Changing attitudes of consumers through emotional advertising by Yohan Dsouza

2. PROJECT REPORT ON
CHANGING ATTITUDES OF CONSUMERS THROUGH
EMOTIONAL ADVERTISING
UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF
PROF. NITIN SAWANT
SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT
OF
MASTER OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES
BY
YOHAN D'SOUZA
2017150375
MMS – II
YEAR 2017-2019
Don Bosco Institute of Management and Research,
Kurla west, MUMBAI – 400070

3. CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that the project work titled “CHANGING ATTITUDES OF
CONSUMERS THROUGH EMOTIONAL ADVERTISING” is a project carried
out by Mr. Yohan D’souza.
I further certify that the said work has not been submitted in the part or in full, to any
other University.
Date: 27th February 2019
_____________ ________________________
Prof. Nitin Sawant Dr. Chandrasekhar Vasant Joshi
Project Guide Dean,
(Don Bosco Institute of Management and Research)

4. DECLARATION
I, Mr. Yohan Dsouza, student of Don Bosco Institute of Management and Research of
MMS II hereby declare that I have completed this project on “CHANGING
ATTITUDES OF CONSUMERS THROUGH EMOTIONAL ADVERTISING”
for the Academic year 2017-2019. This information submitted is true and original to
the best of my knowledge.
________________
Yohan D'souza

5. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
At the outset of this project, I would like to express my profound gratitude to a few
people without whose help, completion of this project would not have been possible.
I am very grateful to Dr. Chandrasekhar Vasant Joshi, Dean, Prof. Conrad Saldanha,
Principal Advisor, Fr. Mario Vaz, Executive Director of Don Bosco Institute of
Management and Research.
I would also like to thank Prof. Nitin Sawant for being a good mentor and helping
me whenever I approached him/her.

6. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
We are now exposed to huge amounts of media on a daily basis. They include
- television, radio, commercials, websites, books, paid media, billboards, short videos,
social media, and so on - it’s much easier for any advertised message to be lost in the
flow of information. Because of this clutter, consumers tend to now require multiple
brand touch points to make a buying decision about a product or service.
A huge amount of advertising has its own set of disadvantages:
 It gets messages to many people at once or over time
 It can be easily to ignored intentionally or unintentionally by people
 It can also be easily forgotten or overlapped with another advertisement,
especially one that belongs to a competitor
Advertisers are coming up with new and innovative ways to attract attention of
potential consumers. All these methods tend to focus on increasing conversion rates,
impressions while reducing bounce rates and bids. But many forget the most critical
element to influencing a consumer’s mind – through one’s emotions.
The objective of the report is to study how and what emotions would positively
influence consumers to make a purchase and what emotions could have a negative
impact.

7. INDEX
SR.NO. CONTENT PAGE
NO.
1 ADVERTISING 1
2 THE CLUTTER IN ADVERTISING 2
3 EMOTIONS THAT ADS CAN INFLUENCE 4
4 ENGINEERING VIRALITY THROUGH EMOTIONS 7
5 THE ROLES OF AROUSAL & DOMINANCE IN
VIRAL CONTENT
9
6 CRITICISMS AGAINST EMOTIONAL ADVERTISING 11
7 RESEARCH CONDUCTED 13
8 CONCLUSION 19
9 BIBLIOGRAPHY 20

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ADVERTISING
Advertising is the action of calling public attention to an idea, good, or service
through paid announcements by an identified sponsor. It is also a marketing tactic
involving paying for space to promote a product, service, or cause. The actual
promotional messages are called advertisements, or ads for short. The goal of
advertising is to reach people most likely to be willing to pay for a company’s
products or services and entice them to buy.
 According to Kotler –
 Characteristics of Advertising
Paid Form: It requires the advertiser to pay to create an advertising message, to buy
advertising media slot and to monitor the advertising efforts.
Tool for Promotion: Advertising is an element of the promotion mix of an
organization.
One Way Communication: Advertising is a one way communication where brands
communicate to their consumers through different mediums.
Personal or Non-Personal: Advertising can be non-personal as in the case of TV,
radio, or newspaper advertisements, or highly personal as in the case of social media
and other cookie based advertisements.
Advertising is any paid form of non-personal presentation & promotion of
ideas, goods, or services by an identified sponsor

