Toronto, Oct 14 (IANS) Consumers respond best to vacation ads that match current emotions.
Most of us won’t respond to the call of adventure while soaking in a relaxing bath. We would prefer to book a weekend at a spa, says a new study.

“Imagine you are sitting in a bathtub, listening to calm music with gentle candlelight. Add lavender aroma. Then as you flip through a magazine, you come across an advertisement from an amusement park, promising you an exciting place full of adventurous offerings.”

“How appealing would you find the prospect of visiting this amusement park?” ask study authors Hakkyun Kim (University of Concordia, Canada), Kiwan Park (Seoul National University, Korea), and Norbert Schwarz (University of Michigan).

They found that people view vacation products with adventurous appeals more favourably when they feel excited rather than peaceful, and vice versa.

The authors explain that people who see an ad that promises an exciting vacation ask themselves, “Would this vacation really make me feel that way?”

They are more likely to think a vacation will really be exciting when they currently feel excited rather than peaceful.

These results suggest that marketers can facilitate the impression that products will deliver on their promises by displaying them in contexts in which consumers’ pre-existing feelings are likely to match the product’s claims, says a Concordia release.

“Exciting sports events are a better arena for advertising exciting vacations than for advertising serene vacations, not only because an exciting vacation may match the audience’s general preferences, but also because an exciting vacation will match the audience’s current feelings,” the authors conclude.

These findings were published in the Journal of Consumer Research.