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Document de travail du LEM

2011-12

FUNCTIONAL AND EXPERIENTIAL ROUTES TO


PERSUASION: AN ANALYSIS OF ADVERTISING IN
EMERGING MARKETS

Lia Zarantonello
IESEG School of Management (LEM-CNRS)

Kamel Jedidi
Columbia Business School, Columbia University

Bernd H. Schmitt
Columbia Business School, Columbia University
Functional and experiential routes to persuasion:

An analysis of advertising in emerging markets

Lia Zarantonello, Kamel Jedidi, Bernd H. Schmitt

Lia Zarantonello is Assistant Professor of Marketing, IÉSEG School of Management (LEM-

CNRS), Catholic University of Lille, Socle de la Grande-Arche, 1, Parvis de La Défense, 92044

Paris-La Défense cedex, France, phone number: +33 1 5591 1105, fax: +33 1 4775 9375,

l.zarantonello@ieseg.fr.

Kamel Jedidi is the John A. Howard Professor of Business, Columbia Business School,

Columbia University, 3022 Broadway, 510 Uris Hall, New York NY 10027, USA, phone

number: +1 212 854 3479, fax: +1 212 854 7647, kj7@columbia.edu.

Bernd H. Schmitt is the Robert D. Calkins Professor of International Business, Columbia

Business School, Columbia University, 3022 Broadway, 510 Uris Hall, New York NY 10027,

USA, phone number/fax: +1 212 854 3468, bhs1@columbia.edu. He is currently Nanyang

Visiting Professor at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore where he directs

the Institute on Asian Consumer Insight.

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Functional and experiential routes to persuasion:

An analysis of advertising in emerging markets

Should advertising persuasion be approached differently in emerging than in developed markets?

Using data from 256 TV commercial tests conducted by a multinational FMCG company in 23

countries, we find that the experiential route drives persuasion in developed markets. In

emerging markets, however, it is the functional route that drives persuasion and, unexpectedly,

also influences affect. Moreover, the data reveal that the functional route is more important in

driving persuasion in emerging Asian markets relative to other emerging markets. We discuss

implications of our finding for advertising in emerging markets.

Keywords: Emerging markets, experiential advertising, functional advertising, developed

markets, Asian markets.

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1. Introduction

The advertising industry in emerging markets (EMs) is of increasing importance. After the

recession following the late-2000s financial crisis, global advertising spending is increasing

again, but this increase largely stems from emerging countries in the Asia Pacific, Middle

East/Africa, and Latin America regions. According to a 2011 Nielsen’s report

(www.nielsen.com), EMs will continue to lead global advertising spending in the years to come.

Fast moving consumer goods (FMCGs) represent the category with the highest expected rate of

growth.

Given the increasing economic importance of advertising in EMs, it is essential to

understand how advertising works in these markets. Prior research has developed general models

of how consumers process advertisements. However, this body of knowledge has been created

almost exclusively through research conducted in high income, industrialized nations (Burgess &

Steenkamp, 2006). The question that arises is then whether and how consumers in EMs process

ads differently from consumers in developed markets (DMs). We address this question by

focusing on the relative effects of functional and experiential routes of ad persuasion. We

compare consumer ad processing in EMs with DMs and also identify differences within EMs.

The paper is organized as follows. We first review the information processing literature

in advertising with a special focus on the differences between EMs and DMs. We then describe

the data we use to address our research question. Next, we present our modeling approach and

discuss the empirical findings. We conclude the paper by making recommendations for

advertising in EMs, discussing the limitations of our research and suggesting directions for future

research.

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2. Conceptual framework and hypothesis development

2.1. The information processing model of advertising

At a broad level, marketing researchers have created an information processing framework that

describes the advertising persuasion process. In this framework, the advertising message as input

generates an internal consumer response which, in turn, affects consumer behavior, the output of

this process (Vakratsas & Ambler, 1999). According to early models, advertising results in

behaviors such as product purchase, trial, and adoption (Barry & Howard, 1990). Later models,

however, suggest measuring its impact in terms of attitude formation and change (Copper &

Croyle, 1984; Tesser & Shaffer, 1990; Olson & Zanna, 1993; Petty & Wegener, 1997).

Most research has concentrated on the link between type of ad message and internal

response. Broadly speaking, an advertising message can be described in terms of its rational and

experiential components (see, among others, Heath 2011). The rational component of an ad

emphasizes the features and benefits of a product, and aims at generating a cognitive consumer

response (e.g., evaluation) (Abernethy & Franke, 1996). On the other hand, the experiential

component of an ad evokes sensations, feelings and emotions, and imaginations that may result

in an affective response (e.g., liking) (Holbrook & Hirschman, 1982; Schmitt, 1999; Brakus,

Schmitt, & Zarantonello, 2009). It should be noted that almost all ads (and certainly the ones

used in our empirical studies) include both functional and experiential elements to some degree.

