A message behind a smile: how facial expression supports communication in marketing

Abstract

A smile is a form of facial expression which contains a message of a person's feelings that al-lows the transmission of emotion to others. In marketing communications, emotional contagion can be an in-dividual evaluation of advertising, brands, and even purchase intentions. Using experimental techniques, this study aims to understand the impact of facial expression on consumer evaluation with emotional contagion mediation. Data from 120 participants involved in laboratory experiments were processed using ANOVA and Linear Regression. The result showed the presence of emotional contagion felt by the individual when observ-ing the facial expression of endorser in an advertisement. Furthermore, this emotional contagion mediates the effect of facial expression on consumer evaluation. Consumer evaluation in this study refers to attitude to-wards advertising, brand, and intention of purchasing product.