Developing Emotional Appeals in Internet Advertising

Abstract

Online media and its increasing usage rate have changed the marketer’s world for targeting their consumers. Internet advertising has recaptured the imagination of marketers, who see an enormous potential to raise the profile of their brands through Internet vehicles. Companies are moving online across the spectrum of marketing activities, from building awareness to after-sales service, and they see online tools as an important and effective component of their marketing strategies. In the light of widespread use of Internet, the marketers & advertisers target their consumers by developing emotional bonding/ connection with them. Today, most of the Internet advertisements are created on the basis of emotional integration appeals. Currently, there exists are limited studies related to emotional connection and its formation. Therefore, the objective of this research paper is to provide an insight at the factors responsible for developing emotional appeal, and a means by which internet advertising can contribute to the formation of emotionally-charged consumer connection. The paper first describes the importance of Internet advertising in this digital economy and emotional message appeals used by the advertisers in the internet advertisements The second part explores contribution of each of the factors in the process of developing emotional connection with the audience and also Integration of these factors in developing emotional bonding with the viewers.

Introduction

The evolution of on-line media and its increasing usage rate has changed the marketer’s world for targeting their consumers. In the light of widespread use of Internet, the marketers & advertisers target their consumers by developing emotional bonding/ connection with them. Today, most of the Internet advertisements are created on the basis of emotional integration appeals. The creation of an emotional connection is an important yet under-researched area within the field of advertising. Currently, there exists are limited studies related to emotional connection and its formation. Therefore, the objective of this research paper is to provide an insight at the factors responsible for developing emotional appeal, and a means by which internet advertising can contribute to the formation of emotionally-charged consumer connection. The paper first describes the importance of Internet advertising in this digital economy and emotional message appeals used by the advertisers in the internet advertisements The second part explores contribution of each of the factors in the process of developing emotional connection with the audience and also Integration of these factors in developing emotional bonding with the viewers.

Internet Advertising

The spread of wired internet networks has opened up new vistas for advertisers to earn more revenue by exploring its vast and growing reach. The adoption of internet advertising among end users to show and increase trend and thus it becomes a key component of marketing strategy. Internet Advertising is a media to interact and communicate with the customers. The communication of factual information about a products primary function is usually accepted as being of value to the customer. The usage of internet advertising is gaining pace for last decade. The recent results of Internet advertising revenues are impressive, it has reached a new record of & 4.9 billion for the first quarter of 2007.This 2007 first quarter represents a 26 % increase over Q1 2006 at $ 3.8 billion and a 2 % increase over Q4 2006 at $ 4.8 billion. The steady growth of online advertising is a clear indication that marketers continue to believe in the opportunities and effectiveness that is medium delivers in reaching and engaging their customers. Internet advertisements constitute 1.8 % of total advertising expenditure that stands around $75 (approx RS. 30 crores) which is projected to rise by 3.1 %in 2008-09.

Source: PwC/IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report (http://www.iab.net/)

Growth of Internet Advertising

Intense and fierce competition has made communicators and marketers look for strategies that would place their organization ahead of and apart of its competitors. Internet advertising delivers time, place, possession and form utility. Marketers need two way communication to interact with the consumer and thus demand of internet advertising have risen due to following factors.

N High Usage Rate of Internet

N Homely environment served by Internet N Changing Dynamics of Consumer needs

N Easy access/availability

N Visual Elements as an addition (pictures, animations etc) N Economical N Sales promotion schemes N Ads based on personal lives

N Awareness about the various schemes available for the end-users

Emerging Trends in Internet Advertising

Today’s Generation is technology savvy and the interactive media tools like blogs, podcasting, electronic - word - of mouth etc help the marketers to attract the people successfully towards the company’s products or services . In the current business scenario, blogs have become strong vehicles for expression and a major common interactive tool for the corporate sector. Companies like Nike, Mazda, and SBC used blogs and found it useful as it helps them to catch up with the latest fads and then use it successfully in advertising. Thousands of Microsoft employees also have their personal blogs, where the interaction can be done by developers to the other counterparts. Another popular method of communication with the customers is Podcasting. In this method, multimedia files like audio clips or videos are distributed over the internet for playing on mobile phones as well as PC’s. Another popular method is Electronic-word-of-mouth or word-of-mouse i.e. netizens discussing among themselves about products, services e.g. orkut, pure on-line stores, Amazon etc. These common interactive media tools blogs, Podcasting are much cheaper than TV or print media campaign. Due to its wide distributed network, high circulation rate and economical nature the internet is the most commonly used advertising tool used by the advertisers to target the huge number of viewers.

