Objectives
The research aims to assess the current state of narrative advertising in the advertising landscape within the context of hedonic and utilitarian consumption, and attempts to explain this phenomenon by investigating consumer perceptions and preferences to understand the applicability of narrative advertising.
Summary
For this research, a content analysis was first conducted to analyze a sample of 80 commercials for both hedonic and utilitarian products. Built on the results of this, a quantitative study was conducted to understand consumer preferences and measure the perceived effectiveness of narrative and argumentative commercials for each product. An online survey was distributed online via social media and students’ university email address. Following the findings of the research, theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.
Conclusions
The results indicate that currently, narrative advertisements are used more for hedonic products, while argumentative advertisements are used more for utilitarian products. For hedonic products, narrative ads are significantly more effective, and are preferred by survey respondents over argumentative ads. However, there was no significant difference in effectiveness between narrative and argumentative ads for utilitarian products, although narrative ads are also preferred by respondents. Additionally, based on measures of ad effectiveness and narrative transportation, the study posits that hedonic products generally benefit more from narrative advertising than utilitarian products
