Purchase Intentions of Travel Products: Roles of Advertising Appeals, Age and Perceived Risks
Dan Tu 11635150
Persuasive Communication University of Amsterdam Master’s Thesis Graduate School of Communication
Supervisor: Sandra Zwier 31 Jan, 2019
Abstract
Travel agencies and advertisers use advertising appeals to attract the attention of consumers and influence their feelings towards travel products. Yet the relative effectiveness of advertising appeals on the purchase intention of travel products has scarcely been studied so far, not to say consumers’ age differences and behind it, the possible mediating role of perceived risks. This study addresses these questions by means of a 2 (rational vs. emotional advertising appeals) × 2 (younger and older adults) experiment conducted among Chinese consumers. Results indicated that rational and emotional advertising appeals did not differentially impact Chinese consumers’ purchase intention. However, age differences existed, whereby younger adults’ purchase intention was influenced by rational advertising appeals and older adults’ purchase intention by the emotional ones more. However, perceived risks were not found to explain these age differences. Instead, eagerness to travel was likely to be the reason. Therefore, although age could be a predictor, this study suggested that it is wiser for travel agencies and advertisers to define consumers’ eagerness to travel to a certain country before choosing which advertising appeals to use.
Keywords: rational advertising appeals; emotional advertising appeals; purchase intention; age; perceived risks
Purchase Intentions of Travel Products: Roles of Advertising Appeals, Age and Perceived Risks
According to China Tourism Academy, China’s outbound tourism market reached 131 million in 2017 and will be continuously growing (China Tourism Academy, 2018). As Chinese tourists prefer obtaining overseas travel information online rather than offline, advertisers are also renewing the advertising channels, with the volume of digital ads unceasingly increasing (World Tourism Cities Federation & Ipsos, 2018). For Chinese outbound tourists, the main online information-obtaining channels include official websites, apps, WeChat official accounts of online travel agencies (53.20%) and review sharing sites (46.75%) (World Tourism Cities Federation & Ipsos, 2018).
Rational appeals and emotional appeals are the two main categories of advertising appeals (Belch & Belch, 2015). The term advertising appeal refers to “the approach used to attract the attention of consumers and/or to influence their feelings towards the product, service or cause” (Belch & Belch, 2015, p. 301). For example, a rational advertising appeal could be an energy drink product stating that the various ingredients contained in the drink will enhance endurance and concentration; an emotional advertising appeal could be showing a group of young people drinking this product at a party to imply it as a symbol of being young, social and happy. As indicated above, both the outbound tourism market and the digital advertising market are developing in China, thus, understanding the relative effectiveness of rational and emotional advertising appeals on purchase intention of travel products is useful for travel agencies and advertisers to organize more effective advertising
strategies and touch the customers.
In the domain of travel advertisements, findings on the relative effectiveness of rational and emotional advertising appeals have been inconsistent so far (Liebermann & Flint-Goor, 1996; Zhang, Sun, Liu, & G. Knight, 2014), while researchers seldom took the age differences into consideration (Liebermann & Flint-Goor; 1996; Sudbury-Riley & Edgar, 2016).
Several studies (Liebermann & Flint-Goor, 1996; Zhang et al., 2014) used the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) to predict the relative effectiveness of advertising appeals, in which motivation causes two different information-processing strategies which correspondingly fit the features of rational and emotional advertising appeals. As for the mechanism behind the motivation, these studies argued that motivation varies as a function of both age and different levels of perceived risks, so that perceived risks are likely to mediate the moderation of age on the relation between advertising appeals and purchase intention. However, this argument has never been tested in practice, especially in the domain of travel advertisements.
Overall, the present study aims to fill these gaps, which are related to the age differences and the perceived risks mentioned above, whereby the research questions are:
1) Which type of advertising appeals (rational vs. emotional) is more effective in altering people’s purchase intention of travel products?
2) Will age moderate the relationship between advertising appeals and purchase intention?
3) If there is a moderating role of age, will perceived risks mediate this moderating effect?
Theoretical Framework
What are Rational Advertising Appeals and Emotional Advertising Appeals?
Rational advertising appeals focus on “the consumer’s practical, functional, or utilitarian need for the product or service and emphasize features of a product or service and/or the benefits or reasons for owning or using a particular brand” (Belch & Belch, 2015, p. 301). Plenty of rational motives can be used in advertising, including comfort, convenience, economy, quality, performance, etc. The idea that rational appeals can influence purchase decisions is based on the assumption that consumers make purchase decisions through logical or/and utilitarian evaluations. Rational messages can change the message receiver’s beliefs about the advertised product and convince the receiver of buying the product through the persuasive power of arguments put forth in marketing communication (Panda, Panda & Mishra, 2013).
Emotional advertising appeals pay attention to the consumers’ social and/or psychological needs for purchasing a product or service (Belch & Belch, 2015), whereby personal and social-based feelings are two main types of emotional appeals. Personal feelings are psychological states or feelings directed to the self, such as safety, fear, love, affection, happiness, excitement, and comfort. Social-based feelings are more of social orientation, such
as status, approval, respect and acceptance (Belch & Belch, 2015). Emotional appeals can arouse either positive or negative emotions leading to purchase decisions, and the explanation for their effectiveness is that emotional appeals can make consumers feel good about the advertised product by creating favorable product associations (Panda, Panda & Mishra, 2013). For instance, on the one hand, fear and anxiety appeals cause people to worry about their current situations and convince them that the advertised product can help change the situations. On the other hand, arousing positive feelings such as love and joy can make people attach these feelings to the advertised product and to then develop positive attitudes towards it.
What are Consumers’ Perceived Risks?
