Discovering the role of emotional and rational appeals and hidden heterogeneity of consumers in advertising copies for sustainable marketing

Abstract

Advertising copies have been considered as a fundamental strategy for firms to continue sustainable marketing strategies. In order to provide the advancement of previous research and practical implication to marketers in the field for sustainable marketing strategy, this research tried to reveal the role of emotional and rational appeals as well as hidden heterogeneity of consumers in the appeal-value-trust-satisfaction-WOM framework. By applying the PLS-SEM and PLS-POS approach to 230 valid questionnaire samples, we could discover the role of appeals in the framework as well as three types of unobserved heterogeneity among the respondents. Both emotional and rational appeals had significant influences on the value-satisfaction-trust-WOM context. In addition, for hidden consumer traits in advertising copies, we revealed three types of consumer groups: Type 1, the consumer group with a rational orientation (n = 68); Type 2, the group with an emotional orientation (n = 74) and Type 3, the group with a utilitarian orientation. This research provided contributions by offering some insight into ways to establish sustainable marketing strategies in advertisements and to address unobserved heterogeneity consumers in advertising copy appeals.