Research Paper • • https://doi.org/10.1108/RAUSP-08-2020-0187 copy Show Beatriz Casais Aline Costa Pereira About the authors
This paper aims to analyse the prevalence of emotional and rational appeals in social advertising campaigns. There are studies about the effectiveness of these tones of appeals in social marketing, but there is no evidence about their prevalent use in social advertisements. Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted a content analysis of forty social advertisements promoting attitudes and behaviours regarding social causes. The selected ads were in video format and were extracted from the YouTube channels of Portuguese governmental and non-governmental organisations. The ads were coded according to the characteristics of each tone of appeals and classified as emotional, rational or a mix of both. FindingsThe authors classified 25 social ads as rational appeals, 8 as emotional and 7 as a mix of both appeals. The results of the research show that social marketers have preference for the use of rational tone in social advertising campaigns. Originality/valueThis study shows that there is a disruption between theory and practice in social marketing, considering the higher prevalence of rational appeals in contexts where theory recommends emotional appeals for higher effectiveness. This evidence is surprising, considering a previous study that evidenced a higher use of emotional appeals in advertising connected to social causes than in commercial advertisements. This paper focus on how practice may disrupt theory and explores possible reasons for the phenomenon. Keywords
Social marketing includes several techniques to promote attitude and behaviour change (Spotswood, French, Tapp, & Stead, 2012Spotswood, F., French, J., Tapp, A., & Stead, M. (2012). Some reasonable but uncomfortable questions about social marketing. Journal of Social Marketing, 2(3), 163–175. doi: 10.1108/20426761211265168. Social advertising campaigns are made of appeals whose tone promotes a predisposition or reason to behaviour change. Based on the appeals used in the advertisements, the target audience pays more or less attention to the ad and its message and develops different responses to the given social recommendation (Helmig & Thaler, 2010Helmig, B., & Thaler, J. (2010). On the effectiveness of social marketing – What do we really know? Journal of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing, 22(4), 264–287. doi: 10.1080/10495140903566698. The dichotomy between rational and emotional advertising appeals is a classic topic of research, recruiting the comprehension of psycological theories to understand consumer response to advertising appeals (Petty, Cacioppo, & Schumann, 1983Petty, R. E., Cacioppo, J. T., & Schumann, D. (1983). Central and peripheral routes to advertising effectiveness: The moderating role of involvement. Journal of Consumer Research, 10(2), 135–146. doi: 10.1086/208954. However, besides the research of social marketing effectiveness, it is important to understand how social marketing is conducted in practice, to provide a better translation of theory into practice and infer theory based on practical knowledge (Levit & Cismaru, 2020Levit, T., & Cismaru, M. (2020). Marketing social marketing theory to practitioners. International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing, 17(2), 237–252. doi: 10.1007/s12208-020-00245-4. Previous literature states that emotional appeals tend to be used more in social advertising campaigns than in commercial advertisements, which tend to persuade more intensively via information appeals (Sciulli & Bebko, 2005Sciulli, L. M., & Bebko, C. (2005). Social cause versus profit oriented advertisements: An analysis of information content and emotional appeals. Journal of Promotion Management, 11(2-3), 17–36. doi: 10.1300/J057v11n02_03. 2. Literature reviewSocial advertising is a communication technique of social marketing (Lefebvre, 2011Lefebvre, R. C. (2011). An integrative model for social marketing. Journal of Social Marketing, 1(1), 54–72. doi: 10.1108/20426761111104437. The ad design and the way the message is developed and communicated have a strong influence on the public's attitude when paying attention, listening and remembering the advertisement (McKay-Nesbitt et al., 2011McKay-Nesbitt, J., Manchanda, R. V., Smith, M. C., & Huhmann, B. A. (2011). Effects of age, need for cognition, and affective intensity on advertising effectiveness. Journal of Business Research, 64(1), 12–17. doi: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2009.09.013. The effectiveness of emotional and rational appeals is connected with psychological and persuasion theories, which explain that persuasion is mediated by psychological moods (Rosselli, Skelly, & Mackie, 1995Rosselli, F., Skelly, J. J., & Mackie, D. M. (1995). Processing rational and emotional messages: The cognitive and affective mediation of persuasion. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 31(2), 163–190. doi: 10.1006/jesp.1995.1008. Campaigns with rational tone of appeal are designed to provide information and facts without emotions, and persuade the target audience through appeals to reasoning and reason. Rational or informational advertising appeals seek to reach the target audience's intellect by transmitting a series of logical information relevant to them and making a direct presentation of the facts to appeal to reason, thinking and awareness, without any kind of emotion present in the message (Flora & Maibach, 1990Flora, J. A., & Maibach, E. (1990). Cognitive responses to AIDS information: The effects of issue involvement and message appeal. Communication Research, 17(6), 759–774. doi: 10.1177/009365029001700603. In turn, campaigns with the emotional tone of appeal transmit messages that persuade the target audience through appeals to emotions (Helmig & Thaler, 2010Helmig, B., & Thaler, J. (2010). On the effectiveness of social marketing – What do we really know? Journal of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing, 22(4), 264–287. doi: 10.1080/10495140903566698. The characteristics of both rational appeals and emotional appeals are identified in social advertising and both are used to increase the target audience’s response levels (Helmig & Thaler, 2010Helmig, B., & Thaler, J. (2010). On the effectiveness of social marketing – What do we really know? Journal of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing, 22(4), 264–287. doi: 10.1080/10495140903566698. 2.2 The effectiveness of emotional and rational appeals in social marketingThe existing literature on the effectiveness of emotional and rational advertising appeals focuses essencially on consumption products. When the advertised product has a high relevance for the consumer, rational appeals show higher effectiveness, while emotional appeals work better for products with low relevance for the consumer (Gong & Cummins, 2020Gong, Z., & Cummins, R. G. (2020). Redefining rational and emotional advertising appeals as available processing resources: Toward an information processing perspective. Journal of Promotion Management, 26(2), 277–299. doi: 10.1080/10496491.2019.1699631. Emotional and rational appeals are used in social marketing to persuade citizens to modify or adopt a desired behaviour. The correct tone of the call for the message to be effective may vary depending on the type of target audience (Kim et al., 2020Kim, C., Jeon, H. G., & Lee, K. C. (2020). Discovering the role of emotional and rational appeals and hidden heterogeneity of consumers in advertising copies for sustainable marketing. Sustainability, 12(12), 5189 doi: 10.3390/su12125189. Emotional appeals are reported as more effective (Parkinson, Russell-Bennett, & Previte, 2018Parkinson, J., Russell-Bennett, R., & Previte, J. (2018). Challenging the planned behavior approach in social marketing: Emotion and experience matter. European Journal of Marketing, 52(3/4), 837–865. doi: 10.1108/EJM-05-2016-0309. 3. MethodologyThere are studies on the effectiveness of using emotional and rational appeals in social marketing, but little is known about the prevalence of these tones in social adverstising messages. This study intends to identify how social marketing strategists are using tone appeal and whether they follow the theoretical recommendations based on the evidences regarding the effectiveness of emotional and rational appeals. The authors analysed social marketing advertising in Portugal broadcasted in the form of video advertisements on television or on the Internet. The authors extracted the data from YouTube channels of governmental and non-governmental organisations dedicated to social issues. YouTube is a free video sharing service, ideal for submitting marketing ads that promote beneficial and pro-social behaviours and which has achieved rapid growth in terms of popularity and the number of individual and business users in recent years (Paek, Kim, & Hove, 2010Paek, H-J., Kim, K., & Hove, T. (2010). Content analysis of antismoking videos on YouTube: Message sensation value, message appeals, and their relationships with viewer responses. Health Education Research, 25(6), 1085–1099. doi: 10.1093/her/cyq063. Meta-analysis of the literature on social marketing shows that the most addressed social challenges are cancer, AIDS, overpopulation, drug/alcohol/tobacco consumption, abuse of women, road safety, child safety, blood donation, public health and behaviours that increase the risk of heart disease (Wakefield, Loken, & Hornik, 2010Wakefield, M. A., Loken, B., & Hornik, R. C. (2010). Use of mass media campaigns to change health behaviour. The Lancet, 376(9748), 1261–1271. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(10)60809-4. To proceed with the collection of videos, the authors examined the YouTube channels of one Portuguese Governmental Agency and one Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) for each topic. The criteria to choose the NGO was the greatest number of views on ots own Youtube channel. It was found that there is not anNGO with a YouTube channel and videos on blood donation, and there is not a governmental agency with a YouTube channel for environmental protection videos. This fact is reflected in data collection about these topics. Data selection considered the period between 2013 and 2017. The authors collected all the social ads in video format available in the YouTube channels of the selected organisations in the mentioned period. A total of 40 videos were collected for content analysis. Table 1 shows the number of videos collected according to social marketing topic and identifies the source type:– governmental organisation (GO) or Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO).