Bauer (1960) was among the first who proposed consumer behavior as risk-taking behavior. He indicated that it is consumers’ subjective perception of the risks (perceived risk), rather than the “real world” risks (objective risks), that will affect consumers’ purchasing behavior, because consumers can only estimate the risks by limited information, a reduced number of trials as well as a semi-reliable memory, and their assessment of risk is almost impossible to be objective and accurate. It can be expected that a higher level of risk perception will drop down the purchase intention, as consumers are often motivated to avoid risks (Mitchell, 1999). Bauer (1960) also suggested that a consumer’s purchasing behavior will cause consequences, sometimes negative, which the consumer cannot anticipate with certainty. As such outcomes can only be known in the future, the uncertainty and the fear of
potentially undesirable consequences will cause the consumer to perceive risk (Taylor, 1974). According to Mitchell (1992), perceived risks of a purchasing behavior comprise two components: 1) negative consequences of poor choice; 2) probability of consequences occurring. As for the negative consequences of a failed purchase behavior, they are commonly categorized into six types and therefore correspondingly six types of risks are identified (Reisinger & Mavondo, 2005; Schiffman & Kanuk, 2004), namely: 1) financial risk (value for money as well as how much money will be wasted if the service goes wrong)；2) functional or performance risk (not performing as desired); 3) physical risk (potential safety problems while using the product); 4) social risk (losing or lowering personal and social status, and/ or appearing unfashionable); 5) psychological risk (damaging self-image and/or reflecting poorly on personality) and 6) time risk (the amount of time required to purchase the products as well as the time lost as a result of product failure). Sönmez and Graefe (1998a) identified financial, psychological, performance, and time risks as most often associated with tourism.
Consumers’ perceived risks can be determined by two factors. The first factor is the feature of the product. The product category a product belongs to defines the inherent risk a product class holds for a consumer (Mitchell, 1999). In a given product category, the specific product or service provider gives rise to the handled risk taken by the consumer when (s)he selects a brand from a series of alternatives, after the information acquisition is fulfilled (Bergadaà, Coraux & Gueroui, 2005). The importance of loss has the explanatory power at the inherent risk level while the probability of loss works at the handled risk level. In other word, when measuring the perceived risks of a specific product within a given product
category, the probability of the loss, rather than the importance of loss, should be taken into consideration (Mitchell, 1999), which is the case for this study.
The second factor influencing consumers’ perceived risks is individual risk propensity. Not all individuals react in the same way towards the risk. More specifically, individuals with a propensity to avoid risks weigh the potential negative results more heavily than the positive ones, and thus have an overestimation of the relative loss probability with regards to the gain probability. Conversely, individuals seeking risks weigh the positive opportunities more seriously, and thus to have an overestimation of the relative gain probability with regards to the loss probability (Bergadaà, Coraux & Gueroui, 2005; Reisinger & Mavondo, 2005).
Relative Effectiveness of Rational and Emotional Appeals on Purchasing Intention of Travel products
Wehrli and colleagues (2017) conducted an experiment on the relative effectiveness of rational and emotional advertising appeals on the purchase decisions of sustainable tourism products and found that emotionally laden appeals were more effective in influencing purchase decisions. However, whether such a finding can be applied to standard tourism products is doubtful because sustainable tourism products are strongly value-driven and their biggest selling point is sustainability, which standard products do not necessarily contain.
Except for the study by Wehrli et al., other research into the use of rational and emotional appeals in advertising has seldom focused on travel products. Broader findings about the use of appeals in advertising for experience services however may be helpful for the
understanding of travel products, even if those findings were contradictory. Experience services (e.g. tours, vacations, education, flights) refer to services which can be evaluated only after actually using them (Liebermann & Flint-Goor, 1996). Liebermann and Flint-Goor (1996) used the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM, Cacioppo & Petty, 1984) to explain the relative effectiveness of rational and emotional appeals in advertising for experience services. According to the ELM, when motivation, ability and opportunity to process the information are fulfilled, a central information-processing route which encourages scrutinizing the message will take place. When lacking the motivation, ability or opportunity, people tend to follow the peripheral route in which they are less likely to engage in detailed cognitive processing (Belch & Belch, 2015). Because experience services are intangible and cannot be evaluated unless using them, the perceived risks of purchasing them are higher than for tangible products, which in turn will trigger higher involvement and stronger motivation for information processing (Liebermann & Flint-Goor, 1996). The authors did not actually test which appeals were more effective in influencing purchase decisions, but indicated that rational appeals will suit experience services more as the central processing route is activated in order to cope with a rationally oriented message, while the peripheral route is put into operation for treating emotionally oriented messages (Liebermann & Flint-Goor, 1996). In sum, when the opportunity exists (e.g. no distraction or time limitation), rational appeals presenting arguments about the benefits of a given travel service would be more effective, since people tend to adopt the central route to process advertising messages for travel products.
Although Zhang and colleagues (2014) also utilized the ELM, they assumed that experience services will be perceived as less risky than so-called credence services, which cannot be evaluated even after actually using them (e.g., accountancy, dentists, surgeries). Their experiment, which included 137 undergraduates to test the relative effects of rational and emotional appeals on the purchase intention of experience and credence services, supported their argument that emotional appeals led to higher purchase intentions of experience services than credence services.
An interesting question is why the above two studies, which used the same model, led to different results? One explanation could be that they employed different baselines to identify the perceived risks of experience services. The first study used tangible goods as baseline while the second used credence goods, thus perceived risks were assumed to be relatively high in the first study and be relatively low in the second. A problem here is that when individuals actually consider a service or product, they are unlikely to think of the risks of buying it through comparison with other types of services or products. Instead, perceived risks are more likely determined by the factors mentioned above.
For other studies about experience services, Hill and colleagues (2004) showed that differences existed within experience services: individuals were more motivated to process factual information for experience services with a focus on hedonic values, such as travel agents, than experience services with purely utilitarian values (e.g., banks). Their findings supported the prediction of Liebermann and Flint-Goor (1996), which indicated that rational advertising appeals were more effective for travel products than emotional advertising appeals.
Lwin, Phau, Huang, and Lim (2014) concluded that emotional appeals on boutique hotel websites resulted in a more positive purchase intention for hotels, which was in line with the findings of Zhang et al. (2014).
