotions, decision making, positive affect, and consumer behavior, none touching on HEARTWARMING EXPERIENCES AND BRAND AFFINITY the notion of heartwarming experiences. In tugging at our heartstrings, heartwarming advertisements induce not only positive emotions, but also sadness. For example, an advertisement that sparks joy and love as it portrays a heartwarming father-daughter relationship might also leave you with tears in your eyes. Little is known about the effect of such mixed emotional experiences (i.e. both positive and negative) on brand affinity. My research will evaluate this specific, different version of mixed emotions in advertising that revolves around the idea of a heartwarming experience. I propose that these experiences could predict even stronger brand affinity due to their unique nature. For the sake of my research I will define a heartfelt experience as the emotional experience of mixed affect, both positively happy and positively sad, that yields a deeper meaning and connection to the subject. A brand could potentially want their advertisements to yield a heartwarming feeling within their consumer so that a feeling of love, warmth, and connection is associated with their product, therefore resulting in stronger brand affinity. Similarly, under the assumption of the negativity bias, which refers to the notion that things of more negative natures have a greater effect on one’s psychological state and processes, one could propose that heartwarming advertisements would generate greater brand affinity because of its ability to produce both positively happy and positively sad reactions. I