The Influence Of Actual-Ideal Self-Discrepancy And Emotional Appeals Of Advertisement On Consumers' Preference

In real life,advertising with emotional appeals are quite common.By expressing positive and warm emotion in advertisements,companies attract consumers' attentions and improve their love of advertisements to stimulate their willingness to purchase.Previous research also shows that the valence of emotional advertising appeals is positively correlated to the effect of advertisements.That is to say,advertising with positive emotional appeals(vs.advertising with negative emotional appeals)can stimulate the consumer's higher willingness to purchase.However,unlike the past advertisements of positive emotional appeals,Sang Tea,UCC Coffee and some other brands,choose to spread negative emotions in advertisements,such as “negative energy in every day” since 2017.With the core of negative emotions,these kind of “Sang” marketing approach have become a new form of marketing,repeatedly bring great promotion effect to the enterprises,as well as getting popular among numerous consumers.Therefore,it is necessary for the academia to explore why advertising with negative emotional appeals are able to enhance consumers' willingness to buy and when consumers prefer advertising with negative emotional appeals.Based on the trend of the Sang-marketing,this study defined “Sang” as the high level of actual-ideal self-discrepancy,and classified advertisements of “Sang” as advertising with negative emotional appeals.On the basis of former scholars' research results,this study further explored how actual-ideal self-discrepancy and emotional advertising appeals affect the consumers' advertisement attitude and purchase intentions.Based on the Self-Discrepancy Theory and the Self-Brand Connections Theory,four experiments were carried out.Experiment 1 found that when perceived low(vs.high)level of actual-ideal self-discrepancy,consumers held better attitude toward positive(vs.negative)emotional advertisements,and were more willing to buy products with positive(vs.negative)emotional advertising appeals.Experiment 2 figured out that empathy mediated the process.Perceiving the consistent emotional appeals from the advertisements,consumers turned to increase their willingness to purchase.Experiment 3 demonstrated the moderated role of self-acceptance.That is to say,only for those who with low level of self-acceptance,after experiencing actualideal self-discrepancy,consumers were more willing to buy products with negative(vs.positive)emotional advertising appeals.Experiment 4 further clarified the boundary conditions of this effect.Only when consumer actived the motivation of selfverification,they preferred to negative emotional appeals in advertisements after suffering actual-ideal self-discrepancy.The results obtained in this thesis provided a reasonable explanation and theoretical support for why Sang-marketing is capable of inducing positive results.It also demonstrated that buying goods is able to create mental value for consumers under the influence of emotional advertising appeals.What's more,it brought a new idea for enterprises.Building consumer-brand connections by arising consumers' empathy with Sang –advertising,so that brands could be regarded as the sweet friends and partners in consumers' eyes.