This study uses the ELM to predict the relative effectiveness of rational and emotional advertising appeals on people’s purchase intentions of travel products. There are two reasons for the choice of ELM. First, previous studies criticized that the mere inclusion of specific controllable variables (such as source and message factors) and response variables (such as purchase intentions) could not explain what is causing the reactions and it was widely agreed that cognitive processes towards the advertising messages were the underlying procedure leading to the final reactions (Belch & Belch, 2015). Subsequently, among theoretical models that include the role of cognitive processes, the features of rational and emotional advertising appeals match respectively with the focuses of the central route and the peripheral route of ELM, as the central information-processing route favors detailed information and the peripheral route on the other hand favors cognitive shortcuts.
As indicated above, perceived risks can be affected by product category. Tourism products are usually expensive and infrequently bought. A high price is likely to result in a perception of a possible financial loss while the infrequent purchase will give rise to high uncertainty as consumers generally do not have enough knowledge about the product category and has to learn (Mitchell, 1992). Thus, purchasing a travel product is probably linked with a high risk perception, which based on ELM will elicit higher motivation to process information and subsequently favor rational advertising appeals. So the first hypothesis is:
H1: Rational advertising appeals will lead to higher purchase intention of travel products than emotional advertising appeals.
Age Differences in Preferences of Rational and Emotional Advertising Appeals
In this study, the preferences for travel products of a younger adult group aged between 20 and 30 years old will be compared with an older adult group aged between 50 and 60 years. This choice aims to keep in line with the age distribution of Chinese outbound tourism in reality. The majority of Chinese outbound tourists are younger adults between 20 and 35 years (79.93%), and only 0.79% of people over 58 years were outbound tourists (World Tourism Cities Federation & Ipsos, 2018). That is why people over 60 years are left out in this study and the focus will be on 50 to 60 year olds as the “older age group”.
Findings on older adults’ preference for rational and emotional advertising appeals have been inconsistent so far. Earlier studies around the 1990s suggested that older adults prefer rational appeals because they suffer from cognitive overload, which could be reduced by offering them easier-to-process and rational information (Cole & Houston1987; Davis & French, 1989). But according to the more recent Socio-emotional Selectivity Theory (Carstensen, 1993), older adults perceive time to be limited thus they are more likely to pursue emotionally-orientated goals rather than knowledge orientated goals (van der Goot, van Reijmersdal & Kleemans, 2016). As a result, emotional advertising appeals should work better for them. Despite that this opinion is quite popular, it has been challenged by a recent study conducted by Sudbury-Riley and Edgar (2016), who argued that it was the time
perspective, rather than the age per se, accounting for the preference of emotional appeals. They conducted an experiment among 2550 adults aged 19 to 90 years whereby it was found that people between 19 and 30 years old, the only age group with short time perspective which felt older than their actual age, liked emotional appeals more than rational appeals. Moreover, they found that, even for people over 50 years who felt younger than their actual age, rational appeals were more popular than emotional appeals.
The present study relies on the ELM to predict the role of age in the relative effectiveness of rational and emotional advertising appeals for travel products. Based on the ELM, higher perceived risks lead to higher motivation to process information, which results in employing a central information-processing route (Liebermann & Flint-Goor, 1996). Rationally-oriented messages are suitable for this route. Age was indicated to be negatively related to risk propensity in the domain of recreation, health, career, finance, safety and social relationships, meaning that the tendency to take risks will decrease when people gets older (Nicholson, Soane, Fenton-O'Creevy & Willman, 2005). As discussed above, propensity to avoid risks will result in higher perceived risks than propensity to take risks. Hence when exposed to a travel product with certain financial and psychological risks, the elder adults tend to evaluate it as riskier than younger adults, which will make them want to thoroughly consider the messages in the ad. That is why it can be expected that rational appeals will be more effective for the older adult group than for the younger group, while emotional appeals will be more effective for younger than older adults as they are more likely to take the peripheral information-processing route.
To sum up, the second and the third hypotheses for the present study are:
H2: For older adults, rational appeals will lead to higher purchase intention than emotional appeals;
H3: For younger adults, emotional appeals will lead to higher purchase intention than rational appeals.
Because risk propensity can differ at individual level, heterogeneity of perceived risk of travel products probably exist inside a certain age group, which will diminish the moderating effect of age. Therefore, perceived risk is likely to mediate the moderation effect of age. This study is also intended to investigate this mediation effect whereby the fourth hypothesis is:
H4: The moderating effect of age in the effect of advertising appeals on purchase intention will be mediated by perceived risk.
Method Participants and Procedure
Participants. An online experiment was conducted, with a 2 (Advertising appeals: emotional appeals vs. rational appeals) × 2 (Age: younger adults vs. older adults) between-subjects design. A total of 141 Chinese participants were recruited through snowball sampling on the social network WeChat, which is the most popular social network in China. Specifically, a survey link was sent to friends and relatives of the researcher who were in the target age groups at the beginning, and subsequently they were asked to share the link with their peers. In the eventual sample, the younger age group of 20 to 30 years olds consisted of 70 people (58.6% females) with an average age of 24.6 years old (SD = 2.71). The older age
group of 50 to 60 year olds were 71 people (40.8% female) and the average age was 52.5 (SD = 2.37).
As indicated in Table 1, most participants from each age group owned a bachelor degree and had a monthly household income (after-tax) between 8,000 yuan (1,027 euros) and 16,000 yuan (2,054 euros). It can further be seen that, compared to older adults, younger adults in the sample had significantly higher eagerness to travel to Japan, t (139) = 5.98, p = .000, 95% CI [1.23, 2.44]. Also, younger adults appear to travel abroad a bit more frequently in the past two years than older adults, but the difference between them was not significant, t (139) = 1.14, p = .257, 95% CI [-0.27, 1.01].
Table 1
Characteristics of the Sample
Age Group
Younger adults (20-30 years) Older adults (50-60 years)
Sample characteristics M(Mo) M(Mo)
Education Bachelor degree Bachelor degree
Monthly income in
Chinese yuan >8,000 & <16,000 >8,000 & <16,000
M(Mean) SD M(Mean) SD
Times of travelling abroad
in past 2 years 1.14 1.83 0.77 2.01 2.01
Feel eager to travel to
Japan 5.34
a 1.78 3.51 1.87
Attitude towards the ad 4.32b 1.20 3.88 1.31
Note. Only for Education and Monthly income in Chinese yuan, Mode is reported. For other variables, average scores were reported.
a
Feel eager to travel to Japan, 1= not at all, 7= very much. b Attitude towards the ad, 1= very negative, 7= very positive.
