Affective/Emotional%20Conditioning

1
Affective/Emotional Conditioning

• Advertisement (US) --gt change in feeling state
  (UR)
• Watson Raynor (1920)
• Taste aversion
• Emotional state automatic
• Lack of conscious control

2
Affect

• Little agreement in literature on terminology
• Bower Forgas (2000)
• Emotion intense, short-lived, has identifiable
  cause
• Mood subtle/diffuse, long-lasting, non-specific
  causation
• Affect encompasses both emotion and mood

3
Advertising

• To influence consumers brand opinions
• Use affect to change brand evaluation
• Performance content
• Content to convince consumers that the brand is
  best
• Performance void
• Visual and/or audio to induce positive feelings

4
Classical Conditioning Framework

• CS brand
• US something that produces affective state
  (i.e., the UR)
• CR induced affective state influences operant
  decision to purchase
• Affective Classical Conditioning (ACC)

5
Example Visuals as US

• Generate positive feelings
• e.g., kitten
• For some brands, may also imply brand benefits or
  quality
• e.g., for tissues, kitten may also indicate
  softness
• e.g., for water filter, mountain stream may
  indicate purity
• See Mitchel Olson (1981)

6
Methodology Issue

• To control for visuals, use US that produces
  affect with no potential brand meaning
• But, CS and US need to have shared
  relevance/relatedness in advertising
• Hard to generate artificial neutral stimuli

7
Ad Framing

• Presenting positive or negative consequences
• Aims to alter affect in consumer
• Positive ad framing
• Make purchase and receive positive affect
• Negative ad framing
• Dont purchase and receive negative affect

8
Which is Better?

• Kahneman Tversky (1979) Prospect Theory
• Argue in favour of negative ad framing
• People should react more strongly to potential
  loss than to potential gains
• Displeasure of losing perceived as more
  consequential than pleasure of gaining
• However, majority of research generally shows
  positively framed messages to be more effective

9
Affect Priming

• Ad framing presents information producing
  affect-congruent associations
• Affect priming is subsequent activation of affect
  paired with brand
• Associationists principle of similarity
• Similar affect-related associations more easily
  linked

10
Effects of Affect

• Schwarz Bless (1991)
• If individuals feel positive, they believe the
  environment is safe
• Safe subjects are less likely to engage in
  message elaboration
• More likely to rely on peripheral cues for
  judgments, less message elaboration.

11

• Martin, Ward, Achee Wyer (1993)
• Happy people engaged in a task
• Believe task is enjoyable, produces the affect
  itself, continue task longer
• Sad people engaged in the same task
• Attribute negative affect to task and quit sooner
• Mathur Chattopadhyay (1991)
• Happy TV program contexts lead to more attention
  to ad and message elaboration than sad program
  context
• Transfer to advertisements?

12
Affect Source?

• From advertisement?
• From brand?
• From context in which advertisement is embedded?
• For TV commercial, the TV program
• For print advertisement, the magazine, newspaper,
  etc.
• All could be producing ACC effects

13
Emotional Perspectives

• Affective conditioning hypothesis
• Subconscious
• Mood judgment interpretation
• Cognitively active

14
Emotional Arousal

• From advertisement?
• From brand?
• From context in which advertisement is embedded?
• For TV commercial, the TV program
• For print advertisement, the magazine, newspaper,
  etc.

15
Effects of Arousal

• Yerkes-Dodson effect
• Inverted U
• Aids memory retention/recall to some point

Memory/response
Arousal/intensity
16
Excitation Transfer of Arousal Paradigm

• Study effect of arousal on behaviour
• Emotion produced by interaction of
• Physiological arousal
• Cognitive processing of situation
• Emotional effects can be delayed and can linger
• Underlying physiology (neurotransmitters,
  hormones)
• Associate arousal with brand/product

17
Importance of Timing

• Park McClung (1985)
• Highly arousing TV program may interfere with
  commercials effectiveness
• View arousing TV program, view commercial
• No delay arousal attributed to program
• Short delay mistakenly attribute arousal to
  commercial
• Implication
• Be careful when/where you place embedded
  advertisements

18
In the Pod

• First few may not benefit from residual arousal
• Later commercials will
• Control over ad placement in pod?

19
Product Evaluation

• Hedonic criteria
• Product enhances positive affect via self-esteem,
  social validation, reputation, immediate
  gratification, etc.
• Utilitarian criteria
• Product solves a problem
• Evaluation parallels transformational products
  and informational products

20
Product Type, Affect Effects

• Adaval (2001)
• Affect effects re purchasing appear when product
  evaluation for hedonic criteria
• Less relevant for utilitarian criteria product
  performance more significant

21
Chang (2008)

• Sneakers with fictitious brand name in artificial
  ad
• Positively and negatively framed ad messages (re
  self-esteem, social recognition)
• Folder with sneaker ad and other distracter ads
  given to subjects
• Questionnaire on affect and thoughts on ads and
  products
• Positively framed ads elicit higher levels of
  positive affect than negatively framed ads

22
Gresham Shimp (1985)

• Attitude to ads (AAd)
• Attitude to brands (AB)
• What mediates processes for AAd to influence
  consumers AB?
• Central issue for advertisement theory
• Four possibilities

23
Four Possibilities

• Classical conditioning
• Brand paired with affectively-valenced ad
• Cognitive Response
• AAd influences AB indirectly via impact on brand
  cognitions
• Effects of arousal

• Reciprocal Causation
• AAd AB are mutually causative
• Positive/negative attitude held to both product
  and ad
• Causative strength varies with consumer and
  situation
• No relationship
• AAd AB influence choice independently

24
Requirements for Classical Conditioning

• Affective reaction to ad changes buyers AB
  without altering their cognitive structure (CSB)

25
Hypothesis 1

• Positive/negative affective ads --gt significant
  influence on AB
• But, could AB affect AAd?

26
Hypothesis 2

• Experimental group (positive/negative affective
  ad) will have more/less positive AB than control
  group
• But, also must show AB affected by AAd, not by
  changes in CSB

27
Hypothesis 3

• No significant difference in experimental and
  control subjects CSBs

28
Study

• Rated 15 TV commercials (supermarket products) on
  affective scale
• Positive, neutral, negative
• 5 experimental groups
• One ad from each group
• Questionnaires for AAd, AB, and CSB
• 1 control group
• Questionnaires for AB and CSB

29
Results

• Statistically speaking, inconclusive
• More generally, trends offer support for
  classical conditioning interpretation

30
Design Problems

• Used mature brands
• e.g., Zest, Schlitz, Dr. Pepper
• Consumers familiar with product
• Drives AB --gt AAd
• Recommendation
• Develop new TV ads for fictional products
• Tricky and expensive