Moreover, the two approaches (i.e., targeting cognitions with the functional ad component and

affect with the experiential component) may be viewed as two different routes of persuasion.

These two routes are not mutually exclusive: advertising communications can adopt either one of

the two approaches, or both of them at the same time, in which case both cognitive and affective

responses might be activated simultaneously (De Pelsmacker, Guens, & Van den Bergh, 2007).

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Finally, the two internal consumer responses (cognitive and affective) may be related: a positive,

cognitive evaluation may in of itself trigger affect; conversely, an affective response or feeling

may trigger a reflective cognitive response to explain its source or justify why the feeling

occurred (Chaiken, 1980; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986; Forgas, 1995).

The model described thus far is well established and supported by decades of marketing

and consumer research literature. Because it is a general information processing model, one

would expect that it applies to consumers all around the world. However, consumers in different

parts of the world, and in EMs versus DMs in particular, may differ significantly in terms of

whether the ad messages that they are exposed to trigger cognitive and/or affective processes.

That is, advertising messages that may contain both functional and experiential components may

trigger different degrees of cognitive and affective processing in EMs than in DMs. Moreover,

some components may also show differences among EMs.

2.2. Ad processing differences across markets

Why could consumers in EMs react differently to ads than consumers in DMs? Consider an

FMCG such as a shampoo, razor, or cleaning product. In EMs, contextual factors affecting the

brand (water availability and purity, bathroom facilities in households, as well as retail

environments and price) may be quite different from DMs. They may affect how consumers

perceive the brand messages and the functional and experiential components—that is the product

attributes shown, the functional values communicated, and the implied sensory and emotional

components.

Specifically, in DMs, where practically all ad research has been conducted, a shift from

rational toward more experiential communications has been reported over the years (Schmitt,

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1999; Schmitt, Rogers, & Vrotsos, 2003). This finding is consistent with theories on sociology of

consumption. Sociological research has shown that early market capitalism results in a

“disenchantment of the world,” by stressing rationality and functional utility (Weber 1922;

1978). In advertising, rationality and functional utility should be reflected in a predominance of

cognitive responses that examine product application, product performance and benefits that

provide functional value. Later forms of capitalism, however, result in a postmodern society and

“re-enchantment,” (Ritzer, 2005; Jenkins, 2000; Firat & Venkatesh, 1995), where hedonic,

emotional and imaginative elements are more important. As markets have matured, consumers

take functional features for granted. They know that a product works and that brands may not be

strongly differentiated on functions. They thus focus on deriving positive affect derived from the

experiential ad components. In sum, they are subject to an experiential route of persuasion (Pine

& Gilmore, 1999).

How about consumers in EMs? Here we propose that consumers still primarily respond to

functionality because these consumers are in earlier stages of capitalism and market

development. They are still learning about product and brand differentiation. As a result, we

would expect that consumers in EMs are most persuaded by functional advertising

communications and that they engage in cognitive processing. They are subject to a functional

route to persuasion.

In line with this reasoning, Chandy, Tellis, MacInnis and Thaivanich (2001) compared

various markets in the U.S. and found that, in younger markets, argument-based ads are more

persuasive than emotion-based ones. As products are often introduced in a new market to solve a

specific consumption problem, advertising communication that explains how to avoid or solve

that problem is more effective. On the other hand, in more mature markets, emotion-based ads

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are more persuasive than argument-based ads. Consumers from these markets are already

familiar with a certain problem and solution provided by a brand, thus they attach more

importance to the emotional aspects that are provided in advertising communications. Thus, our

overall hypothesis can be stated as follows:

In DMs, the experiential route best describes the advertising process of persuasion. However, in

EMs, the functional route best describes the process of persuasion.

We test this main hypothesis with a set of 256 TV commercials from 23 countries around

the world, including both EMs and DMs.

In addition, we also explore differences within EMs. It is difficult to offer an a priori

hypothesis about such differences. However, there are clearly many contextual factors that may

result in differences within EMs (for example, between Asian emerging markets and emerging

markets in South America and the Middle East). As a result, as much as the data allow us to do

so, we will also present a broad empirical comparison within EMs.

