| Abstract |
Since consumers are flooded by advertising nowadays, it is an important task for the advertisers to catch consumer attention and enhance their purchase attention. According to the advertising literature, metaphor advertising is commonly used to increase consumers’ interests toward an ad, involvement with an ad, ad elaboration and leads to ad effectiveness. This research proposes two types of metaphors: explicit vs. implicit. We also examine the moderating effects of verbal metaphor and creative mind-set on metaphor advertising effects.
The present study uses experimental design with a 3 (ad type: non-metaphor vs. explicit metaphor vs. implicit metaphor) x2 (verbal metaphor: with vs. without) x2 (creative mind-set: high vs. low) factorial design. Six different scenarios are established through fictitious product ads. Creative mind-set is classified based on a priming task. Ad effects are measured by attitudes toward the ad, attitudes toward the brand, and purchase intention to observe the responses under different scenarios.
The results indicate that the explicit metaphor advertising is more effective than the non-metaphor advertising. Moreover, verbal metaphor decreases the effect difference between explicit metaphor ad and implicit metaphor ad. As for consumers with high creative-mind, the ad effects of explicit metaphor advertising is better than the implicit metaphor advertising, and the implicit metaphor advertising is better than the non-metaphor advertising. On the contrary, no such differences are found for low creative mind-set consumers. The findings suggest that marketers should consider the verbal metaphor when they design the implicit metaphor advertising in order to improve the advertising effects. |
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