Proceedings of 5th Annual American Business Research Conference
6 - 7 June, 2013, Sheraton LaGuardia East Hotel, NY, USA, ISBN: 978-1-922069-24-5
Are You Tempted By The Seychelles? Pictures as Strong
Arguments in Print Ads Processing
Marine Kergoat and Thierry Meyer
The present research proposes a further understanding of the respective
role of verbal and pictorial claims in ad’s effectiveness according to the
participants’ capacity to process the information. One hundred and twelve
participants were exposed to ads for a fictitious airplane company.
Advertisements were designed by varying functional-centered or hedoniccentered verbal and pictorial claims. The capacity to process the
information was manipulated through a memory code task before ad
exposure. Findings showed that congruent messages (e.g. ad with verbal
and pictorial hedonic claims) were more effective on attitude toward the ad.
Moreover, their evaluation of how interesting should be the prices proposed
by the air company was affected by their ability to process the ad as well as
the type of argumentation under judgment. Our main conclusion is that
pictures must be thought as strong arguments in persuasive
communication (Petty, 1995) and not only be considered as peripheral
cues.
Dr. Marine Kergoat, IDRAC International Business School, Lyon, France.
Email:marine.kergoat@idraclyon.com
Pr. Thierry Meyer, University Paris Ouest France. Email:thierry-marcel.meyer@u-paris10.fr