The Impact of Hispanic-Targeted Advertising on Consumers’ Brand Love in Services

Abstract

In advertising, many targeted advertisements (ads) focus on a specific ethnic group. However, limited research exists about the effect that ads have on developing relationships between the consumer and brand, especially brand love (i.e., the deepest consumer-brand relationship). From an elaboration likelihood model (ELM) perspective, we investigate the determinants as well as the direct and indirect effects of ethnic identification on the behavioral outcomes of brand love. With three studies, we differentiate between two types of services (hedonic vs. utilitarian). According to ELM, we offer evidence that perceived similarity partially mediates the effect of strength of ethnic identification (SEI) on attitude toward the ad (Aad) for hedonic services but not utilitarian services. Additionally, ads with ethnic cues were more effective for developing brand love for hedonic services vs. utilitarian services. Our structural equation modeling (SEM) results also supports the efficacy of Hispanic-targeted ads for developing brand love and increasing brand loyalty and positive word-of-mouth (WOM). As such, this research provides managers with practical tools to improve the efficacy of ethnically targeted ads.