The presence and value of emotionality in non-personal business-to-business marketing communications is questioned in literature despite existing knowledge about emotional behaviour of individuals in organisational decision-making units. However, as competition and globalisation increases, the need for differentiation and unique positioning intensifies. The role of emotions in establishing emotional differentiation through advertising is accepted in consumer research, yet little is known about the presence and characteristics of emotionality in business-to-business print advertising targeting an organisational audience. The purpose of this research was therefore to determine the presence and executional style of emotion-laden business-to-business print advertising and to identify themes and patterns of emotionality. Four German trade publications from the manufacturing and engineering sector, comprising all issues of the year 2008 with a sample size of 2000 advertisements were content analysed. Consistent findings revealed that emotionality was used in a substantial number of business-to-business print advertisements and was distributed equally across all four magazines. Emotionality was significantly associated with the use of colour and visuals, and with the size and position of advertisements in the magazine. Emotional techniques relating to content used visual components like the depiction of persons and objects, and the style of visual representation primarily contained symbols of association and metaphors. Dominant emotional stimuli were humour, trustworthiness/reliability and pride/success, which mirror the emotional world of organisational buyers. The results thus demonstrate the relevance of emotionality in non-personal business-to-business marketing communications and indicate that to a certain extent business-to-business marketers use emotional techniques as a strategic element in marketing communications.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:533637 |
| Date | January 2011 |
| Creators | Salander, Britta |
| Contributors | Easey, Michael |
| Publisher | Northumbria University |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/2026/ |
Page generated in 0.0019 seconds