Investigating Moderating Role of Leisure Service Type on Audiences’ Responses to Hedonic vs. Cognitive Advertisements

초록

Although advertising theorists have suggested that for maximum effectiveness, the type of message appeal needs to match the type of service offered, empirical inquiry has produced contradictory evidences. One explanation for the inconsistent findings is due to advertising researchers’ perceptions of homogeneity (Sargent, Zillmann, & Weaver, 1998). Thus, the present study was designed to investigate the moderating role of the types of leisure services (i.e., hedonic/artificial wall climbing center vs. utilitarian/fitness center) on the relationship between the types of advertisement messages (i.e., affective vs. cognitive) and consumers’ cognitive appraisal (i.e., attitudes and intentions) to advertisements for leisure service facilities. The repeated measures ANCOVA results from 218 subjects’ ad responses revealed that the leisure service type moderates the effect of the ad message on the subjects’ responses, indicating that the proper use of ad message strategy might improve the effectiveness of advertising for the leisure service segment of the industry.