Retail Services Advertising: The Effects of Appeal, Medium, and Service

Abstract Abstract In an exploratory study, two message appeals (rational and emotional) and two media (print and radio) were tested to determine whether certain message or media strategies are more appropriate than others for two broad categories of retail services. For both types of services, a rational appeal generated higher levels of attitude toward the ad than an emotional appeal and radio ads generated higher levels of patronage intention than print ads. In addition, a main effect for service type was found for two of the dependent variables, indicating that more experiential retail services may benefit more, overall, from radio and print advertising than utilitarian offerings.