Procedure. The study was presented as a study about tourism development. Participants were asked for their informed consent before starting the experiment. At the start of the study, participants indicated their gender and age, after which they were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions, with either the emotional advertising appeal or the rational advertising appeal. Participants were told that they are going to read an advertisement and required to look at the advertisement for at least 35 seconds before they could continue with the questionnaire. The questionnaire started with items about risk perceptions of the advertised tour. These questions were then followed by participants’ intention to purchase the tour product, questions for control variables such as attitude towards the ad and eagerness to travel to Japan, and finally a question for the manipulation check. A review of all items in the questionnaire can be found in Appendix C.
Stimulus Materials
The stimulus materials were two advertisement of a 10-day tour to Japan, one with rational advertising appeals and one with emotional advertising appeals. The structures of the advertisements were the same across the two conditions, with from the top to the bottom: The title “Japan 10-day tour, ¥9999” basic information about the date, cities included in the trip, the name of the travel agency and the contact number picturesslogans and the description of the 10-day itinerary. However, the two advertisements were different in the pictures displayed, the slogans and the description of the 10-day itinerary.
presented and four destinations included in the trip (Tokyo, Kyoto, Nara and Osaka) were circled on the map. Next to the map, an amplified “20% off” term and a stamp of Sakura were displayed. These pictures aimed to give the audience rational information about the trip to Japan. The slogan was “An enriched journey at a favorable price! Don’t hesitate anymore!”. The slogan of the discount was “Sign up for 20% off before December 31! This is the lowest price of the year! Call 400-811-8888 to Sign up”. The description of the itinerary was about what tourist fees and services were included. Details can be found in Appendix A.
For the condition with emotional advertising appeals (Appendix B), five pictures showing human activities with emotions were presented. They were: a group of girls wearing a Kimono being extremely happy towards the camera; a picture of Japanese actress Ishihara Satomi holding a plate of oden while smiling; a girl taking a selfie happily with Tokyo Skytree; men enjoying the outdoor hot spring with a cute mascot called Kumamon, and a couple holding an umbrella in front of the Tokyo Tower. The slogan was “During the trip, we discover the true self. In life, we live out our own self”. The slogan of the discount was “sign up before December 31. Enjoy the greatest happiness with a 20% discount! It’s time for a spur-of-the-moment trip! Let's go and see a different world!”. In addition, the description of the itinerary was also different from the version with the rational advertising appeals, and stressed the image of the destinations, with Tokyo being ‘romantic’, Kyoto being ‘quaint’, Nara being ‘natural’ and Osaka being ‘vibrant’. Details could be found in Appendix B.
The purchase intention was measured by asking participants to answer 3 questions regarding the likelihood that they will purchase the travel product (that is, join the Japan tour). The answers were indicated on 7-point Likert scales running from “Not likely at all” (1) to “very likely” (7).
The questions were: 1) “How likely are you going to sign up for the tour mentioned in the ad?”; 2) “Is there a high probability for you to join the tour mentioned in the ad?”; 3) “Will you sign up for the tour in the ad?”
A principle component analysis (PCA) revealed one component out of the 3 items, which had an eigenvalue of 2.39, explaining 79.67% of variance. The scale for the purchase intention had a good reliability, Cronbach's alpha = .87. Participants’ average purchase intention was 3.23 (SD = 1.48), and to be more specific, younger adults’ average purchase intention was 3.17 (SD = 1.42) and older adults’ was 3.30 (SD = 1.55). Although older adults had a higher purchase intention than younger adults, the difference between them was not significant, t (139) = -0.52, p = .607, 95% CI [-0.62, 0.36].
Perceived Risks
The perceptions of financial, psychological, performance, and time risks were measured in this study. Each type of risks was measured by two items. All of the items are listed in Appendix D. Participants were asked to estimate the chance that a specific outcome would occur by using a 7-point Likert scale, anchored by “not possible at all” (1) to “extremely possible” (7). This scale for measuring perceived risks was previously validated by the
Institute of Medicine in US (2012).
A principle component analysis (PCA) displayed two components across the 8 items. The first factor showed an eigenvalue of 2.88, with an explained variance of 36.01%, and included items 3, 4, 6, and 8 (see Appendix D). This factor can be seen as personally-oriented risk, which refers to the risk of personal losses such as money, time and good mood if the Japan tour does not perform as expected. Reliability test indicated that the scale for this component of ‘personally-oriented risk’ had a high reliability, Cronbach's alpha = .84, with an average score of 4.58 (SD = 1.35). Furthermore, the risk perception of younger adults on this scale (M = 4.82, SD = 1.30) was significantly higher than that of older adults (M = 4.34, SD = 1.37), t (139) = 2.13, p = .035, 95% CI [0.03, 0.93].
The other factor that appeared from the Principal Component Analysis had an eigenvalue of 1.33 (16.59 % explained variance) and can be seen as product-oriented risk, relating to whether the product will perform as expected. Items 1, 2, 7 (see Appendix D) were included in this factor. The reliability test indicated that the scale for the items of this component however had a low reliability, Cronbach's alpha =.38, which is why it will not be used further as a separate scale in this study.
Item 5 (see Appendix D) had a factor loading value lower than 0.40, and hence was omitted from the reliability test and other following tests. The reliability test across the remaining 7 items had an acceptable reliability, Cronbach's alpha =.69. Participants’ average risk perception on this scale was 4.06 (SD = 0.95) and specifically, younger adults (M = 4.26, SD = 0.79) had a significantly higher risk perception than older adults (M = 3.87, SD = 1.04),
t (139) = 2.48, p = .014, 95% CI [-0.08, 0.70].
