Advertisements : the congruity effect with the communion-self and pursuit-self

Abstract

PURPOSE: The study aims to present how the self-congruity mechanism is responsible for advertising evaluation processes which result from the similarity of the content in the advertisement to one's own self and goals. The importance of different content in advertisements has been the subject of numerous studies. Some of these studies have provided support for the importance of communion in the effectiveness of marketing, while others have omitted the role of agency. It is proposed that this inconsistency can be explained by taking into account the fact that people evaluate products in advertisements through self-congruity with their own communion and goals.

DESIGN/RESEARCH QUESTIONS: Two questions are answered in the article: 1) What personal characteristics are related to attitudes toward agentic and communal advertisements? 2) Which mechanism mediates between these personal characteristics and attitudes toward agentic and communal advertisements?

FINDINGS: The set of three studies (N = 136, N = 163, N = 134) showed that experimental advertisements were perceived as highly agentic or highly communal. Furthermore, the experiment (N= 354) showed that the agentic advertisement influenced stronger relations between a recipient's goal and attitudes. Additionally, the communal advertisement influenced stronger relations between recipient's communion and attitudes. In both conditions, the self-congruity mechanism mediated these relations.

PRACTICAL RECOMMENDATIONS: The study shows that the valuation of products is consistent with fundamental dimensions of human life, namely pursuing personal goals and initiating and maintaining social relationships.

ORIGINALITY: The research is an attempt to fill the gap in the literature by contributing to measuring the self-congruity mechanism between personal dispositions and the content in product advertising. Moreover, the form of the influence of experimental advertisements on a series of measurements, verified using the SEM-PLS modeling technique, is a novelty in the field of self-congruity research and is the basis for drawing cause-and-effect conclusions. Despite the declarative measurements, the nature of the experiment allows for conclusions about the influence of its conditions on different patterns of relations and intensity of crucial measurements.