9. CHANGING ATTITUDES OF CONSUMERS THROUGH EMOTIONAL ADVERTISING
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THE CLUTTER IN ADVERTISING
With the rise of digital technology, marketers have never had more tools in
their arsenal. There is a shift to trying to “capture eyeballs” of the consumers. But
then again advertising can’t break through the clutter by adding to it.
Clutter affects businesses
every day and nowhere is more
present than in all forms of
advertising medium. In the 70’s the
average person was exposed to
approximately 500 ads per day, by
the mid 90’s that number had
increased over 2000 and currently it
is over 5000 ads per day. Social
media has made clutter more relevant by providing various platforms that are open to
marketers, the growth of social media has allowed for marketers to be more creative.
Each platform is forced to constantly review and revise the way marketers can reach
Advertising clutter describes the high volume of commercial messages that
the average consumer is exposed to on a daily basis.

10. CHANGING ATTITUDES OF CONSUMERS THROUGH EMOTIONAL ADVERTISING
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their target markets. (The figure above shows the increasing number social media
users throughout the years)
It used to take a client seeing an ad 1a maximum of 4 times in the 90’s before
deciding to buy from that brand. It now takes over at least 7 times for that client to see
an ad before deciding to buy due to this clutter.
 Avoiding the clutter
People have been resisting or avoiding advertising clutter in many ways
Physical avoidance – Moving away from the TV during the ads, flipping the
newspaper to a new page.
Cognitive avoidance – Not paying attention to an ad, selective attention or selective
exposure, seeking only the data and messages that are in agreement with their
attitudes. It can also include consumers who question the motives, expertise and
trustworthiness of the message.
Mechanical avoidance - Switching to another TV channel when advertisements come
on, using an Ad Blocker to block ads particularly on social media sites
Evidently, this clutter has impacted consumer’s recall and has affected their
attitudes towards advertising as a whole. Despite this, it is argued that advertising
clutter is a necessary evil for successful ad-supported media, because the media
needs a large amount of advertising for increased revenue. It is clear that this clutter is
affecting the core process of advertising – communication with their consumers.
There are various methods that advertisers can use to grab the attention. Like product
placement, interactivity, the design of ads (colour, words, music) and advertising
placement. However emotion based ads are often the most successful tactics to grab
attention.

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EMOTIONS THAT ADS CAN INFLUENCE
Studies show that people rely mostly on emotions while lesser on
information, to make brand decisions – and that emotional responses to ads are more
influential on a person’s intent to buy than the content of an ad. When properly used,
emotions can help facilitate consumers’ understanding and acceptance of an
advertising message. Indeed, the successful use of emotion can be the difference
between a consumer buying a particular product or service and a consumer revolting
against the advertisement.
1. HAPPINESS / JOY
Happiness and joy are hard-wired in all of us and with them comes a rush of
dopamine. Of all of our happiness hormones, dopamine could be the most important
when it comes to marketing as studies have shown that, more positive the
advertisement, more likely it was to become viral.
Often referred to as ‘joy marketing’, it involves incorporating happiness into your
promotions thus having a strong impact on the way people perceive your brand. The
goal of ‘joy marketing’ is to elicit a specific emotional response: happiness, to create a
deeper and meaningful connection between consumer and brand. This can lead to
greater loyalty and more profitable relationships. After all, a number of products and
services are purchased to enhance the consumers’ lives.
Coca-Cola’s slogan, “Open
happiness” is perhaps one of the
most obvious and renowned
examples of joy marketing.

