The Repository @ St. Cloud State

Open Access Knowledge and Scholarship

Date of Award

5-2014

Culminating Project Type

Thesis

Department

English

College

College of Liberal Arts

First Advisor

Roger Rudolph

Second Advisor

Zengjun Peng

Third Advisor

Bruce Klemz

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Abstract

According to Chandy et al. (2001), more recent research suggests that both emotions and arguments can be effective, but their effectiveness varies by context. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any solid finding when the context of persuasion is dependent on personal variance. While there is a rich literature on how various executional cues of ads affect consumers’ responses at different levels of motivation and ability, rarely have these works examined the real-world, behavioral impact of ads (Chandy et al., 2001). Hence, this thesis attempted to bridge this gap. Specifically, drawing from the ELM and Need for Cognition (NFC) theories, this study investigated the relationships between consumer Need for Cognition and preferences for advertising appeals, and how such preferences affected their attitude and behavior toward a product, i.e. purchase intention. Analyzing and looking for statistical differences between subjects’ NFC level and self-reported preference on the given brands and their advertisements, inferences on statistical relationship between these variables were drawn. Based on the mentioned theoretical framework, it was postulated that: H1a) individuals with high NFC would have favorable attitudes toward an ad after exposure to an argument-based advertisement; H1b) individuals with low NFC would have favorable attitudes toward an ad after exposure to an emotion-based advertisement; H2a) individuals with high NFC would have greater purchase intention after exposure to an argument-based advertisement than individuals with low NFC; and H2b) individuals with low NFC would have greater purchase intention after exposure to an emotion-based advertisement than individuals with high NFC. Results showed no statistical correlation between individuals with high NFC and preference of argument-based advertisements; H1b was partially supported with a statistical correlation found between individuals with low NFC and preference of emotion-based advertisement. Findings showed there was no statistical correlation between individual’s NFC level and purchase intention.

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