Studying ads in an international context is a complex task because ad stimuli themselves

are complex stimuli. They contain not only functional and experiential components. They also

include various degrees of local/global appeal (Zhou & Belk, 2004; Ford, Mueller, & Taylor,

2011), traditional/modern appeal (Mueller, 1987; Chiou, 2002) and individualistic/collectivistic

appeal (Zhang, 2010). In addition to functional and experiential ad components, advertising

effectiveness—measured, for example, in terms of ad acceptance, attitude towards the ad,

purchase intention, ad likability—may also depend on such factors. We expect that they also

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influence cognitive and affective responses. We will thus include them in our model and assess

their relative importance compared to the functional and experiential components.

3. Data

Our study uses a set of 256 TV commercials that were tested by our sponsoring multinational

FMCG company in 23 countries, including sixteen emerging and seven developed markets. In

total, there are 102 commercials tested in developed countries and 154 in emerging countries.

See Table 1.

---

Insert Table 1 about here

---

Our classification of countries into EMs and DMs is based on the Human Development

Index (HDI). Several variables are used to construct the index, including life expectancy,

literacy, education and various standards of living measures (UNDP, 2010). The group of

developed countries includes Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland and UK

(average HDI=0.869). The group of emerging countries includes Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China,

India, Indonesia, Mexico, Morocco, Pakistan, Philippines, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa,

Thailand, Turkey and Vietnam (average HDI=0.654).

The commercials are for five global brands of household cleaners offered by our

sponsoring multinational company. All commercials were tested by a leading research institute

between January 2007 and August 2010. About a third of these commercials were actually aired

on TV based on their ad test performance. The commercials present a high degree of similarity

across brands because they advertise brands that belong to the same product category (i.e.,

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household cleaners), as well as across markets because each of the brands advertised has a global

positioning.

Our unit of analysis is the commercial. Each commercial is measured on two sets of

variables. The first set contains aggregate measures of consumers’ cognitive, affective, and

conative responses to the commercial and is provided by the research institute. The second set

contains experts’ evaluation of the commercials on various functional, experiential, and cultural

dimensions. We now discuss the details of each set of variables.

3.1. Consumer response data

This dataset includes the aggregate results of the 256 ad tests. Each test is conducted using a

sample of 150 consumers who are representative of the country where the test is conducted in

terms of gender, age, and socio-economic profile. Thus, the dataset combined represents a

worldwide sample of more than thirty-eight thousands consumers. All data are indexed against

country norms, where a score of 100 on any particular ad response measure indicates average

performance in the country. (A score greater (lower) than 100 indicates above (below) average

performance in the country.) This means that the data from different countries are comparable

and that there is no “country fixed-effect.”

Consumer responses to advertising have been assessed by the research institute through

various measures related to cognitive, affective and conative responses to advertising. Although

not derived from the literature, these measures represent the result of years of practice in the field

and have been used repeatedly worldwide. Cognitive response (labeled as “COG”) is measured

by five items. These are: 1) ease of understanding the ad (which we label as “Understanding”);

2) credibility of the ad (“Credibility”); 3) relevance of the ad (“Relevance”); 4) degree of

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differentiation of the ad from others (“Differentiation”); and 5) linkage between the ad and the

brand advertised (“Branding”). The five measures have high internal consistency, with

Cronbach’s alpha equal to 0.89. Affective response (labeled as “AFF”) is measured by two

items: 1) enjoyment of the ad (“Enjoyment”); and 2) the appeal of the brand in the ad

(“Appeal”). These two measures are internally consistent (Cronbach’s alpha=0.86).1 Finally,

conative or behavioral response is measured by the ability of the ad to persuade consumers to

buy the product advertised (i.e., purchase intention). We label this variable “PI.” The Appendix

lists the set of questions asked by the research institute to measure consumer responses to the

commercial.

3.2. Experts’ judgment data

Following the tradition in advertising research (e.g., Olney, Holbrook, & Batra 1991), we use

two knowledgeable experts (one co-author and one senior manager from the sponsoring

multinational firm) to evaluate the 256 TV commercials using a coding scheme we developed.

The coding scheme is reported in the Appendix. The coding scheme asks the coder for a detailed

evaluation of each commercial on functional (Abernethy & Franke, 1996), experiential

(Holbrook & Hirschman, 1982; Schmitt, 1999; Brakus, Schmitt, & Zarantonello, 2009) and

cultural (Mueller, 1987; Chiou, 2002; Okazaki, Mueller, & Taylor, 2010) dimensions.

