Advertising effectively : perceptions on analytic-cognitive, affective and affective-cognitive advertisements

Abstract

Grabbing the audience's attention has always been and will always be a dilemma for advertisers. Appeal and interpretation are perceptual barriers through which various advertisements fail to pass. Some advertisements are not successful at stimulating sense organs in the consumer to a minimal threshold level of interest or awareness. Others have their meaning distorted by the recipient in such a way that the effect of the advertisement is quite different from what the advertiser intended. Persuasive communications such as advertisements may include both cognitive and affective components. The term analytic-cognitive is broadly used to refer to aspects of communications that are descriptive of product features and are intended to provoke a conscious, thoughtful response. By contrast the term affective is used to describe cues that convey more psychological benefits associated with owning and using products. Such cues stimulate emotions, moods and feelings that may not be under the conscious control of the individual. Sometimes these components can be combined in a commercial where the advertiser appeals both to the rational and to the emotional. Consequently, the term used is affective-cognitive.