Emotional advertising and consumer's age bracket

I read a scholarly journal on age related differences in response to emotional advertisements. Patti Williams and Aimee Drolet both explain how older people as compared to their younger counterparts, process more positive emotions than negative. Younger people tend to be more rational than emotional and lack the abilities that wisdom and age provide. Williams and Drolet discuss how older people subconsciously avoid negative emotions in order to continue living a more content life. Younger people experience more of the anxiety and negative emotions due to their lack of experience and age. 122 older participants with an age range of 65-98 were used in the study along with another 122 participants aged 19-24 years old. With a scale of 1 to 7, participants in the research study were asked to rate products based on the advertisement they were being shown. Participants were asked to rate statements like, “This advertisement was meaningful to me,” or “this advertisement is believable,” in order for Williams and Drolet to determine whether the ad provoked a rational or emotional response. One finding was that the older aged group of participants attended more to the negative emotional responses the most because they wanted to avoid a negative experience. They also found that negative values in the ads were seen as more expansive or long term in relation to time. Positive values were seen as more limited in time or short term. This could truly be helpful to marketers when planning a marketing mix or advertisement. Knowing your target market beyond simple facts and actually getting to know how they view and see the world is key to being successful. The study also found that the older aged group viewed the concept of time or life as short lived. The younger aged group took to the expansive view of time and sees life as long lived. When creating an advertisement for a marketing campaign, knowing how to structure your dialogue in order to manipulate how the customer thinks and feels can be the difference between making millions and making nothing. If an ad is worded to where it invokes a negative emotion or connotation, it must be reworded. All advertisements must spawn positive feelings within the customer no matter what the cost and especially if it’s a younger person. If your target market is in Generation Y or even younger, this becomes crucial to being successful in marketing your product or service.

Works Cited:

Patti Williams, Aimee Drolet, (2005) “Age‐Related Differences in Responses to Emotional Advertisements” , Journal of Consumer Research , Vol. 32, No. 3 (December 2005), pp. 343-354