More specifically, the functional aspects are measured by five formative indicators

capturing the degree to which the commercial focuses on: (1) product attributes (which we label

as “ATT”); (2) product applications (“APP”); (3) product performance (“PERF”); (4) product

benefits (“BEN”); and (5) price/value (“VAL”). Expert judges also evaluate how functional the

1
A two-factor solution with varimax rotation explains 74% of the variance in the data (41% is captured by the
cognitive factor and the remaining 33% is captured by the affective factor).

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commercial is overall (“FUNC”). The experiential aspects are measured by four formative

indicators capturing the degree to which the commercial appeals to: (1) sensory elements

(“SENS”); (2) feelings and emotions (“FEEL”); (3) imagination and mental stimulations

(“IMAG”); and (4) behaviors and actions (“BEH”). Expert judges also evaluate how experiential

the commercial is overall (“EXP”). We use three measures for the cultural aspects of a

commercial. The measures capture the extent to which the ad has: (1) a traditional or modern

appeal (“TM”); (2) a local or global appeal (“LG”); and (3) an individual or community appeal

(“IC”).

The two expert judges were given all the TV commercials with the scripts in the original

language and a back-translation in English. After evaluating all the commercials independently,

they met and compared their coding. Across all countries, the inter-rater agreement ranged from

a high of 0.95 for Australia to a low of 0.84 for Russia, with a mean of 0.90. The judges

managed to resolve all conflicts and the agreed upon coding was merged with the consumer

response data, which we used for the empirical analysis we report next.

4. Model

Our conceptual model relating consumer responses to the experiential, functional, and cultural

characteristics of the ad appears in Figure 1. It is consistent with the general advertising model

described earlier. Following the advertising persuasion process, we assume a forward recursive

flow of effects from ad characteristics through cognitive and affective responses to intended

behavior. Working backward, we assume that purchase intent (i.e., persuasion) depends directly

on two factors: cognition and affect. These two factors, in turn, depend on the functional,

experiential, and cultural characteristics of the ad. Note that the functional and experiential

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characteristics are endogenously determined by their respective formative indicators whereas the

cultural characteristics are treated as exogenous variables.

---

Insert Figure 1 about here

---

For model estimation, we measure cognition by the mean of its five indicator variables:

understanding, credibility, relevance, differentiation, and branding. We also measure affect by

the mean of its two indicators, enjoyment and appeal. The use of the mean instead of the

individual indicators is necessary for the reliable estimation of the model parameters, due to the

limited sample size.2

Let i denote commercial i=1, 2, …, 256 and let g=1 (=2) denote if commercial i is tested

in an emerging (developed) country. Then the model depicted in Figure 1 simplifies to the

following multi-group, simultaneous equation model:

FUNC i γ 0f γ1f ATT i γ 2f APPi γ 3f PER i γ 4f BEN i γ 5f VAL i ,


EXPi γ 0e γ1eSEN i γ 2f FEEL i γ 3f IMAG i γ 4f BEH i ,
COG g
i γ g
0c γ FUNC i
g
1c γ EXPi
g
2c γ LGi
g
3c γ TM i
g
4c γ 5c
g
IC i , (1)
AFF i
g
γ g
0a γ FUNC i
g
1a γ EXPi
g
2a γ LGi
g
3a γ TM i
g
4a γ IC i ,
g
5a

PI g
i γ g
0p γ COG i
g
1p γ AFFi ,
g
2c g 1, 2; i 1,, 256

where the γ parameters are regression coefficients to be estimated and ε ig (ε ifg , ε ieg , ε icg , ε iag , ε ipg ) is

a vector of error terms that follows a multivariate normal distribution with a zero mean vector

g
and covariance matrix . There are two covariance elements of interest. The first, which we

g
denote fe , is the covariance between FUNC and EXP. This covariance captures the correlation

2
Our sample includes 102 ad tests from developed counties and 154 from developed countries. A fully specified
structural equation model would necessitate the estimation of 123 parameters at the aggregate level. Clearly we do
not have a sufficient number of observations to reliably estimate such a model either at the aggregate or group level.

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between the extents to which an ad is functional or experiential. The second is the covariance

g
between COG and AFF and is denoted ca . This covariance captures the correlation between the

g
cognitive and affective responses. In Figure 1, fe is represented by the arc connecting FUNC

g
and EXP and ca is represented by the arc connecting COG and AFF.

There are few observations that we need to make regarding the system of equations in

(1). First, because the evaluation of the extent to which an ad is functional or experiential is

made by experts, the relationship between FUNC and EXP and their respective formative

indicators is obviously invariant across emerging and developed countries. Second, we do not

specify country-specific fixed effects because our data are indexed against country norms (i.e.,

the data are “mean-centered” by country). Third, the system of equations in (1) reduces to an

aggregate model if the parameters are invariant across groups. We test for such a specification in

our empirical analysis.

