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Advertising is constantly faced with many controversial issues due to its diverse nature and

possible uses. It is said to have a profound effect on society. Some argue that it makes

people buy what they don’t really want (Thomas, 1967), and some say it promotes

materialism and takes advantage of human frailties (Jobber, 2007). The regulation in late

1997 by the Office of Communications (OFCOM) preventing the advertising of foods high in

fat, salt, and sugar in children’s programming in a move to address obesity in children

(White, 2008) is one of the examples of recent issues advertising is facing.

Advertising is assumed to have the power to persuade people or make them change their

attitudes, perception or behaviour. This ability has therefore been utilised in various creative

ways such as in anti-smoking campaigns, seat-belt campaigns, among others.

With today’s very competitive business environment, companies are paying more attention to

the advantages and leverage that advertising can give them. Advertising is seen as the

locomotive of business without which a business is doomed for failure (Davis, 2000).

Advertising is capable of achieving different types of effects for a company in the short,

medium and long term, it could have an effect on sales within a week of exposure or over the

course of a year and it could also have an effect on a brand beyond a year and into the future

respectively (Butterfield, 1999). One need to bear in mind that advertising is not exclusive to

companies that are profit-oriented, non-profit agencies (charity organizations, Hospitals,

Churches) also employ the service of advertising to reach their various stakeholders. An

example will be NHS advert placement on Yahoo (Yahoo, 2008).

Different clients use advertising for different purposes i.e. not all advertising has the same

objective. William et. al. (2003) summarizes advertising intent to be to change perception,

increase learning (inform), persuade or to change behaviour. An advert however may include

all or some of these objectives.

Considering the media landscape of today in light of increasing technology, advertising

clutter has increased to a level never seen before. We are daily faced with about 4000

messages a day (Staines, 2008). This clutter has become a great challenge for advertisers as

they struggle to get their message through to their audience. The ads must not only be able to

get through to the audience but it has to be captivating enough to hold viewers attention and

elicit positive response.

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This has been the basis for why advertisers are trying to ensure that their ads are likeable.

The element of likability in the ads is assumed to help prevent the ad from been screened out

as their target audience engages in selective perception in order to cope with the ever growing

advertising clutter they are faced with (McDonalds, 1993).

To deviate a little bit, the degree of today’s advertising clutter has given rise to ingenious

strategies such as guerrilla marketing and product or brand placements (Balasubramanian,

1994 cited in Nelson, 2008) (in movies, television shows or series and in video games).

Advertisers use supraliminal messages (non-conscious influences) (Kaikati and Kaikati, 2004

cited in Nelson, 2008) to break pass viewers conscious defenses to avoid the possibility of

being zapped (Rojas-Méndez José et. al., 2008). An example is the placement of Aston

Martin DBS, Ford Ka, Smirnoff vodka and Coca-cola Zero Zero 7 in the new James bond

movie, Quantum of Solace.

Walker and Dubitsky (1994) using theory of “affect transfer” and citing other scholars works

(Alwitt, 1993; Maclnnis and Jaworski, 1989; Madden and Ajzen, 1991) suggests that people

on one hand will associate positive feelings to an advertiser or advertised brand if they

experience a positive feeling towards their advert and on the other hand their attitude towards

the ad will be influenced by their attitude towards the advertiser or advertised brand. Even

without science, one would agree that if people like an advertisement, “they are more likely

to notice and to pay attention to it and are in-turn more likely to assimilate and respond to the

message” it offers (Walker and Dubitsky, 1994).

If a target audience doesn’t respond positively to the message an ad offers, the ad is

considered to be ineffective. ‘A company that employs the service of an advertising agency

to advertise its product expect proof, and, for the most part, that proof must lead to or actually

produce sales’ (Richard Vaughan, 1986 cited in Ramalingam et. al., 2006) or increase in

market share regardless of the fact that other marketing elements like price, place

(accessibility) also need to be in place. In line with the argument of ‘hierarchy of effect’

models such as AIDA, AIETA and DAGMAR, an ad must be able to make its target audience

to take action and not just like the ad alone. For example a Norwegian Charity organisation

who was given an award for its ad was later said to report a £130,000 loss (Jobber, 2007).

This meant that people liked its advert, even professionals (assumed to be the ones who

nominated the organisation for the award) rated it high, but however the ad could not make

people to respond favourably enough to it and as such it couldn’t fulfil its objective as

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measured by the amount of money it was able to generate.

An advert is an embodiment of several other elements whether it is a print ad, video (TV) or

audio ad. These elements which include sound, images or text could be used alone or in

various combinations. In considering a likeable ad, the particular element of the ad which is

liked needs to be identified i.e. what part of the ad does the target audience like? Is it the

whole ad or a particular element in it? Take for instance the use of a favourite celebrity as an

endorser in an ad like Serena Williams in Puma ads. The celebrity could be the liked element

in the ad and not necessarily the product advertised or the message offered.