Manipulation Check
To check whether participants could recognize the advertising appeals they were exposed to, the question “Please recall the content of the ad you just read. Which type do you think the content of the ad belongs to?” was asked. Two answers were offered, with simple explanations of what a rational or emotional advertising appeal looks like. They were:
1) “The content of the advertisement is rational (emphasizing the use value of the
product and the purchase interest, such as lower price, higher quality, and rich content. Example: “The export volume of Kongfu wine ranks first in the country, best in the wine industry, and it is cheap and of high quality")”;
2) “The content of the advertisement is emotional (emphasizing the emotional or psychological value of the product, such as the product will lead to happiness, enjoyment, warmth, realization of self-worth, etc. Example: "Have a glass of Kongfu wine when family and friends get together! ")
Control Variables
To ensure that the effects of advertising appeals were not caused by other differences between the experimental groups, a number of variables were controlled, which included: 1)
eagerness to travel to Japan: “Do you feel strongly eager to travel to Japan?” (1= not at all;
was informative/ helpful/ truthful?” (1= not informative/ helpful/ truthful at all; 7= very informative/ helpful/ truthful); 3) travel habit: “In the past two years, how many times have you traveled abroad (excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan)?” (open question1
); 4)
economic condition: “What is your monthly after-tax household income?” (1= ≤8000;
2= >8000 and ≤16000; 3= >16000 and ≤32000; 4= >32000); and 5) education: “What is your highest educational level” (1= primary school; 2= middle school/high school; 3= bachelor; 4= Master; 5= Ph.D.).
For the variable “Attitude towards the ad”, a principle axis factoring showed one component across the 3 items, which had an eigenvalue of 2.00, explaining 66.66% of variance. The scale measuring the attitude towards the advertisement had an acceptable reliability, Cronbach's alpha=.75. The average score of these 3 items was calculated to represent participants’ attitude towards the advertisement. Participants had a slightly positive attitude towards the ad, with an average score of 4.10 (SD = 1.27) on the 7-point scale. Younger adults had a slightly higher attitude towards the ad than older adults, the details of which could be found above.
Pilot Test
A pilot test among 27 people, with 12 participants aged 20-30 years and 15 aged 50-60 years, suggested the manipulation was successful in that participants could recognize if the advertisement they saw was more rational or emotional in nature. Participants in the pilot
1
All the answers given by participants, either Chinese numbers or Arabic numerals, were finally transferred into Arabic numerals and recoded as ratio scale.
were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions (rational condition vs. emotional condition) and then were asked to answer the manipulation check question mentioned above. Table 2 below shows the number and the percentage of participants in the pilot study recognizing the rational and emotional advertising appeals within each experimental condition.
A Chi-Square test indicated that there was a significant dependency relationship between the version of the advertisement actually seen by the pilot participants and recognition of the ad as more rational or more emotional, χ² = 6.97, p = .008. Table 2 shows that numbers/percentages were in the expected direction, with 92.9% of the pilot participants recognizing the advertisement with rational appeals as having ‘rational content’. Also a majority of 61.5% recognized the advertisement with emotional appeals as having ‘emotional content’. Additionally, respectively for younger adults and older adults, this significant dependency relationship also existed: younger adults, χ² = 4.00, p = .046; older adults, χ² = 5.40, p = .02. It can be seen in Table 2 though that especially the younger adults had more difficulty recognizing the emotional ad as such, and half of them (50%) recognized the advertisement with emotional appeals as having ‘rational content’.
Table 2
Number and percentage of participants recognizing the advertising appeals within each experimental condition, pilot test
Age Group
Total Younger adults Older adults
Rational Emotional Rational Emotional Rational Emotional Ad content is rational
% 92.9% 38.5% 100% 50% 87.5% 28.6% Ad content is emotional n 1 8 0 3 1 5 % 7.1% 61.5% 0% 50% 12.5% 71.4% Results Manipulation Check
A total of 70 participants were randomly assigned to the condition with a rational advertising appeal (the rational condition), with the other 71 to the condition with an emotional advertising appeal (the emotional condition). More details could be found in Table 3 below regarding their answers to the manipulation check question.
To test if the participants correctly noticed the manipulated ad content, a series of Chi-Square tests were conducted. A significant dependency relationship was found between the version of the advertisement actually seen by the participants and recognition of the ad as more rational or more emotional, χ² = 6.97, p = .008. The numbers and percentages in Table 3 suggest that the manipulation of rational ad content was more or less successful with 67.1% of the participants correctly recognizing this ad content. Similar to the pilot test though, not all participants recognized the emotional ad as being ‘emotional’ and this was restricted to a small majority of 54.9%.
Besides, within the age group of 20-30 years, a significant dependency was observed, χ² = 8.81, p = .003. On the other hand, within the age group of 50-60 years, a significant dependency relationship could not be recognized, χ² = 0.69, p = .407. It can be seen from the
numbers in Table 3 that especially the older age group did not consistently recognize the advertisements for what they were intended to be. Implications will be discussed in the concluding chapter.
Table 3
Number and percentage of participants recognizing the advertising appeals within each experimental condition
Age Group
Total Younger adults Older adults
Rational Emotional Rational Emotional Rational Emotional Ad content is rational n 47 32 28 16 19 16 % 67.1% 45.1% 80% 45.7% 54.3% 44.4% Ad content is emotional n 23 39 7 19 16 20 % 32.9% 54.9% 20% 54.3% 45.7% 55.6%
Effects of Rational and Emotional Advertising Appeals on Purchase Intention
To test the effect of advertising appeals on purchase intention, as proposed in H1, a linear regression model was conducted, with purchase intention as dependent variable, conditions to which participants were assigned as independent variable, and gender, age, education, economic condition, attitude towards the ad, eagerness to travel to Japan, travel habit as well as perceived risks as covariates (control variables). To be noticed, before running all the regression analyses in this study, the variables “condition”, “age” and “gender” were first transferred into dummy variables, with “rational condition”, “younger adults” and “males” respectively of each variable being recoded into “1” and “emotional condition”, “older adults” and “females” being recoded into “0”.
The regression model was significant, the details of which can be seen in Model 1 in Table 4, F (9,131) = 8.44, p < 0.001, therefore it can be used to predict the purchase intention, despite that the strength of the prediction was moderate: 36.7% of the variation in purchase intention can be predicted.