5. Empirical results

We use our data to estimate the simultaneous system of equations in (1) using Proc Tcalis in

SAS. We first estimate two models: an aggregate model that constrains the parameters to be

invariant across emerging and developed countries, and a multi-group model that allows the

parameters to vary across DMs and EMs. We use the latter model to examine if and how the

relationship between ad responses and the cultural, functional, and experiential aspects varies

across emerging and developed countries. We then focus the analysis on EMs to examine if there

is any additional variability in the ad persuasion process within this group of countries.

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5.1. DMs versus EMs results

We obtain log-likelihoods of -1428.14 and -1400.44 for the aggregate and multi-group models,

respectively. Thus the multi-group simultaneous equation model has a significantly better fit than

2
the aggregate model ( 19 55.18; p < 0.001). We obtain the same conclusion using Akaike’s

(1972) information criterion (AIC), which penalizes for over-parametrization: the multi-group

model has lower AIC than the aggregate model (AIC=2922.28 versus AIC=2905.10,

respectively). These results suggest that the drivers of ad performance significantly vary across

the two groups of countries. We now discuss the details of our empirical results by first

describing the aggregate results and then the group-level results.

5.1.1. Aggregate results

Constraining the model parameters to be invariant across emerging and developed countries, we

obtain the following estimates for the simultaneous system of equations in (1) where parameters

in boldface are significant at least at the p < 0.05 level:

FUNC i - .31 .31ATT i .30APPi .29PER i .21BEN i .08VAL i ,


EXPi - .29 .33SEN i .38FEEL i .28IMAG i .18BEH i ,
COG i 90.53 1.62FUNC i .53EXPi 1.33LG i 1.26TM i .96ICi , (2)
AFFi 87.95 2.15FUNC i 1.45EXPi 1.53LG i .34TM i .72ICi ,
PIi - .18 .32COG i .70AFFi .

The estimates of the covariance elements fe and ca are, respectively, -0.006 (p > 0.1) and

43.23 (p < 0.01).

The results indicate that experts are influenced more by the degree to which the

commercial focuses on product attributes, applications, performance, and benefits than

price/value when judging the extent to which an ad is functional. Similarly, ad appeals to sensory

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elements, feelings, and imaginations have more influence on expert judgment of the extent to

which the ad is experiential than does appeals to behaviors. As expected, cognition is

significantly impacted by functional advertising (p < 0.01). Similarly, experiential advertising is

significantly related to affect (p < 0.05). However, affect is also significantly related to

functional advertising (p < 0.01). As we discuss below, this effect may be due to aggregation

effects (i.e., the pooling of the data across emerging and developed countries). Among the

cultural variables, the local/global variable significantly impacts both cognition and affect (p <

0.05) whereas the traditional/modern variable significantly impacts cognition only (p < 0.05).

Thus global ads are likely to lead to higher cognitive and affective responses from consumers

whereas modern ads appear to have higher impact on cognitive responses. Finally, affect has a

relatively larger impact on purchase intention than cognition, even though both variables are

significant (p < 0.01).

In summary, the aggregate results suggest that both functional and experiential

advertising are effective routes to persuasion.

5.1.2. Multi-group results

Recall that because the extent to which an ad is functional or experiential is judged by experts,

the relationships between FUNC and EXP and their respective formative indicators should not

vary across emerging and developed countries. We already discussed these relationships under

the aggregate results. We now focus on examining how the relationship between consumer

responses and ad characteristics vary across the two groups of countries, beginning with DMs

and then EMs.

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DMs results

We obtain the following estimates for the simultaneous system of equations in (1) where

parameters in boldface are significant at least at the p < 0.05 level. As noted above, the parameter

estimates of the FUNC and EXP equations are identical to those reported in Equation (2) and are

omitted.

COG i 91.61 1.10FUNCi .68EXPi 1.19LGi 1.41TM i 1.12ICi ,


AFFi 82.87 1.81FUNCi 2.37EXPi 1.45LGi 1.30TM i 1.07ICi , (3)
PIi - 11.50 .22COG i 0.93AFFi .