Table 1. Database by topic and source The content analysis of the forty videos collected had as main objective the understanding of the prevalence of emotional and rational tones of appeal in social advertising campaigns. Following the assumptions about the process of content analysis (Bardin, 1997Bardin, L. (1997). Análise de conteúdo, Lisboa: Edições, p. 70.), the authors conducted a pre-analysis of the data collected, explored the videos by identifying in their content the categories of analysis defined for the research, coded the references by categories and proceeded to the interpretation of the results obtained. Nvivo software was used to the content analysis process. Each video from the database was analysed and encoded through a category coding system derived from the characteristics of emotional and rational/informational appeals presented throughout the literature review. The rational tone was coded when it was identified logical information appealing to reasoning, with presentation of facts and raising awareness for a concrete solution (Flora & Maibach, 1990Flora, J. A., & Maibach, E. (1990). Cognitive responses to AIDS information: The effects of issue involvement and message appeal. Communication Research, 17(6), 759–774. doi: 10.1177/009365029001700603.
Table 2. Categories of analysis and number of references coded in emotional and rational appeals Some advertisements presented stimuli of both emotional and rational appeals. In cases where most of the categories identified belonged to emotional appeals and only one category, or none, belonged to rational/informational appeals, it was considered that it was a video where the emotional tone prevailed. In cases where most of the categories identified belonged to rational/informational appeals and only one category, or none, belonged to emotional appeals, it was considered that it was a video where the rational/informational tone prevailed. Finally, in cases where two or more categories of each appeal were identified, it was considered to be a video with a mix prevalence of the two tones. To validate the coding process of the videos, the intercoder reliability process was used with six independent coders. This process is used to measure the reliability of qualitative data and the quality of classification obtained through independent coders, as the researcher's analysis inevitably ends up being characterised by a certain subjectivity (Rust & Cooil, 1994Rust, R. T., & Cooil, B. (1994). Reliability measures for qualitative data: Theory and implications. Journal of Marketing Research, 31(1), 1–14. doi: 10.1177/002224379403100101.
Figure 1 Process of data analysis 4. ResultsAfter analysing the 40 social advertisements of Portuguese governmental and non-governmental organisations found on YouTube channels, the authors coded 229 references categories of analysis classified as emotional and rational tones of appeal. Table 2 shows the classification process of rational/informational and emotional appeals by categories of analysis. After coding the references, the authors classified each social advertisement as emotional or rational, based on the number of emotional and rational codifications. When most of the references identified had been coded in categories belonging to emotional appeals and only one reference, or none, had been coded in a category belonging to informational appeals, the advertisement was classified as an emotional one. When most of the categories identified belonged to rational appeals and only one coded reference, or none, belonged to emotional appeals, the advertisement was classified as a rational one. And, finally, videos with references coded in two or more categories of each appeal were considered to have a mixed prevalence. The results show that social advertisements in Portugal tend to use more appeals with rational tone. Among the 40 videos analysed, 25 were highly identified with categories belonging to the rational/informational tone and so were classified as rational appeals. Eight videos were classified as emotional tone, while the remaining seven videos were classified as a mix of the two tones in the same ad. This analysis allows to realise that social marketing strategists in Portugal avoid stimulating emotions and attach special importance to sharing information both through text and narrations, or even through sharing opinions about the topics. The categories of analysis with higher prevalence were, respectively, logic information, awareness, the presentation of solutions, appeals to reasoning and the direct presentation of facts. These results suggest that Portuguese institutions that practise social marketing prefer to disseminate campaigns with rational tones that in the literature review were defended by some authors as more effective when the target audience is an older age group (McKay-Nesbitt et al., 2011McKay-Nesbitt, J., Manchanda, R. V., Smith, M. C., & Huhmann, B. A. (2011). Effects of age, need for cognition, and affective intensity on advertising effectiveness. Journal of Business Research, 64(1), 12–17. doi: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2009.09.013. After the classification of social ads as emotional and rational appeals, the authors analysed that prevalence by social issue. Given the importance of segmentation in social marketing, (French & Russell-Bennett, 2015French, J., & Russell-Bennett, R. (2015). A hierarchical model of social marketing. Journal of Social Marketing, 5(2), 139–159. doi: 10.1108/JSOCM-06-2014-0042. In topics related to health and disease prevention, such as the fight against tobacco consumption, the prevention of HIV/AIDS or the prevention of cancer and public health risks, whose main target audiences tend to be younger citizens, the governmental organisations have always chosen to use rational appeals through the presentation of information about the topics, raising awareness of the seriousness of problems and presenting solutions towards adopting attitudes of individual and collective health. In these areas, the theory states that emotional