Appeals in Web Advertising : Exploring the influence of ethical and financial appeals on consumer attitudes

Sammanfattning: Advertising has been a common element in the web experience for years. Advertisers can use many strategies to reach their intended consumer, and can appeal to for example rationality, emotion or ethics. Using theories on the composition of ads, their context and the web user, this paper presents a study testing two types of advertising appeals – an ethical appeal and a financial appeal. The experiment tested for the effect of these appeals on outcome measures of attitude, trust and credibility, and attributions. The results show some differences between the attitudes toward the ad between the conditions, where the financial appeal produced more positive attitudes. The results also suggest a relationship between the credibility and trust measures, and the overall positive attitude toward the brand. The results are discussed in terms of credibility and perceived veracity of claims associated with the appeal.