1
The estimate of the covariance element ca is 33.24 (p < 0.01).

The estimation results for DMs show that cognition is significantly determined by

whether the ad is traditional or modern (a cultural variable) but not significantly impacted by

whether the ad is functional or experiential. (The local/global cultural variable is only significant

at p < 0.1 level). Thus, in DMs, modern ads seem to have larger impact on cognitive responses

than traditional ones. They also show that affect is significantly impacted by experiential

advertising (p < 0.01). Finally, purchase intent is significantly related to affect (p < 0.001) but

not to cognition. These findings suggest that, in DMs, experiential advertising is a more effective

route to persuasion than functional advertising. Experiential advertising communications produce

affective responses which, in turn, impact purchase intention. In order to be effective, therefore,

advertising should be able to stimulate sensations, feelings, imagination as well as behaviors and

lifestyles.

EMs results

We obtain the following estimates for the simultaneous system of equations in (1) where

parameters in boldface are significant at least at the p < 0.05 level. As noted above, the parameter

16
estimates of the FUNC and EXP equations are identical to those reported in Equation (2) and are

omitted.

COG i 87.52 2.47FUNC i .57EXPi 1.35LGi 1.18TM i 1.07ICi ,


AFFi 87.80 2.49FUNC i 1.44EXPi 2.08LG i .22TM i .41ICi , (4)
PIi 4.99 .37COG i .60AFFi .

1
The estimate of the covariance element ca is 51.16 (p < 0.01).

As in the aggregate analysis, cognition is significantly related to functional advertising (p

< 0.05). Purchase intent is also significantly related to both cognition (p < 0.001) and affect (p <

0.001). However, unlike the aggregate analysis, only functional advertising and Local/Global

have a significant impact on affect (p < 0.05). The effect of experiential advertising is

insignificant. These findings suggest that, in EMs, functional advertising is more effective route

to persuasion than experiential advertising. Functional advertising seems to jointly impact both

cognition and affect. Thus, to be effective, advertising communications in EMs should focus

more on functional and global elements rather than the experiential aspects.

5.2. Results within EMs

We now examine if there’s any additional variability in the persuasion process within EMs. We

group EMs into two groups: Asian markets (N = 90), including China, India, Indonesia,

Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, versus non-Asian markets (N = 64), including Argentina, Brazil,

Chile, Mexico, Morocco, Pakistan, Russia, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Turkey.3

As in the DMs versus EMs analysis, we estimate two simultaneous equation models: an

aggregate model within the EMs and multi-group model that contrasts Asian and Non-Asians

3
One could further subdivide the non-Asian markets into Latin America versus the rest. However, such a finer
analysis is not possible given the limited sample size of 64 ads in this group.

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EMs. We obtain log-likelihoods of -786.14 and -751.66 for the aggregate and multi-group EMs

models, respectively. Thus, within EMs, the multi-group simultaneous equation model has a

2
significantly better fit than the aggregate model ( 19 70.17; p < 0.001). We arrive at the same

conclusion using Akaike’s (1972) information criterion (AIC): the multi-group model has lower

AIC than the aggregate model (AIC=1639.50 versus AIC=1607.32, respectively). These results

suggest that there are significant differences in the drivers of ad performance between Asian and

Non-Asian EMs. We now discuss the details of how these two groups of EMs vary in their ad

persuasion processes. Note that the aggregate results for the EMs have been discussed in Section

5.1.2 above.

Asian EMs results

For Asian markets, we obtain the following estimates for the simultaneous system of equations

in (1) where parameters in boldface are significant at least at the p < 0.05 level.

COG i 87.75 2.34FUNCi 2.83EXPi 1.58LGi 5.57TM i .75ICi ,


AFFi 85.38 3.09FUNC i .92EXPi 3.41LG i 3.84TM i - 1.24ICi , (5)
PIi 3.46 0.42COG i 0.63AFFi .

1
The estimate of the covariance element ca is 47.55 (p < 0.01).

The estimation results show that experiential advertising has a significant negative impact

on cognition whereas functional advertising has a positive impact. This latter effect is only

significant at p < 0.1 level. Cognition also significantly depends on whether the ad is traditional

or modern. The results also show that there is a significant positive relationship between affect

and functional advertising (p < 0.01), local/global, and traditional/modern. Finally, purchase

intent is significantly determined by both affect and cognition (p < 0.001). These findings

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suggest that, in Asian markets, functional advertising is a more effective route to persuasion than

experiential advertising. Functional advertising communications with global and modern appeals

produce mainly affective responses which, in turn, impact purchase intention. To be effective in

Asian markets, therefore, advertising should provide information about product attributes,

product applications, product performance, functional benefits, and functional value; advertising

should also convey a global and modern message.

Non-Asian EMs results

For the non-Asian EMs, we obtain the following estimates for the simultaneous system of

equations in (1) where parameters in boldface are significant at least at the p < 0.05 level.

