Emotional Persuasion in Advertising: A Hierarchy-of-Processing Model

There is a widespread belief that effective advertising works persuasively within an information processing paradigm. High attention is regarded as being of critical importance in facilitating this process, and emotional content is seen as supporting information processing by raising levels of attention. Recent research, however, suggests that emotional content in advertising can influence brand favourability even when rational content has no effect. This article explores the psychology behind the processing of emotion and attention, and presents a ‘hierarchy-of-processing’ model which shows how advertising can influence brand choice without the need for informational persuasion or high attention. The implications this model has for the development of successful advertising are discussed.