What makes an ad enjoyable? Analysing advertising appeals as viewed by Portuguese consumers

Nowadays, consumers are faced with a variety of media that convey myriad advertising messages, which struggle amidst a highly competitive environment, with a view to drawing the viewers’ attention, raising awareness, creating interest and inspiring desire and, ultimately, leading to the purchase of the product/service at stake. For this, advertising professionals deliberately intertwine their selling arguments with emotionally-charged creative concepts. It is the aim of this study to analyse the impact of the main creative appeals and to identify groups of consumers based on their attitudes towards them. We have undertaken a quantitative study, by means of a survey administered to a convenience sample with a list of creative appeals, which had to be classified by the respondents according to their attitudes. Globally speaking, the preferred appeals were humour, music and animation. Nonetheless, it was possible to divide the respondents into three groups. ‘Advertising fans’, the ‘rationally-minded’ and the ‘emotionally-minded’. This study presents some limitations, especially as to the sample used. Apart from the reduced number of respondents and lack of more widespread geographic reach, some academic qualifications were underrepresented. The results of this study offer some avenues to be explored by marketing and advertising professionals when it comes to deciding on the best creative approach to select for their advertising campaigns. Besides, this study paves the way to the development of future research on the issue of advertising appeals and its relationship with the psychographic characteristics of consumers.

Los consumidores se enfrentan, hoy en día, a una variedad de medios que transmiten una amplia gama de mensajes publicitarios con el objetivo de atraer la atención del público, aumentar la conciencia de marca e inspirar el deseo, lo que lleva finalmente a la compra del producto o servicio. Con este fin, los anunciantes asocian sus argumentos de venta con conceptos creativos que apelan a la emoción. El objetivo de este estudio es hacer un análisis del impacto de los formatos creativos utilizados en publicidad e identificar diferentes grupos de consumidores según sus actitudes. Los autores realizaron un estudio cuantitativo, a través de la aplicación de un cuestionario formado por una lista de formatos creativos de publicidad, con el objetivo de recoger las opiniones de los encuestados. En general, los formatos preferidos eran humor, música y animación. Fue posible hacer una división de los encuestados en tres grupos: "Los fans de la publicidad", "Los racionales" y "Los emocionales". Los resultados de este estudio ofrecen a los profesionales de la publicidad y marketing algunas aplicaciones prácticas en relación a los enfoques creativos a utilizar en sus campañas. El trabajo abre camino para un mayor desarrollo de futuras investigaciones sobre los formatos creativos en publicidad y su relación con las características de los consumidores.