COG i 84.75 3.44FUNC i 3.71EXPi - 1.44LGi .20TM i .40ICi ,


AFFi 76.94 3.16FUNCi 4.95EXPi - 2.72LGi 1.10TM i .64ICi , (6)
PIi 21.16 .24COG i 0.56AFFi .

1
The estimate of the covariance element ca is 37.09 (p < 0.01).

The estimation results show that whereas cognition is significantly determined by both

functional and experiential advertising, affect is only impacted by the latter advertising. They

also show that the cultural variables local/global, traditional/modern or

individualistic/collectivistic do not impact consumers’ cognitive or affect responses. Finally,

purchase intent is significantly related to affect but not to cognition. These findings suggest that,

in non-Asian EMs, experiential advertising is a more effective route to persuasion than

functional advertising. Experiential advertising communications produce affective responses

which in turn, impact purchase intention. In order to be effective in non-Asian markets,

therefore, advertising should be able to stimulate sensations, feelings, imagination as well as

behaviors and lifestyles.

19
5.3. Summary of empirical results

The aggregate analysis reveals that both functional and experiential advertising have significant

impact on affect. More specifically, the aggregate analysis suggests that experiential advertising

has impact on affect whereas functional advertising can impact both cognition and affect. In turn,

the latter two factors jointly impact purchase intent. Multi-groups analyses, however, reveal

some important differences in the advertising persuasion process in different markets. Thus the

aggregate result suffers from the aggregation bias that ensues from pooling the data across

groups of countries.

When considering DMs versus EMs, we find that affect is impacted by functional

advertising in emerging countries and mostly by experiential advertising in developed countries.

Specifically, for DMs, the multi-group analysis suggests that (1) functional advertising has no

impact on consumer cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses to the ad, and (2) experiential

advertising has a significant impact on affect, which in turn, impacts persuasion. In contrast, for

EMs, functional advertising appears to impact both cognition and affect, the two significant

drivers of purchase intent.

Focusing on EMs, and considering the difference between Asian versus non-Asian

markets, we find that in Asian markets functional advertising drives the persuasion process, as it

influences both cognition and affect. In contrast, in non-Asian EMs, experiential messages seem

to play a key role in stimulating consumers’ affect which, in turn, impacts purchase intention. In

addition, Asian markets seem to be more sensitive to cultural advertising appeals (i.e.,

local/global, traditional/modern), which are able to influence both cognition and affect.

20
6. Conclusions

Using an extensive data set from a FMCG company of 256 TV commercials for cleaning brands

from 23 countries around the world, we find ad processing differences both between EMs and

DMs and among EMs. Whereas in DMs, the experiential route drives persuasion, it is the

functional route that drives persuasion in EMs. Thus advertisers in EMs need to make sure that

they have persuasive functional messages related to product attributes, product applications,

product performance, product benefits, and price/value. Our results also show that, unexpectedly,

the functional route influences affect. This effect may be explained by the functional focus of

consumers in EMs; it seems that because functionality is creating value for them, they derive

positive affect from it.

Moreover, the data reveal that the functional route is more important in Asian markets

compared to other EMs. We can only speculate why this may be so. Asian markets and

companies are characterized by a strong “engineering orientation,” as revealed for example by

their research and development expenditure or by their high-technology exports

(http://data.worldbank.org). This may result in an overall functional consumer orientation. This

orientation among Asian markets may lead them toward searching for the presence of

functionality, even in ads, and they seem to analyze ads by analyzing the functional features of

the product. Thus, while it may be worthwhile for a FMCG to use a general consumer processing

model when planning its advertising globally, the company also must pay attention to the

differences that exist within that model between EMs and DMs and between Asian EMs and

other EMs.

21
7. Limitations and future research

Even though the paper revealed important differences in the advertising persuasion process

between EMs and DMs, as well as between Asian markets and other EMs, the results that we

obtained must be treated with caution because they are subject to limitations. First, the paper

uses a dataset that includes only one product category (i.e., household cleaners). Future research

needs to test whether the results generalize to other categories, for example, from cleaning

products to higher involvement products such as fashion or automotive brands. A second

limitation concerns the medium investigated here—television. Future research should

concentrate on non-TV communications and investigate whether the same persuasion-

processing differences between markets can be found for other media as well. Finally, and most

importantly, this paper highlighted differences between EMs and DMs, and between Asian

markets and other emerging ones. Although the sample used included several ads from a large

set of countries, the number of observations was not enough to investigate further differences

among emerging countries. Future research should deepen our understanding of the advertising

persuasion process in emerging markets by investigating differences among additional emerging

market regions (for example, between the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America).