The results in Table 4 show that age, attitude towards the ad and eagerness to travel to Japan were significant positive predictors of the purchase intention. This means that being in the older age group compared to the younger age group, a higher eagerness to travel to Japan and a more positive attitude towards the ad led to a higher purchase intention of the advertised trip to Japan. On the other hand, it can be seen that the participants’ level of education, monthly household income, gender, travel habit and perceived risk were not significant predictors. Most importantly, the condition participants were assigned to was not a significant predictor of the purchase intention, b*= 0.31, t = 1.48, p > .05, 95%CI [-0.11,0.73]. No significant difference on purchase intention was found between the rational condition (M = 3.28, SD = 1.47) and the emotional condition (M = 3.18, SD = 1.51). Hence, rational advertising appeals and emotional advertising appeals did not lead to different levels of purchase intention. H1 was rejected.
Table 4
Regression models to predict purchase intention
Purchase Intention
Model 1 b* Model 2 b*
Constant 1.59 1.70**
Condition 0.31 -0.14
Condition * Age -a 0.92**
Perceived risk -0.13 -0.12
Attitude towards the ad 0.37*** 0.37***
Eagerness to travel to Japan 0.31*** 0.32***
Education -0.16 -0.13 Economic condition -0.08 -0.08 Travel habit 0.08 0.07 Gender 0.11 0.07 R2 0.37 0.39 F 8.44*** 8.33***
Note. N = 141. For condition, reference category = emotional condition. For age, reference category = older adults. For
gender, reference category= females
a
no interaction term was included ** p < .05. *** p < .001
The Moderating Effect of Age on Purchase Intention
To test the moderating effect of age proposed in H2, a multiple linear regression model (Model 2) was used, with purchase intention as dependent variable, condition and age as independent variables, and gender, education, economic condition, attitude towards the ad, eagerness to travel to Japan, travel habit as well as perceived risks as covariates. Also, the interaction term between advertising appeals and age was added into this regression model. The results show that the regression model was significant, F (10,130) = 8.33, p < 0.001, therefore it can be used to predict the purchase intention, although the strength of the prediction again was moderate: 39.1% of the variation in purchase intention can be predicted.
According to the results for Model 2 in Table 4, age, attitude towards the ad as well as eagerness to travel to Japan remained significantly predictors of the purchase intention, which means that being in the older age group compared to the younger age groups, a higher
eagerness to travel to Japan and a more positive attitude towards the ad led to a higher purchase intention of the advertised trip to Japan. Specifically, the purchase intention of older adults was 1.26 higher than that of younger adults (b*= -1.26, t = -3.92, p <.001, 95%CI [-1.89, -0.62]). On the other hand, participants' condition, level of education, monthly household income, gender, travel habit and perceived risk were not significant predictors.
What’s more, there was a significant interaction effect between condition and age on purchase intention, b* = 0.92, t = 2.24, p < .05, 95%CI [0.11, 1.72]. As can be seen in Figure 1 below, among younger adults, rational advertising appeals (M = 3.41, SD = 1.36) aroused more purchase intention than emotional advertising appeals (M = 2.92, SD = 1.47). On the contrary, for older adults, emotional advertising appeals (M = 3.44, SD = 1.52) led to higher purchase intention than rational advertising appeals (M= 3.15, SD= 1.58). The results were opposite to the predictions in H2 and H3, and therefore H2 and H3 must both be rejected.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Rational appeals Emotional appeals
Younger adults (20-30 years) Older adults(50-60 years)
P ur cha se int enti ons
Figure 1. Effects of advertising appeals (Rational vs. Emotional) on purchase intention, moderated by age
Mediated Moderation Effect on Purchase Intention
To investigate the mediated moderation effect proposed in H3, Model 8 in the PROCESS macro was used (Hayes & Pallant, 2018). In this model (Model 3), the dependent variable was purchase intention, the independent variable was condition, the moderator was age, the mediator was perceived risks, and covariates included gender, education, economic condition, attitude towards the ad, eagerness to travel to Japan and travel habit.
As shown in Figure 2 below, the results showed no significant direct effect of advertising appeals on purchase intention, b* = 0.32, t = -1.53, p > .05, 95%CI [-0.09, 0.73], but a significant interaction effect between advertising appeals and age on purchase intention, b* = 0.91, t = 2.24, p < .05, 95%CI [0.11, 1.72]. This effect is the same as was discussed above. Besides, there was no significant effect of perceived risk on purchase intention, b* = -0.12, t = -1.06, p > .05, 95%CI [-0.34, 0.10].
The index of mediated moderation was not significant, index = 0.01, boot SE = .05, BCI [-.11, .13]. The conditional effects demonstrated that the indirect effect of advertising appeals on purchase intention via perceived risk was not significant for both younger adults (indirect effect = -0.02, boot SE = .04, BCI [-.14, .04]) and older adults (indirect effect = -0.04, boot SE = .05, BCI [-.17, .06]).
Figure 2. Mediation of perceived risks on the moderation of age
Besides, as the scale that measured perceived risks consisted of two different components (“personally-oriented component” and “product-oriented component”) and one of the components, namely personally-oriented risk, proved to have a sufficient reliability, another regression model was conducted. In this regression model the scale of “personally-oriented risk” was used as a mediator, with the independent variable, dependent variable and covariates remaining the same as those in Model 3. Likewise, no significant effect of personally-oriented risks on purchase intention existed, b* = -0.11, t=-1.43, p>.05, 95%CI [-0.26, 0.04], and neither did the indirect effect, index = 0.04, boot SE = .07, BCI [-.09, .21].
In sum, H4, which predicted that the moderating effect of age in the effect of advertising
Direct effect, b* = 0.32, p>.05
Indirect effect, b* = 0.01, 95% BCa CI [-.11, .13] b* = 0.25, p >0.05
Perceived risks
Advertising appeals
(rational vs. emotional) Purchase intention
b* = -0.12, p>.05 Age
b* = 0.91, p<.05 b* = 0.12, p >0.05
appeals on purchase intention will be mediated by perceived risk, must be rejected.
