The Effects of Mood and Message Characteristics on Information Processing Styles and Advertising Effectiveness

Abstract

A 2 by 2 factorial experiment was conducted to examine how positive and negative mood and types of ad appeals influence people’s information processing styles, and evaluations of the ad, product and purchase intention. A total of 263 undergraduate students at Iowa State University were recruited as participants in this study. The study was conducted in two separate phases; the first phase involved mood manipulation and the second phase focused on ad and brand evaluation. The findings showed that people in a positive mood were more likely to utilize relational processing, whereas people in a negative mood were more likely to utilize itemspecific processing. Also, people tended to utilize relational processing when they were exposed to an experiential appeal, whereas people tended to utilize item-specific processing when they were exposed to a utilitarian appeal. However, the study failed to find any significant interaction effects between mood and message characteristics. The results showed that people in both positive and negative mood states evaluated ad and product more positively when they were exposed to ad with an experiential appeal. Mood and message characteristics did not have significant influence on people’s purchase intention.