Pride or Grateful?The Effect of Emotional Advertising Appeal and Social Exclusion on Consumer's Brand Pur-chase Intention
The rapid development of modern society has not only brought unprecedented convenience and efficiency to our lives but also subtly altered our pace of life and cognitive patterns.This change,akin to a double-edged sword,fosters explosive growth of information and instant communication on one hand,while inad-vertently exacerbating the sense of alienation among individuals on the other,leading to cracks in social networks and a growing prominence of social exclusion.As a ubiquitous social phenomenon,social exclusion profoundly impacts individuals'mental health,causing damage to self-esteem,intensifying feelings of loneliness,diminishing self-regulation abilities,and potentially triggering emotional disorders such as anxiety and depression,with long-term adverse effects on physical health.Consequently,social exclusion has emerged as a significant social factor that cannot be overlooked,profoundly influencing individuals'psychology and behavior.Against this backdrop,positive emotions,as a crucial component of an individual's psychological defense mechanism,underscore their unique self-regulatory function.Positive emotions not only spontaneously adjust one's psychological state,aiding in recovery from negative emotions,but also,on a deeper level,psychologically compensate for and repair the social connections lacking due to social exclusion in real life.Gratitude and pride,two archetypal representatives of positive emotions,respectively focus on other-fo-cus and self-focus,showcasing the diverse facets of positive emo-tions in fostering interpersonal harmony and enhancing self-worth.Therefore,delving into the application effects of these two distinct types of positive emotional appeals—gratitude and pride—in brand advertising on consumers experiencing social exclusion,not only aids brands in better catering to consumers'psychological needs but also charts a differentiated,emotionally resonant marketing path for enterprises amidst increasingly fierce market competition.However,previous studies mainly focused on the compensatory effects of social exclusion based on internal and external factors of brands,neglecting the influence of consumers themselves.While some studies have explored the impact of negative emotions(such as anger and sadness)from the perspective of consumers them-selves,the significant role of positive emotions in mitigating the consequences of social exclusion remains unclear.This significantly limits the effectiveness of positive emotions in alleviating the after-math of social exclusion.To address this gap,based on the resource compensation theory,this study discovers the matching compen-sation effect of emotional advertising appeals on social exclusion(reject vs.ignore).Specifically,eliciting pride emotions can prompt consumers to feel a sense of self-uniqueness,helping to compensate for the lack of status that arises from ignorance.Gratitude emotions,on the other hand,can evoke a sense of social connection,thereby compensating for the lack of belonging that stems from rejection.In other words,the elicitation of pride and gratitude emotions can pro-vide compensation for the sense of status and belonging,respective-ly,for consumers who have experienced ignorance and rejection,ultimately leading to their willingness to purchase related brand products.Furthermore,we also find that brand image moderates the interaction between emotional advertising appeals and social ex-clusion.Specifically,topdog brands can enhance the perception of uniqueness provided by pride appeals for ignored consumers,while underdog brands can strengthen the perception of intimacy provid-ed by gratitude appeals for rejected consumers.This study conducted three studies,using different experimental stimuli to provide data support for the research hypotheses.Specif-ically,Study 1,comprising a pilot study and a formal experiment,validated the interaction effect between emotional advertising appeals and social exclusion(H1).Study 2 selected intangible products different from those in Study 1 to manipulate emotional advertising appeals.It not only provided a robustness check for the results of Study 1 but also verified the mediating roles of perceived uniqueness and perceived intimacy in the influence of emotional advertising appeals and social exclusion on consumers'brand pur-chase intentions(H2).In addition,the experiment also excluded the interfering effects of emotion and arousal induced by social exclu-sion,information engagement,as well as the substitutive mediating effects of information processing fluency and arousal.Study 3 ex-amined the moderating effect of brand image(updog vs.underdog)on the interaction between emotional advertising appeals and social exclusion(H3).Specifically,a updog brand image combined with pride appeals can enhance ignored consumers'perceived unique-ness,leading to higher brand purchase intentions.Conversely,a un-derdog brand image combined with gratitude appeals can stimulate rejected consumers'perceived intimacy,resulting in higher brand purchase intentions.This study has significant theoretical and practical implications.At the theoretical level,firstly,it not only explains the compensa-tory effects for consumers experiencing social exclusion(reject vs.ignore)but also provides a new pathway for exploring how brands can leverage emotional advertising appeals to persuade consumers to purchase the related brands,thereby expanding the intersectional research between social exclusion and emotional appeals.Second-ly,this study innovatively explores two typical positive emotional appeals(pride vs.gratitude),which represent others and the self,respectively,within the same context.It discovers that pride appeals can elicit consumers'perceptions of their own uniqueness,while gratitude appeals can stimulate consumers'perceptions of intimacy,further broadening the foundational understanding of emotional ad-vertising appeals in existing literature.Thirdly,this study clarifies the boundary conditions of the interaction between social exclusion and emotional advertising appeals,offering a new perspective on boundary conditions.At the practical level,enterprises can tailor advertising strategies with different emotional appeals(pride vs.gratitude)based on the differential social exclusion situations(ignore or reject)that con-sumers face,aiming to compensate for their psychological deficien-cies and promote purchases.For groups that are prone to neglect(such as new employees in the workplace,blue-collar workers,and people with introverted personalities),enterprises can leverage brand advertising that emphasizes pride appeals to increase the at-tention and demand for unique brand products among these neglect-ed individuals.Conversely,for groups that are prone to rejection(such as salespeople,immigrants,and job seekers),enterprises can utilize advertising that emphasizes gratitude appeals to encourage the rejected group to foster attention and purchase intentions of brands that can form closed relationship.Additionally,by utilizing emotional induction techniques or leveraging specific festive atmo-spheres,enterprises can further enhance the effectiveness of their brand advertising.Brand image plays a crucial role in the effective-ness of emotional appeals,with updog brands advised to use pride appeals,while underdog brands should opt for gratitude appeals to accurately match market demands.
Emotional Advertising AppealSocial ExclusionCon-sumer's Brand Purchase IntentionPerception of UniquenessPer-ception of Intimacy
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