I am working on emotional appeals in advertisement and it will be nice to get your thoughts and opinions about what I describe as media and emotional appeal channels.
I consider emotional appeals as creative decisions made by the advertisers to make the advertisements very appealing, for example, the couple holding hands and smiling as they get their mortgage from a bank or the young girl running by the sea side being happy going on holiday. IMAGES, TEXT and COLOURS of the adverts are what I describe as channel of emotional appeals, these graphics elements are used to arouse the viewer’s emotion.
On the other hand, I have considered TELEVISONS, NEWSPAPERS and RADIO as media channels. These channels are used to distribute various media, including advertisements (laden with emotional appeals).
I will also like to point out that the emotional channel varies depending on the media channel being used for the advertisements, for example, the SOUNDTRACK on a TV advert is considered an emotional appeal channel, as some individuals may find the song very emotional which might not be applicable to newspaper, or images as emotional appeal channel not applicable on radio.
Will appreciate your thoughts on these issues or reference to any existing works out there I can read. In summary, Emotional Appeal Channels: images, soundtrack, colours, and advertisement size etc. while media channels are TV, Radio, and Magazine etc.
Thank you.
Hi Emmanuel:
Whatever grabs the attention of the audience is good, so long as it is legal and ethical. Yu have already listed most of them. Examining the people you want to advertise to will highlight the appeal to be emphasised. For example, the young hunger for freedom and adventure and colour riots. The elderly prefer assurance and security and more subdued colours. A brash combination of colours may not fascinate them. Working along these lines might prove helpful to you.
Thank you Stella, I appreciate your feedback. I assume this poses more challenges to advertisers, despite their creative efforts, they hope majority of their target audience will like their advert.
Emotional appeals are characterized by their content, which needs to be aimed at evoking an affective response in the recipient of the message. Both text and images are capable of eliciting an emotional response and any communication channel is capable of being a carrier, from simple print to complex interactive multimedia presentations.
That said, the degree of emotion that is evoked depends on how aroused the audience is after receipt of the message. Degree of arousal depends on multiple factors, including the degree of identity or aspiration the audience has with the content/message source, the relative intensity of the message, and the combination of media types used to construct the message. In general, a combination of words and images will evoke stronger feelings than either images or words alone, but this is not always true, as any reader of outstanding fiction can attest. ("The book was better than the movie.") As David Ogilvy once said, "If you have nothing to say, sing it." This tells us that adding melody to straight text makes it more engaging than words by themselves.
Hello Gregory,
Thanks for your comments, I guess the main issue here is understanding how much emotions is evoked from the combination of images and text in advertisements.
A wise advertiser must have a reasonable knowledge of the his target market and therefore be wise enough to balance all the required elements proportionately. His aim is to catch thier attention and propel them to buy the product or idea he is elling
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