Creative strategies for TV commercials are traditionally regarded as expressing either a rational or an emotional appeal. In this paper evidence is presented for a separate third category: narrative TV commercials. In narrative TV commercials, appeals are expressed indirectly. For instance, narrative TV commercials do not contain directly expressed rational appeals like sales propositions, nor emotional appeals like warm feelings towards the product. Instead, transportation in the story and identification with characters enhance involvement. In Study 1, a framework of TV commercial genres is verified by statistical reconstruction from a TV commercials’ content analysis (NTV commercials=104). Four meta-genres were construed. Two of them were identified as having rational and emotional appeal; The other two were identified as narrative. In Study 2, audience effects of the construed meta-genres were established in an extensive appreciation survey (NRespondents=3472). The appreciation pattern for one of the two narrative meta-genres confirmed the presumed indirect appeal.
Period
22 May 2009
Event title
International Communication Association 2009 Conference: Keywords in Communication