Do emotional appeals work for services?

Abstract

Despite a growing interest in services marketing as a research topic, the communication of service quality is relatively unexplored. The goal of this study was to shed some light on the relative effectiveness of emotional versus rational appeals in advertising services to potential new customers. Moreover, there was a desire to explore the impact of the following cues on post‐exposure attitude toward an unfamiliar service brand: employees or customers portrayed in the advertisement, pricing information and documentation strategy emphasizing service excellence. The results of this quasi‐experimental study suggest that appealing to a novice consumer’s emotional responses may be highly desirable in terms of creating a favourable attitude toward a service brand. Advertisement‐invoked emotions appear to strongly influence postexposure attitudes and service quality expectations among consumers with limited personal experiences with a service category. Finally, the findings of this study suggest that employing tangible cues of service excellence may be a more effective strategy in promoting an initial liking of a service brand among potential customers than focusing on price information.