Pleasantness, activation, and sex differences in advertising

Area of Science:

• Linguistic analysis
• Advertising research
• Psychology of communication

Background:

• Understanding the linguistic characteristics of advertisements is crucial for effective marketing.
• Previous research has explored ad content, but objective linguistic and emotional analysis across diverse demographics is less common.

Purpose of the Study:

• To objectively analyze linguistic style and emotional tone in advertisements across men's, women's, girls', and boys' magazines.
• To investigate the relationship between objective linguistic measures and subjective perceptions of ad persuasion and success.
• To identify sex- and age-related differences in advertising language and preferred ad characteristics.

Main Methods:

• Objective scoring of 38,195 words from magazine advertisements using 15 linguistic style measures.
• Utilizing the Dictionary of Affect to measure emotional tone (pleasantness and activation).
• Conducting two follow-up studies with 122 volunteers to assess ad persuasion and appeal.

Main Results:

• Significant sex- and age-related differences were found in advertisement language.
• Advertisements in boys' magazines were highly active; those in women's and girls' magazines were shorter and pleasant.
• Objective emotional measures correlated with perceived ad persuasion and success.

Conclusions:

• Linguistic and emotional characteristics of advertisements vary significantly by target demographic.
• Preferred advertisement styles differ between genders: women prefer pleasant and active ads, men prefer unpleasant and active ads.
• Women's self-created advertisements tend to be shorter and more pleasant than men's.