Do Pleasant Emotional Ads Make Consumers Like Your Brand More?

Emotionally pleasant TV commercials are often preferred over merely factual ones. A large-scale study of Belgian TV ads confirms this notion and shows that such commercials also create more positive feelings toward the advertised brand. Interestingly, these effects depend on neither the level of involvement associated with the product category nor the type of product. Independent of the perceived creativity of the commercial or its informational value, emotionality had a significant impact on the evaluation of a brand. However, the effects were slightly more pronounced for products that align themselves with pleasure and experience than for functional products. Advertisers should therefore leverage the power of emotions not only because these ads are better liked, but more importantly because they lead to more favorable brand attitudes.