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2. SADNESS
Using negative emotions like sadness delivers a sense of empathy or
compassion. Many brands have noticed the effectiveness of using emotional content
that creates public awareness of social issues like violence, gender equality, poverty
reduction, immigration, and others.
When we are sad, our brain produces cortisol and oxytocin – the hormones of
stress and empathy. Of these two hormones, oxytocin plays an important role in
creating trust and compassion toward a business or a campaign.
In a study performed by Paul Zak, it
was found that those who watched a short, sad
story about a boy with cancer produced
varying amounts of oxytocin. Those who
produced the most of this neurochemical were
most likely to give money to others they
couldn’t see. UNICEF’s ad is a perfect
example of an ad that targets empathy to create change for those less fortunate.
It is essential to keep the balance when creating such kind of ads. One should
not upset one’s audience and evoke negative feelings towards the brand. Whether the
goal is to donate to a charity, move to more environmentally-friendly practices or
even support a campaign, a sense of sadness can motivate consumers to create a
change thus resulting in a positive outcome.
3. FEAR
In advertising, a consumers' fear can be used to motivate them to purchase a
product or contribute to a cause. The consumer appraises the product in light of their
fear of the consequences of not buying. For example, an ad campaign may appeal to
people's fear of body odour to convince them to buy deodorant. Consumers who are
afraid of sweat stains or odour are more likely to respond and buy the deodorant.

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Research has found that people who
feel scared seek human connections. If there
are no humans around, a brand can actually
play a similar role. Consequently, if a brand
creates marketing that stimulates fear, it
provides the opportunity for consumers to
connect with and better remember their
products and services.
The fear could be something as simple as a
fear of missing out on something (FOMO)
or the dread of something occurring (as seen
in the Nicotinell ad to the left). Adding an
expiration date, an impending deadline or offering a safer product can motivate
consumers to purchase a product or service.
4. ANGER
Most people think that it is best to avoid anger -- it’s a negative emotion that
will cause negative associations. But in some cases, anger can wake people up and
spur action. People become angry when they see another person hurt or an injustice.
Disgust and frustration can cause us
to reconsider our perspective and ask
important questions.
A print ad concept (left) to raise
awareness of climate change and the effects
on the polar ice cap environment by WWF.
It creates a sense of anger on how various
harmful activities have degraded the
surronding environment.

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ENGINEERING VIRALITY THROUGH EMOTIONS
“The best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing”, said the famous
“Marketoonist” Tom Fishburne.
Emotional engagement is the key to content marketing success. People
discover and share information, videos, pictures and other types of media constantly.
Assuming that all content starts out equally however, viral content seems to take on a
life of its own, rapidly spreading among the masses in much the same way as a real
virus does among people.
With content marketing, the message is the virus, the carriers are the audience
and a strong emotional connection to the message is the catalyst. Hence, in order for
marketers to have their content more likely to go viral, they must first understand
what kind of emotions would drive their audience to share such content among others.
Eliciting an emotional response is an essential element of all successful viral
content marketing campaigns. It’s human nature that people want to share the
experiences that stir their emotions by communicating them to others. When people
develop strong, deep feelings like surprise, anger, fear, sadness and joy around an
experience or message, social sharing becomes impulsive.
According to research conducted by Jonah Berger and Katherine L. Milkman
of the Wharton Business School in 2010, in their report, “Social Transmission,
Emotion, and the Virality of Online Content”, there is a strong relationship between
emotion and virality regardless of whether it is positive or negative. The study
presented a number of key takeaways including the following:
 Negative content tends to be less viral than positive content
 Awe-inspiring content and content that surprises or is humorous is
more likely to be shared
 Content that causes sadness can become viral but is generally less
likely to
 Content that evokes anger is likely to be shared more.

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In fact, the study demonstrated that the strongest forecaster of virality is how
much anger the message evokes.
Interestingly, while conventional wisdom is that people will share negative
news more than positive, the results of the study indicated that overall, positive news
is actually more viral. A study of the most popular images on imgur.com found that
while negative emotions were less common in viral content than in positive, viral
success happened when the negative images had an element of anticipation and
surprise.
The question then becomes, how can content marketers put this information to use?
The short answer is to create content that surprises people and evokes a high
emotional response. You must have a unique and powerful message that drives people
to want to share, almost without thought. An emotional response to the message is
what triggers the reaction to share.

