Why Older Adults Show Preference for Rational Over Emotional Advertising Appeals: A U.K. Brand Study Challenges the Applicability Of Socioemotional Selectivity Theory to Advertising

Sudbury-Riley, L ORCID: 0000-0001-5097-3407 and Edgar, L (2016) Why Older Adults Show Preference for Rational Over Emotional Advertising Appeals: A U.K. Brand Study Challenges the Applicability Of Socioemotional Selectivity Theory to Advertising. Journal of Advertising Research, 56 (4). pp. 441-455.

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Abstract

Conventional advice when targeting older adults was to use factual, rational appeals over emotional appeals due to age differences in information processing. Socioemotional Selectivity Theory (SST) posits that when people perceive time as limited, they pursue emotionally-orientated rather than knowledge-orientated goals. Advertising experiments using SST suggest conventional advice may have been misleading, and advocate using emotional appeals. This study tests the theory in a specific advertising context among adults (n=2550) aged 19 to 90 years. Contrary to expectations and prior SST research, older adults demonstrated clear preferences for rational over emotional appeals, suggesting conventional advice was correct all along.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Date: 2015 (submitted)
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	12 Apr 2016 14:15
Last Modified:	16 Dec 2022 01:27
DOI:	10.2501/JAR-2016-048
Related URLs:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3000256