Appeals in Advertising

• Rational or Logical appeal:Promises that the product will deliver some benefits.
They woo the reasoning side of the brain. Messages focusing on quality, price,
value for money, performance etc are examples of rational appeal.
• Emotional appeal: Indian Advertising is replete with navarasas, the nine
principles or moods of our life. Emotional appeals tend to rouse positive or
negative emotions in a bid to drive purchase. Types of emotional appeals:
a. Fear Appeal: Is essentially a negative appeal that cautions consumers against
a risk or talks about the ills of not using a product. Fear appeals work better
when the credibility of the brand or endorser is high and when the
communication promises to alleviate the fear it stirs up.
b. Humour appeal: Humour can get consumers interested in a dull purchase
thing like a car battery or make an unfriendly product seem more
approachable. Humour should be used strategically. It attracts attention and
can increase liking for a product, but it does not increase its acceptance,
persuasiveness, credibility or sales worthiness. It is more apt for low
involvement products where decisions are based more on emotion than for
high involvement products which require much deliberation.
Consider the following guidelines on the art of using humour
in advertising:
a. Avoid humour at the expense of others, such as
competitors, consumers or ethnic groups
b. Consider humour, which has repeat value, not jokes that
cease to be funny the second time round
c. Retain the product’s importance over humour’s, ensuring
that the brand is not forgotten after the laughs
d. Test if the humour is comprehensible and funny to the
audience in question

c. Sex appeal: Projection of sex appeal in advertising ranges

from explicitly nude or sensuous scenes to sexual
innuendos to scenes so subtle that only trained eye
would recognize them.
d. Agony Appeal: Ads that depict is great detail the abrasive
area of allergic skin, the effects of gastric troubles,
headaches, itching, cracked heels etc. repulsive and
displeasing as they may seem, they are a potent tool for
companies who can quickly connect with an audience
suffering from these ailments. The audience feels that the
advertiser can empathize with her/his suffering and hence,
the advertiser’s credibility gets quickly established.
e. Moral Appeal: Moral appeal is aimed at the audience’s
sense of right and wrong. Usually adopted for social causes
by not for profit organizations, moral appeal can touch the
soft nerve of the people. It rests on the assumption that it
will give people the satisfaction of doing something for a
good cause by just buying a product.