The possibility of the liked element to be a potential distracting factor is a possible option to

consider. It is accepted that the use of celebrities in ads gives them a better chance of being

noticed, but it does not guarantee that the ad will be read (Solomon et. al., 2006) or that the

audience will pay attention to the message it presents. The liked element competes for a fair

share of the target audience’s limited time and attention span. If the ad is therefore not read

by the audience exposed to it, it stands the same risk as an ad that is disliked and it will not be

able to fulfil its objective.

When the liked element that catches the attention or interest of a target audience becomes the

distraction from the intended message, the objective of the ad is compromised and that makes

the ad ineffective. An example can be given from a study carried out by Tsai and Chang

(2007) using female and male undergraduates to find out the effect of physical attractiveness

of models on advertising effectiveness. The study showed that the use of highly attractive

models in ads resulted in a decrease in the ads effectiveness compared to using normally

attractive models (Tsai and Chang, 2007).

Endorsement has been a strategy also that companies use to try and persuade customers and

make them like their product. Cases of endorsers who were once liked but were later disliked

due to an unbecoming or unacceptable behaviour have also been noted as a possible way by

which an element of liking could make an ad ineffective.

Many recent examples show companies dropping endorsers even before the signed agreement

has elapsed. Sometimes some of them were dropped the moment the company perceived that

a recent move they made (i.e. the endorser) could spell trouble in the nearest future. An

example is the case of Christian Dior and Sharon Stone after “she publicly suggested the

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horrific devastation wrought by the Sichuan earthquake was karmic retribution for China's

treatment of Tibet.” The company had to cut short the endorsement and also pull out their ads

in China that featured her (Forbes, 2008). Companies need to be careful in what or who they

choose to put in their ads as they seek to make customers like, accept and respond to their

ads. They should remember that advertising is part of the fabric of their brand’s personality

(Biel, 1990 cited in McDonalds, 1993) and attitudes towards the advertising as explained

earlier have a direct effect on the advertised brand.

The element of liking used in an ad must not only be likeable but it must also be relevant to

the product because people have tendency to judge the product based on the cues (which in

this case is the liked element) presented in the ad. For a low involvement product, where the

likelihood of taking the peripheral route to persuasion is possible (Petty et. al., 1991), if the

liked element is not product-relevant or it is complex to decipher the message it intends to

delineate, then it would not help the target audience to make a positive response towards the

product. Relevance as been found to be one of the two factors that is predictive of new

product success (Olson (1984) cited in Du Plessis, 1994). The audience needs to believe that

the ad is relevant to them if they are going to process the ad in the first place. Personal

relevance is said to be the most important variable affecting a person’s motivation to process

a message (Petty et. al. 1991). Relevance is very important especially when considering

mature consumers who according to research have more difficulty encoding information into

memory than younger consumers (Cole and Houston, 1987 cited in Phillips and Stanton,

2004).

An ad that is liked and relevant but cannot be recalled when needed is equally as good as one

which was not likeable or relevant. Not all ads need the target audience to make an

immediate response and when they even do the people may be miles away from where the

action ought to be carried out. For example, a detergent ad that people watched or read about

at home a week before they had need for such an item. The duration, interval or events that

occur between exposure to the ad and when or where the target audience is able to carry out

the expected act could cause the viewer to forget the ads message even though the ad was

liked. What is necessary at the point when the viewer is about to carry out a related decision

is the ability to be able to recall the previously viewed ad. A fast way around this has been

either to make available point-of-sale-ad displays or put retrieval cues on the product package

(Kelly, 1987 cited in Petty et. al., 1991).

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When viewers have formed a favourable attitude towards a liked ad and its message at the

time of exposure, the possibility that they may have to differ their response/action to the ad to

a later time means they must be able to recall not just the ads intended message but the

message recalled (considering the fact that all the message implication may not be retrievable

due to time lapse) under the new condition, environment, scenario or mood must be strong

enough to elicit the same positive attitude as it did during first exposure.

Human beings are dynamic and their behaviour and attitude always depend on both their

frame of mind and the situational or environmental context they find themselves (Gordon,

2006). If a liked ad fails to remain relevant when it is needed the most, a customer or the

target audience could change his/her previous position on the ground that the information

presently recalled is not strong enough or seems irrelevant to their present state (Petty et. al.,

1991). A change is also possible because people sometimes “miswant” i.e. they make choices

based on their expectation of how much of the chosen thing or idea they will like

(Winkielman and Berridge, 2003). Most often they make decision or conclusion using the

limited information they have at that particular moment. People’s information elaboration

resources are said to be limited (Mikhailitchenko et. al., 2007).

Having an element of liking in advertisement might not be important if it cannot present a

superior, relevant reason at the time the target audience intends to take an action relative to

the intended message and objective of the ad. In summary, it is not the ‘present’ that matters

but ‘then’, i.e. the point when action would be taken. The ad must be involving enough to

create a memory experience that people can carry along all through from exposure to action.

It must be able to maintain its argument or persuasive strength all through the period. The

other alternative is for companies to keep spending on getting through to their target audience

at different points in time and the consequence of such action will be an increase in their

advertising spend.