appeals should be used, especially negative ones, because when it is intended to influence behaviour linked to disease prevention, the use of messages supported by negative emotion is more effective (Dickinson-Delaporte & Holmes, 2011Dickinson-Delaporte, S. J., & Holmes, M. D. (2011). Threat appeal communications: The interplay between health resistance and cognitive appraisal processes. Journal of Marketing Communications, 17(2), 107–125. doi: 10.1080/13527260903234356. Analysing data by source organisation, 19 videos belong to governmental organisations, with 15 classified as informational/rational tone, while only 2 were classified as emotional tone appeal and another 2 as mixed tone. It was also possible to analyse in the same way the prevalence of tone appeal in the videos developed by NGOs. Among 21 campaigns, 10 were classified as rational tone, 6 as emotional tone appeal and 5 as mixed tone appeal. 5. DiscussionThe results express a clear disruption of social marketing practice with theory considering the choice of tone of appeal in the copy strategy of social advertisements. Considering the importance of the theory of practice (Bourdieu, 1990Bourdieu, P. (1990). The logic of practice, Cambridge: Polity Press.), this study starts off a reflection on the decision-making process of social marketing practitioners regarding the creativity of social ads. Particularly, the discussion should focus on whether the choice of social marketing appeals is part of the art strategy and creativity or on theoretical effectiveness provided from academic literature. This is a relevant topic considering recent literature that inquires whether social marketing theory is applied by social marketing practice (Levit & Cismaru, 2020Levit, T., & Cismaru, M. (2020). Marketing social marketing theory to practitioners. International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing, 17(2), 237–252. doi: 10.1007/s12208-020-00245-4. One possible reason for the use of rational appeals in cases where emotional appeals appear to be more effective according to previous studies may be the results of social advertising pre-tests, which may eventually suggest the use or effectiveness of rational appeals. Another possible reason may be precisely the absence of pre-tests and a misalignment between social practices and social marketing theory, or even the effects of value co-creation in social marketing (Domegan, Collins, Stead, McHugh, & Hughes, 2013Domegan, C., Collins, K., Stead, M., McHugh, P., & Hughes, T. (2013). Value co-creation in social marketing: Functional or fanciful? Journal of Social Marketing, 3(3), 239–256. doi: 10.1108/JSOCM-03-2013-0020. 6. ConclusionsThis paper concludes that social advertising campaigns in Portugal have a preference for the use of rational tone appeals via the presentation of logical information, appealing to intellect and reason, direct presentation of facts, awareness and presentation of solutions. Only eight out of the forty analysed campaigns were classified as emotional appeals. Contrary to what is recommended by previous studies on social marketing effectiveness, in the videos related to health, the presentation of information about diseases, the dangerous consequences of non-prevention and solutions for seeking help and prevention was continuously identified, which are cases where theory recommends the use of emotional appeals as being more effective, particularly when causing negative emotions such as fear or perceived threat. It is also concluded that health prevention campaigns differenciate the use of tone by age of the target audience. As almost the totality of the videos analysed were classified as rational tone, this tone appeals may be more effective in the case of the oldest audiences, when considering the academic evidence to date. As there is a dearth of knowledge of how social marketing is conducted in practice, this study provides a contribution to social marketing literature, showing that practicioners may prefer rational appeals rather that emotional appeals. This paves the way for future reasearch on the contexts that might favour the use of such appeals and the motivations to prefer rational that emotional appeals. 7. Implications and practical recommendationsThis paper calls for a reflection on the disruption between theory and practice in social marketing. Failure to follow the theoretical recommendations could result in the ineffectiveness of social marketing campaigns. In this sense, this paper does not argue that the analysed social advertising campaigns in Portugal were inefective, but rather that they do not follow what previous studies consider to be the most effective tone of appeal by target audience and type of social issue. These results call for the analysis of the effectiveness of such campaigns, which may eventualy suggest alternative arguments favouring the use of rational appeals. Following the principles of social marketing control, social marketers should consistently evaluate the effectiveness of campaigns to find whether the prevalence of informational/rational appeals is being effective in promoting attitude and behavioural change. 8. Limitations and future researchThis study considers only Portuguese campaigns and the theory available is made of studies conducted in different contexts. For a wider theoretical contribution, in the future, it would be important to analyse the prevalence of emotional and informational/rational tones of appeal in social marketing campaigns around the world, to understand whether there is a worldwide disagreement between theory and practice, and the effects of culture in the disruption evidenced. In future research, the results of pre-tests should also be analysed to find whether the results of pre-tests lead to the tone of appeals chosen. Finaly, further exploratory research should be conducted to ascertain the decision process about the tone of appeals used in social advertisements and whether it is based on theoretical evidences or managerial decisions.
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