Förnuft eller Magkänsla? - En fallstudie om hur kognitiva och affektiva stimuli i annonstexter driver försäljning på Facebook

Sammanfattning: The context of digital advertising has made it simpler to measure investments in marketing activities online, in terms of sales conversion. This has induced an increased adoption of a sales-driven marketing approach. The approach has put copywriting, the art of creating persuasive messages, in an important role as part of the new digital development. The objective of a copywriter is to persuade the recipient to undertake a certain action. They often do this by applying the psychology of decision-making, and include stimuli in the text that trigger different decision-making processes. This thesis seeks to examine how different types of copywriting characterized by either cognitive or affective stimuli contribute to sales. Decision-making theory suggests that affective stimuli, that provoke emotions, should have a preeminent impact on purchase intention. We have conducted a two-parted exploratory case study based on data from 150 advertisements from the food subscription industry, shown on Facebook in Scandinavia. The advertisements have been individually categorized to better explain how the different psychological stimuli are affecting our decisions, and then tested statistically to see what category of stimuli perform better in terms of sales. The result of this paper shows that, contrary to what theory suggests, cognitive stimuli provide a stronger contribution to advertising efficiency in terms of sales.