Surrounded by Online Casino Commercials : An exploratory study of consumers´perceptions, attitudes and emotions in relation to semiotic and rhetorical tools

Sammanfattning: The number of online casino companies in the Swedish gambling market, and especially the number of online casino commercials in Swedish television, has significantly increased during the last ten years. Previous studies show that Swedish consumers have negative attitudes toward gambling advertising. Literature explains advertising as a powerful source that influences consumers’ perceptions, attitudes and emotions. Hence, this thesisaims to explore consumers’ perceptions, attitudes and emotions of  online casino TV-commercials in relation to semiotic and rhetorical tools. In order to fulfil the aim of this thesis, this research is characterized by an interpretivistic philosophy and an abductive research approach. The empirical material in this study derive from qualitative content analyses of six online casino commercials and two focus group sessions. The findings show that perceptions, attitudes and emotions interrelate when consumers evaluate TV-commercials. The results also show that cultural aspects and segmentation contribute to consumers’ perceptions. Further, consumers must be able to relate to the story and link the content of the commercial to online gambling in order for them to have positive attitude and too feel positive about the commercials. Semiotic and rhetorical tools affect the consumer and thus are crucial elements for whether or not marketing communication is considered effective by the participants. These findings contribute with new insight in marketing communication as the combination of sensory marketing, semiotics and rhetoric have not been studied in relation to perceptions, attitudes and emotions. The conceptual model has a practical contribution since it can be applied in different areas of advertising.