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THE ROLES OF AROUSAL & DOMINANCE IN VIRAL
CONTENT
Viral content typically evokes high-arousal emotions, such as joy or anger.
But a majority of psychologists also categorize emotions by the level of dominance,
or whether or not a feeling provides a sense of control. To be more specific:
Arousal ranges from excitement to relaxation. Anger is a high-arousal
emotion; sadness is low-arousal. While Dominance ranges from submission to
feeling in control. Fear is low-dominance; an emotion someone has more choice over,
such as admiration, is high-dominance.
New research analyzed the roles arousal and dominance play in generating
viral content and concluded that high levels of dominance – like feelings of
inspiration and admiration – tended to encourage more social shares.
Using the Pleasure-Arousal-Dominance (PAD) model, a survey of 100
images was created by jeffbullas.com and it was discovered that there are three ideal
combinations of arousal and dominance that accompany highly viral emotions, which
are listed below:

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In other words, viral content tends to be surprising and emotionally complex.
However, the levels of arousal and dominance required to elicit these responses are
not the same across the board. Positive content is primed for social sharing,
especially when dominance is high.
High arousal configurations were connected closely with positive emotions,
and two out of three ideal configurations featured high levels of arousal. This means
that successful content within these parameters typically delivers something that
ignites high-arousal feelings like excitement and happiness within audiences.

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CRITICISMS AGAINST EMOTIONAL ADVERTISING
Advertisers talk a lot about the importance of generating an emotional
response from people. However, they rarely stop to specify exactly what characterises
such a response or why they believe it is important. However, a review of current
learning on the way emotion guides our thinking reveals that emotion is both more
and less important than most advertisers realize.
We Respond Emotionally to Everything
The subject of emotion in advertising tends to bring certain types of
commercials to mind: those featuring touching or heart-rending vignettes, cooing
babies, or romping puppies. Too often an emotional response to advertising is thought
to be one that elicits tears or smiles. But in fact, every ad generates an emotional
response, because everything we encounter in life generates an instinctive emotional
response. Hence in this way, emotion is more important than most advertisers realise.
As Erik du Plessis explains in his excellent book ‘The Advertised Mind’, emotional
responses are hard-wired into our brains and essential to our survival.
Our emotional responses are rooted in our past experience. Events that are
familiar and unthreatening generate little attention. Those that are familiar and
pleasurable generate more attention and attract us, while events recognized as painful
or threatening repel us. When we come across something completely new, our brain’s
first response is to relate it to something familiar. If that does not automatically
determine how we should respond, the conscious mind will step in to figure things
out.
This initial instinctive ‘emotional’ response determines three things: how
much attention we will pay to the event that triggered it, what our conscious response
will be, and how deeply our memories of the event will be entrenched. The response
can be positive or negative, intense or weak. Most events, including those

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concerning brands and advertising, do not evoke an intense response. But even though
our response may not be intensely positive or intensely negative, it is still ‘emotional’.
Attention on Gaining Attention Is Misplaced
Though audience attention is essential, attention alone is not sufficient. Too
many ads attract a lot of attention that is focused neither on the brand nor the
impression meant to be conveyed. Such ads are by-products of the unwarranted belief
that it is very difficult to gain people’s attention. In fact, it does not take a lot to make
people attend to advertising. Anything that people find enjoyable, interesting, or
noteworthy will be a cue to which they will readily respond and give some attention.
This could be an interesting image, a story, music, or the brand itself. The real
challenge is to focus people’s attention. If an ad is going to evoke a response that will
last longer than a few seconds, it must create a memorable feeling. It must create a
virtual magnifying glass that highlights something specific in relation to the brand —
some fact, idea, or impression — and give it enough emotional charge to become
established in memory.

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Many peoplefelt happy/joyful
or love instead of sad/disgust
or angry.
RESEARCH CONDUCTED
Objective: To find out whether positive or negative emotions can affect the way
people think about the product or brand.
Method: From a sample of 50 people, a survey of advertisements of three brands with
5 questions each.
 TATA Tanishq
A bride is shown with a young daughter, who is excited about her mother’s
wedding and expresses her wish to be a part of the pheras. While the elders try to
dissuade her, her would-be step-dad picks her up in his arms and carries on with the
pheras, much to the bride’s contentment.
 How familiar are you with this advertisement?
 How do you feel about the product advertised?
Many people were familiar
with the advertisement as it
was aired multiple times on
TV.