Mediating Effect of Eagerness to Travel to Japan between Age and Purchase intention The elaboration likelihood model (ELM) predicts that motivation to process a message will affect the preference for a message strategy. Although previous studies stressed perceived risks as a main source of motivation to process information, eagerness to travel to Japan could also be a source of motivation to process a message. Therefore, further regression analyses were conducted to test the possible mediating effect of eagerness to travel to Japan in the relationship between advertising appeals, age, and purchase intention.
First, a regression model investigating the relation between age, eagerness to travel to Japan, and purchase intention was conducted. Model 4 in PROCESS macro (Hayes & Pallant, 2018) was used, with age as independent variable, purchase intention as dependent variable, eagerness to travel to Japan as mediator, and gender, education, economic condition, attitude towards the ad, perceived risks and travel habit as covariates. The results (Figure 3) revealed that there was a significant main effect of age on purchase intention, b* = -0.76, t = -3.12, p < .05, 95%CI [-1.25, -0.28], a significant direct effect of age on eagerness to travel to Japan, b* = 1.41, t = 4.94, p < .001, 95%CI [0.85, 1.98], a significant direct effect of eagerness to travel to Japan on purchase intention, b* = 0.30, t = 4.42, p < .001, 95%CI [0.17, 0.44] and a significant indirect effect of age on purchase intention via eagerness to travel to Japan, index = 0.43, boot SE = .16, BCI [.16, .78].
Figure 3. Mediation of eagerness to travel to Japan between age and purchase intention
However, when using eagerness to travel to Japan to replace the perceived risk in Model 3 and letting other variables stay the same to investigate whether a moderated mediation of advertising appeals on purchase intention by age and eagerness to travel to Japan existed, no significant effect was found.
The results above mean that eagerness to travel to Japan is the source directing younger and older adults to different purchase intention, but the absence of the main effect of advertising appeals on purchase intention, which is possibly due to the failure of the manipulation of emotional advertising appeals, makes it hard to confirm that the moderating effect between advertising appeals and age is because of the difference in the eagerness to travel to Japan.
Conclusion & Discussion
China’ s outbound tourism market has been growing recently, and as Chinese outbound tourists prefer obtaining travel information online, the digital advertising market has also been
b* = 1.41, p < .001
Eagerness to travel to Japan
Age
Direct effect, b* = -0.76, p < .05 Indirect effect, b = 0.43, 95% BCa CI [.16, .78]
Purchase intention b* = 0.30, p < .001
increasing (China Tourism Academy, 2018; World Tourism Cities Federation & Ipsos, 2018). In order to be competitive in the market, understanding what type of adverting appeals will affect people’s purchase intention therefore is critical for travel agencies and advertisers. However, the existing findings on this topic were inconsistent and meanwhile no attention was paid to individual differences of consumers, such as age. Therefore, this study tried to fill the research gap and intended to investigate: 1) whether advertising appeals (rational vs. emotional) affect people’s purchase intention of travel products; 2) if this effect is different for younger versus older age groups; 3) whether the moderating effect of age is mediated by people’s perceived risks
According to the results, above all, no significant effect was found of rational advertising appeals versus emotional advertising appeals on purchase intentions. However, there was a moderation between advertising appeals and age opposite to the expectations. Specifically, for younger adults rational advertising appeals actually had a stronger effect on the purchase attention than emotional advertising appeals. On the other hand, for older adults emotional advertising appeals performed better in triggering purchase intention than rational adverting appeals. Finally, the moderation effect between advertising appeals and age was not mediated by risk perceptions.
The absence of the main effect of advertising appeals and the mediating effect of risk perception on purchase intention could be due to several limitations in the study design, which future research can help address. Foremost, the failure of the manipulation of appeals was likely responsible for the absence of a main effect of the advertising appeals. For one
thing, the emotional advertising appeals were often not recognized as such by the participants, and for another, particularly the older age group in the eventual sample could not easily recognize the appeals for whether they were more rational or emotional. The unsuccessful manipulation particularly among the older age group could make the data about the effect of appeals on purchase intention of this age group not valid and thus subsequently lowered the validity of the overall results. On the one hand, it could be that rational and emotional advertising appeals render the expected effect if successfully manipulated. On the other hand, it could be that there is actually no significant effect of rational and emotional advertising appeals on influencing purchase intention of travel products. Due to the failure of the manipulation of advertising appeals, the present study unfortunately cannot shed a definite light on this issue.
Also, the way risk perceptions were measured had its own limitations and could be improved. The present study gauged participants’ perceived risks after they saw a certain advertisement. However, two possibilities occur. One is that when reading the ad, participants were automatically elicited to think about the risks of the advertised trip, which is what they were theoretically supposed to do. Another possibility is that participants did not think about the risks during reading the ad and were prompted to consider the perceived risks after they saw the questions about risk perception in the following survey. The existence of this second possibility will reduce the explanatory power of risk perceptions on the relationship between adverting appeals and purchase intention. Therefore, it might be better to measure the perceived risks before showing the ad, in order to rule out the second possibility. However,
this method also gives rise to a potential concern, which is that this way to estimate the risk perception will necessarily be linked to a general product type/category rather than to a specific travel product, as the information about the specific product is not as yet known before reading the ad.
As for the interaction effect between advertising appeals and age, although the results were opposite to the hypothesis, the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) can still be used to explain the mechanism of this interaction effect. As predicted, when motivation is high, the central information-processing route will be triggered, for which rational advertising appeals are more suitable. This study found that the eagerness to travel to Japan was the reason for the age difference in the purchase intention. And on average younger adults’ eagerness to travel to Japan was higher than that of older adults, which means that they were more likely to have higher involvement in the advertised product and stronger motivation to process the information offered by rational advertising appeals, and finally had a higher purchase intention after reading them. On the other hand, older adults were less motivated and so more likely used peripheral information processing, resulting in a higher purchase intention after reading emotional adverting appeals than rational appeals.
Although the present study had some limitations mentioned above, it is one of the first to take perceived risks into consideration in an experiment that investigates the effectiveness of adverting appeals on purchase intentions of a travel product. Previous studies estimating the effectiveness of adverting appeals seldom paid attention to the category of travel products and research examining the risks of travel products scarcely tested risks other than travel safety.