Categories of Internet Advertisements

The Internet offers different types of advertisements to attract the customers’ attention. The search engines & web sites are designed with creative and suitable advertisements to gain customer’s attention and to increase the on-click ratio.

Banners: The most common form of advertising on the web is banner ads. Banner ads may be used for creating awareness or recognition or for direct-marketing objectives. Banner ads may take on a variety of forms, as well as a number of names such as side panels, skyscrapers, or verticals. Initially banner ads constituted the vast majority of advertising on the Net, but studies indicating their questionable effectiveness have led to a decline in usage.

Sponsorships: Another common example of advertising is sponsorship. There are two types of sponsorships. Regular sponsorships occur when a company pays to sponsor a section of a site, for example Clairol’s sponsorship of a page on GirlsOn.com. Content sponsorships is that in which the sponsor not only provides dollars in return for name association but participates in providing the content itself, for example iVillage.com.

Pop-Ups/Pop-Unders: Pop-ups appear when we access a certain site. Pop-Ups are usually larger than banner ads but smaller than full screen. Pop-unders are the ads that appear underneath the site.

Interstitials: Interstitials are ads, which appear on the screen while waiting for a site’s content to download. Although some advertisers believe that interstitials are irritating and more of a nuisance than a benefit, a study conducted by Grey Advertising found that only 15 percent of those surveyed felt that the ads were irritating(verses 9 percent for banner ads) and 47 percent liked the ads (verses 38 percent for banners).

Push Technologies: Push technologies or web casting technologies, allow companies to “push” a message to consumers rather than waiting for them to find it. Push technologies dispatch web pages and news updates and may have sound and video geared to specific audiences and even individuals.

Why appeals required in internet advertisement?

The one of advertiser’s most important creative strategy decisions involves the choice of an appropriate appeal. Some ads are designed to appeal to the rational, logical aspect of the consumer’s decisions-making process; others appeal to feelings in an attempt to evoke some emotional reaction. Various types of appeals are used in the internet advertisements for creating bonding with customers.

A number of studies had shown that the advertisers use emotional appeal to create emotional bonding. Many advertisers believe that effective advertising combines the practical reasons for purchasing a product with emotional values. With the increasing ability to target individual consumers via traditional and emerging (e.g., the Internet) forms of media, individual psychological differences are becoming a more viable basis for customizing advertising messages. Today an approach is to segment consumers, according to their personality-type preferences for processing information that is both theoretically sound and simple to administer. Empirical findings demonstrate that by utilizing visuals that are consistent with consumers' personality-type processing styles, advertisements can have greater appeal and generate higher purchase intentions for a variety of products. Emotional Appeals are fallacies that persuade by appealing to emotions (desires, gut reactions, etc.) that are not relevant to the question at hand.

Reasons for Emotional appeal in an internet advertisement

* Hitting Consumer’s mind

The advertisements designed for the Internet try to create emotional connection with the consumers. These advertisements pave a path to hit emotions of consumers and building a relationship with them. These emotional appeals relate to the customer’s social and/ or psychological needs for purchasing a product or service. Sometimes the emotions of consumers suppress their feelings about a brand, and also attribute of the product. And this brings an outcome of purchase decision on the basis of emotional attachment. Many advertisers believe in appealing consumer’s emotions work better at selling brands. Cacioppo and his colleagues wrote that “emotions guide and enrich our life: they provide meaning to everyday existence; they render the valuation placed on life and property”