Factoring in an element of involvement into ads has been seen as a good way of helping

people to recall the ad at later times. The degree of involvement generated by the ad

determines whether or not the ad will successfully pass from where it is temporarily stored

into the more permanent store of the short-term memory (Branthwaite and Swindells, 1995

cited in Hollis, 1995). Ads should therefore not only be likable and relevant, but they must be

involving long enough for the ads message to be stored in short-term memory (Hollis, 1995).

To aid recall, the ad in total must be designed to be meaningful and comprehensible because

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the more it is, the easier it will be to remember (Craik and Lockhart, 1972 cited in Zinkhan et.

al., 1983).

Liking could be a deceptive pointer for advertisers as they seek to design ads that will be

effective to their given audiences. It should first be established that individual, group,

cultural, gender and age differences exist in the definition of what ‘liking’ is and the effect of

such differences go a long way in determining whether an ad will be effective or not.

Generally, the younger age group is said to have a more positive attitude towards advertising

and are less offended, insulted and misled by advertising (Rojas-Méndez et. al., 2008).

However, young consumers (18 – 35) (even by early adolescence) are said to have a high

level of scepticism about advertising and are highly critical of marketing strategies that are

directed at them (Neuborne, 1999 and Schiff, 2000 cited in Phillips and Stanton, 2004).

This 18 – 35 age group are more information seeking unlike other ages and generally have a

good ability to encode information using various strategies (Phillips and Stanton, 2004).

Their high need for ad/claim/product-relevant information to use for evaluation shows they

have a high need for cognition and thus are more likely to avoid the peripheral route when

evaluating an ad. Therefore, if the element of liking used in an ad for this age group is to

make them draw conclusions by taking the peripheral route to persuasion, such ads will not

be effective.

Phillips and Stanton (2004) revealed that what actually caught the interest and attention of

this particular age group in an ad was among the major elements that caused a decrease in

persuasion. This was also found to occur with the mature age groups. What triggered recall

had a negative impact on persuasion. These same elements were responsible for helping the

people to store the ad in their memory. However, that an ad is liked and can be recalled is not

a proof of an ad’s effectiveness. It doesn’t imply that because it can be recalled, then it

means the people will act according to what the ad offers. Liking may serve as an element to

help in coding and storing a message, but it still does not guarantee that people would

respond positively to it.

In a differing light, examples of ads that were labelled with terms that meant the ads were

disliked but which still achieved its objective have been cited. In Putrevu’s study on

“Consumers responses toward Sexual and Non-sexual appeals”, people were reported to

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describe the inclusion of sexual appeals in ads as unjust, unethical and offensive but in

contrast to their description, it was observed that the inclusion rather led to superior attitudes

and purchase intent (Severn, Belch, and Belch, 1990 cited in Putrevu, 2008).

Well-liked ads according to Bartos (1980, 1981) (cited in Walker and Dubitsky 1994) are said

to be “too soft” to break through the competitive clutter” which as at the time he wrote

(1980/81) and when he was quoted (1994) was not as much as what we are experiencing

today. To get through to people takes a lot more than a likeable ad because the human brain

(which can adapt to most changing environments) has adapted to today’s highly commercial

environment by learning how to screen out messages (Henry in Butterfield, 1999). How this

works is that when something is learnt overtime and mastered, it becomes habitual (like

driving a car) and is then executed automatically and unconsciously (Gordon, 2006). This

means we don’t have to pay conscious attention to each second of the activity anymore

because such learning are stored and executed by the procedural memory.

To therefore successfully breakthrough to today’s target audience who sees advertising as a

form of intrusion, ads must include something that is unexpected (Henry in Butterfield, 1999)

and it must include an element of irritation if the ad would be effective (Bartos 1980, 1981

cited in Walker and Dubitsky 1994).

Other techniques apart from the use of irritation and “the unexpected” that replace liking have

been adopted in the advertising industry. An advert against drinking and driving used guilt

when they showed the driver crashing through a fence and then killing a kid. NSPCC’s ad on

Yahoo also used guilt to get people to stop violence towards children. They featured

someone hitting a harmless teddy bear repeatedly. These two illustrations can’t be said to be

likeable experiences though they play on the audience’s emotion just like an element of liking

could have also done.

It is however agreed that liking contributes to (Sun et. al, 2001) and is an important predictor

of advertising effectiveness (Du Plessis, 1994; Walker and Dubitsky, 1994). Nevertheless, it

needs to be understood that it is only one facet of a more complicated construct

(involvement) which only guarantees the efficiency of communication (Hollis, 1995). Hollis

(1995) says the ‘effectiveness of advertising is more dependent on the relevance of the

message’ to the target audience.

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The overwhelming attention given to the study of “liking” in relation with advertising

effectiveness gives room for the possibility that advertisers may be engrossed in it and

therefore lose sight of the main objective of their advertisement. It should always be

remembered that “likability” is not the objective of creative strategy (Du Plessis, 1994) rather

it is more of a gatecrasher which helps to get the message through to the target audience. It

doesn’t [really] matter if the ad is liked or not, as long as the message it offers is given

attention and responded to, then the ad is agreed to be effective.

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