Liebermann and Flint-Goor (1996) put forward that risk perception of a product is a key factor deciding people’s involvement in a product and thus affecting the message strategy. That is why they offered a theoretical opportunity to combine those important variables (adverting appeals; travel products; risk perception) to fill the research gap. The experiment in this study transferred the theoretical prediction into practice.
In conclusion, the present study showed that Chinese younger and older consumers were persuaded in a different manner by the advertising appeals when making a purchase decision for a travel product. As the eagerness to travel to a country is why younger and older adults had different purchase intentions, the findings of this study could be applied to other travel products beyond a trip to Japan. Younger Chinese adults generally have higher motivation to travel to destinations such as Australia, US, Thailand, Philippines, Korea and Indonesia (Skyscanner, 2018). On the other hand, Russia, Greece or Italy are more preferred by older Chinese adults (Skyscanner, 2018). Therefore, to sum up, although age could be a predictor, the results of the present study suggest that it is wiser for travel agencies and advertisers to make the decision of which advertising appeals to be used by defining consumers’ eagerness to travel to a certain country.
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Appendix A
Appendix B
Appendix C Questionnaire 1. What is you gender
1. Female 2. Male
2. Which age group do you belong to? 1. 0-19 years
2. 20-30 years 3. 31-49 years 4. 50-60 years
5. 61 years and above
Perceived Risks
3. What is the chance do you think that the tour will not perform as described in the ad? 1(not possible at all)—2—3—4—5—6—7 (extremely possible)
4. In the case of the same itinerary and travel items, what do you think is the possibility of getting a more favorable price at other travel agencies?
5. Imagine that you decided to participate in the Japan tour in the ad. What do you think is the possibility that this trip does not include all the travel items promised in the ad?
1(not possible at all)—2—3—4—5—6—7 (extremely possible)
6. Imagine that you decided to participate in the Japan tour in the ad. What do you think is the possibility that this trip will take a lot of your precious time?
1(not possible at all)—2—3—4—5—6—7 (extremely possible)
7. Imagine that you decided to participate in the Japan tour in the ad. However, during the trip, you found it different from the description in the ad. What is the possibility that you would be disappointed at not making a good product choice?
1(not possible at all)—2—3—4—5—6—7 (extremely possible)
8. Imagine that you decided to participate in the Japan tour in the ad. However, during the trip, you found it different from the description in the ad. How likely are you going to blame yourself for your decision?
1(not possible at all)—2—3—4—5—6—7 (extremely possible)
9. Imagine that you decided to participate in the Japan tour in the ad. However, during the trip, you found it different from the description in the ad. What is chance that you think you experienced a big money loss?
1(not possible at all)—2—3—4—5—6—7 (extremely possible)
10. Imagine that you decided to participate in the Japan tour in the ad. However, during the trip, you found it different from the description in the ad. What is chance that you think you experienced a big time loss?
1(not possible at all)—2—3—4—5—6—7 (extremely possible)
Purchase Intention
11. How likely are you going to sign up for the tour mentioned in the ad? 1(not likely at all)—2—3—4—5—6—7 (very likely)
12. Is there a high probability for you to join the tour mentioned in the ad? 1(not likely at all)—2—3—4—5—6—7 (very likely)
13. Will you sign up for the tour in the ad?
1(not likely at all)—2—3—4—5—6—7 (very likely)
Questions for Control Variables Eagerness to travel to Japan
14. Do you feel strongly eager to travel to Japan? 1(not at all)—2—3—4—5—6—7 (very much)
Attitude towards the ad
15. Do you think the ad you just read was informative?
1(not informative at all)—2—3—4—5—6—7 (very informative)
16. Do you think the ad you just read was helpful?
1(not helpful at all)—2—3—4—5—6—7 (very helpful)
17. Do you think the ad you just read was truthful?
1(not truthful at all)—2—3—4—5—6—7 (very truthful)
Demographics
18. What is your highest educational level？(education) 1 Primary school
2 Middle school/High school 3 Bachelor
4 Master 5 Ph.D.
19. What is your monthly after-tax household income? (Currency: yuan ) ？ (economic condition)
2 >8000 and ≤ 16000 3 >16000 and ≤ 32000 4 > 32000
20. What is your age? (open question)
Travel habit
21. In the past two years, how many times have you traveled abroad (excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan)? (Travel habit)
(open question)
Manipulation Check
22. Please recall the content of the ad you just read. Which type do you think the content of the ad belongs to? (Tips: This question asks about the rational or emotional tendency of the content of the advertisement itself, not your rational or emotional decision-making tendency)
1 The content of the advertisement is rational (emphasizing the use value of the product and the purchase interest, such as lower price, higher quality, and rich content. Example: “The export volume of Kongfu wine ranks first in the country, best in the wine industry, and it is cheap and of high quality")
2 The content of the advertisement is emotional (emphasizing the emotional or psychological value of the product, such as the product will lead to happiness, enjoyment, warmth, realization of self-worth, etc. Example: "Have a glass of Kongfu wine when family and friends get together! ")
Appendix D Items for Perceived Risks
1. What is the chance do you think that the tour will not perform as described in the ad? (performance risk)
2. Imagine that you decided to participate in the Japan tour in the ad. What do you think is the possibility that this trip does not include all the travel items promised in the ad? (performance risk)
3. Imagine that you decided to participate in the Japan tour in the ad. However, during the trip, you found it different from the description in the ad. What is the possibility that you would be disappointed at not making a good product choice? (psychological risk)
4. Imagine that you decided to participate in the Japan tour in the ad. However, during the trip, you found it different from the description in the ad. How likely are you going to blame yourself for your decision? (psychological risk)
5. In the case of the same itinerary and travel items, what do you think is the possibility of getting a more favorable price at other travel agencies? (financial risk)
6. Imagine that you decided to participate in the Japan tour in the ad. However, during the trip, you found it different from the description in the ad. What is chance that you think you experienced a big money loss? (financial risk)
7. Imagine that you decided to participate in the Japan tour in the ad. What do you think is the possibility that this trip will take a lot of your precious time? (time risk)
trip, you found it different from the description in the ad. What is chance that you think you experienced a big time loss? (time risk)