Acknowledgements

The authors are thankful to a large fast moving consumer goods multinational company that

provided the dataset. In particular, they wish to thank the two managers who actively supported

the project and the director of the marketing research division who made this possible. The

authors are also thankful to Jia Liu for her assistance in the data analysis.

22
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Table 1: Number of ad tests per country

Emerging countries Number of ad tests Developed countries Number of ad tests


Argentina 9 Australia 3
Brazil 3 France 27
Chile 4 Germany 2
China 14 Italy 21
India 46 Netherlands 12
Indonesia 5 Poland 11
Mexico 3 UK 26
Morocco 1 Total number of ad 102
Pakistan 2 tests
Philippines 2
Russia 22
South Africa 8
Saudi Arabia 1
Thailand 19
Turkey 13
Vietnam 2
Total number of ad 154
tests

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Figure 1: Conceptual model

Product Product Product Functional Functional value Understanding Credibility Relevance Differentiation Branding
attributes application performance benefits

Functional
Cognition
aspects

Local/
Global

Traditional/ Purchase
Modern
intention
Individualistic/
Collectivistic

Experiential
Affect
aspects

Sensations Feelings Imagination Behaviors Imagination Behaviors

28
Appendix:
Consumer response and experts measures

Dimension
Items Scales
measured
Consumer response data
Cognitive 1. Understanding: How strongly do you agree or disagree that 1. and 2. 5-point scale from
the advertisement makes you think this brand is really “Strongly disagree” to
different from others? “Strongly disagree”
2. Credibility: How strongly do you agree or disagree that 3. 5-point scale from
what the advertisement puts across about brand X is “Strongly agree” to
believable? “Strongly disagree”
3. Relevance: If you were buying a household cleaner, how 4. 4-point scale from “Very
relevant would the points made in the advertisement be to relevant” to “Not at all
you? relevant”
4. Differentiation: How different is this advertisement from 5. 5-point scale from “You
others that you have seen? couldn’t fail to remember
5. Branding: Thinking about the advertisement you’ve just it was for brand X” to “It
seen for brand X, which one of the phrases below applies to could have been for
this advertisement? almost anything”

Affective 1. Enjoyment: How much would you enjoy watching this 1. 5-point scale from “A
advertising each time you see it on television? lot” to “Not at all”
2. Appeal: How much is the ad able to increase the appeal of 2. 5-point scale from
brand X? “Much more appealing”
to “Much less appealing”
Behavioral 1. Persuasion: How will the advertising affect your use of 1. 4-point scale from
brand X? “Strongly encourage me
to continue using brand
X” to “Makes me less
likely to continue using
brand”
Experts’ judgment data
Functional To what degree does the ad focus on:
aspects 1. Product attributes (i.e., the formulation or ingredients of For all questions: 1 = Not
the product and its features)? present, 2 = Poorly
2. Product application (i.e., how the product has to be applied present, 3 = Somewhat
or rinsed; example: instructions for use, dosage, implement present, 4 = Strongly
required)? present
3. Product performance (i.e., what the product can do and its
cleaning efficacy)?
4. Functional benefits (i.e., the advantages for the consumer)?
5. Functional value (i.e., value for money or convenience of
the product)?
Experiential To what degree does the ad use or appeal to:
aspects 1. Sensory elements (i.e., colors and exciting visuals, music, For all questions: 1 = Not
touch, smell)? present, 2 = Poorly
2. Feelings and emotions (i.e., all kinds of feelings and present, 3 = Somewhat
emotions, either positive such as joy or negative such as present, 4 = Strongly
fear)? present
3. Imagination and mental stimulation (i.e., thinking in a
different, original and innovative way, approaching things
from a new angle)?
4. Behaviors and actions (i.e., physical activities, specific

29
actions, bodily experiences)?
Cultural The ad:
aspects 1. Has a local or global appeal (local = country specific, For all questions: 1 = Has
connecting with a particular culture, place or area; global = a more local (or
universal or inter-cultural, can travel across different traditional or
countries without specific need of translation)? individual…) than global
2. Has a traditional or modern appeal (traditional = (or modern or
conventional, following ideas and methods that have been group/community…)
existing for a long time; modern = up-to-date, using or appeal; 2 = Has an
willing to use very recent ideas, fashions or ways of equally local and modern
thinking)? appeal; 3 = Has a more
3. Talks about the individual or a group/community local than modern appeal
(individual = self, single person and his/her world;
group/community = a group of persons such as family,
neighborhood, friends)?

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