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Many people feel that the
product is beneficial or
valuable.
Ratings are centred on the
top 3. This shows us that
people are happy with the
advertisement.
Most people have given the
brand a high rating.
 What do you think about the product?
 How would you rate the advertisement?
 How would you rate the brand overall?

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Many people have expressed
anger as the advertisement
does illustrate ‘toxic
masculinity’ through various
examples.
Many peopleare familiarwith
the advertisement since it
created a stir on various
social media sites.
People have ranked the
product somewhere in the
middle as it is still has uses in
the daily lives of men.
 Gillette
Gillette made an advertisement suggesting that men could be better. It illustrated
“toxic masculinity” through examples like a young boy being bullied by other boys,
sexual harassment, catcalling, and a man speaking over a woman in a meeting. The
advertisement created quite a controversy on social media.
 How familiar are you with this advertisement?
 How do you feel about the product advertised?
 What do you think about the product?

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Due to the negative
controversy regarding the
advertisement,it has received
a negative rating.
People feelings about the
brand have not changed
much after the
advertisement.
 How would you rate the advertisement?
 How would you rate the brand overall?

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People are familiar as the
advertisementisseen on both
TV and social media.
Peoplefeel sad and can relate
to the family and the child
The producthas received high
ratings as it helps in activities
related to sanitation and
healthcare
 Lifebuoy
The ad is titled, ‘Help a child reach 5’. It was based on a family whose boy had
the age of 5 for the first time. Their previous children had passed away due to lack of
proper sanitation and healthcare.
 How familiar are you with this advertisement?
 How do you feel about the product advertised?
 What do you think about the product?

25. CHANGING ATTITUDES OF CONSUMERS THROUGH EMOTIONAL ADVERTISING
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Ratings are centred on the
top 3. This shows us that
people are happy with the
advertisement.
The sameresults are seen hen
the people were asked to rate
the brand.
 How would you rate the advertisement?
 How would you rate the brand overall?

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CONCLUSION
Emotion is at work all through the process of reacting to advertising: from our
initial response to our feelings about the brand to the interest and faith we have in the
claims and appeals of the advertising. Advertisers would do well to clarify why
emotion is important in their advertising.
 Are we seeking to use emotion to gain and hold attention or to create a longer-
lasting response related to the brand?
 And what lasting impression will be of most benefit?
 Will a positive feeling suffice, even if it is difficult to articulate or justify, or is
a defined rationale required?
 Will the experience or rationale be compelling and distinctive enough to make
people want to talk about it or share it with others?
Irrespective of the desired response to advertising, the first step is to create a
link in consumers’ minds between the memories left by the advertisement and the
brand. To do so an advertisement must focus attention on the brand and the desired
impression at the time of viewing. If that happens, the memories left will be readily
available for introspection when people think about the brand, and the ad will have
the potential to affect behaviour weeks, months, and even years later. If that link is not
set up, the investment in content development and media spend will have been wasted

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BIBLIOGRAPHY
 https://blog.emolytics.com/trends/importance-of-emotions-in-advertising/
 https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/emotions-in-advertising-examples
 http://www.halibut.com.au/Our-Blog/ArtMID/1462/ArticleID/5/Emotional-
Advertising
 https://blog.bannersnack.com/emotional-advertising-examples/
 https://www.forbes.com/sites/derekrucker/2017/10/05/emotion-in-advertising-the-
difference-between-a-spark-and-a-backfire/#44bc661f31e5
 https://landerapp.com/blog/emotional-advertising-campaigns-traits/
 https://artplusmarketing.com/13-most-creative-and-emotional-video-ads-worth-
watching-de2591f9fafa
 https://www.academia.edu/21834781/the_impact_of_advertising_clutter_on_the_atte
mpts_of_advertisers_to_gain_the_attention_of_audiences