IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/joreco/v84y2025ics0969698924004685.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The busier, the more outcome-oriented? How perceived busyness shapes preference for advertising appeals

Author

Listed:
  • Wang, Xiaoqin
  • Han, Xinying
  • Wu, Zhangjian
  • Du, Jiangang
  • Zhu, Liya

Abstract

This research investigates the different preferences for cognitive (vs. affective) advertisements among individuals with high (vs. low) perceived busyness. To test the hypotheses, three studies were conducted. First, a laboratory experiment first tested this main effect, finding that individuals with high perceived busyness display a stronger preference for cognitive advertisements, while those with low perceived busyness are more receptive to affective advertisements. Next, a field experiment confirmed this main effect and revealed the mediating roles of outcome and process mindsets. Specifically, individuals experiencing high perceived busyness, inclined towards an outcome mindset, preferred cognitive advertisements, whereas those with low perceived busyness, adopting a process mindset, favored affective advertisements. Lastly, secondary data analysis further validated the hypothesis, reinforcing the relationship between perceived busyness, cognitive processing styles, and advertisement preferences. These findings deepen our understanding of how perceived busyness interacts with processing styles and ad preferences, offering practical insights for strategic marketing and targeted advertising efforts.

Suggested Citation

  • Wang, Xiaoqin & Han, Xinying & Wu, Zhangjian & Du, Jiangang & Zhu, Liya, 2025. "The busier, the more outcome-oriented? How perceived busyness shapes preference for advertising appeals," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:joreco:v:84:y:2025:i:c:s0969698924004685
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2024.104172
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969698924004685
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jretconser.2024.104172?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ryan Dew & Asim Ansari & Olivier Toubia, 2022. "Letting Logos Speak: Leveraging Multiview Representation Learning for Data-Driven Branding and Logo Design," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 41(2), pages 401-425, March.
    2. Gershuny, Jonathan, 2005. "Busyness as the badge of honour for the new superordinate working class," ISER Working Paper Series 2005-09, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    3. Japutra, Arnold & Septianto, Felix & Can, Ali Selcuk, 2022. "Feeling grateful versus happy? The effects of emotional appeals in advertisements on self-made products," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    4. Yinlong Zhang & Vikas Mittal, 2005. "Decision Difficulty: Effects of Procedural and Outcome Accountability," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 32(3), pages 465-472, December.
    5. James A. Mourey & Ryan S. Elder, 2019. "Dynamic by Design: How Incorporating Dynamism in Advertising Affects Evaluations," Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(4), pages 422-435.
    6. Mulier, Lana & Slabbinck, Hendrik & Vermeir, Iris, 2021. "This Way Up: The Effectiveness of Mobile Vertical Video Marketing," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 1-15.
    7. Deighton, John & Romer, Daniel & McQueen, Josh, 1989. "Using Drama to Persuade," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 16(3), pages 335-343, December.
    8. Viktorija GRIGALIUNAITE & Lina PILELIENE, 2016. "Emotional Or Rational? The Determination Of The Influence Of Advertising Appeal On Advertising Effectiveness," Scientific Annals of Economics and Business (continues Analele Stiintifice), Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, vol. 63(3), pages 391-414, November.
    9. Du, Jiangang & Song, Binbin & Wang, Xiaoqin & Wu, Zhangjian, 2024. "Busyness and diverse choice: How perceived busyness shapes consumer’s preference for variety seeking," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    10. Zheng, Chundong & Liu, Xinru & Liu, Shuqin, 2024. "How to make busy individuals donate more? The matching effect of charitable appeals and busyness on willingness to donate," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    11. Pham, Michel Tuan & Avnet, Tamar, 2004. "Ideals and Oughts and the Reliance on Affect versus Substance in Persuasion," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 30(4), pages 503-518, March.
    12. Silvia Bellezza & Neeru Paharia & Anat Keinan, 2017. "Conspicuous Consumption of Time: When Busyness and Lack of Leisure Time Become a Status Symbol," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 44(1), pages 118-138.
    13. Jianping Peng & Juanjuan Qu & Le Peng & Jing Quan, 2017. "An Exploratory Study of the Effectiveness of Mobile Advertising," Information Resources Management Journal (IRMJ), IGI Global, vol. 30(4), pages 24-38, October.
    14. Dessart, Laurence, 2018. "Do ads that tell a story always perform better? The role of character identification and character type in storytelling ads," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 289-304.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Li, Chunxiao & Yang, Yufan & Zhang, Hao & Zhang, Zhihui, 2025. "Fast or slow? Exploring tourists' engagement inclination toward the pace of travel," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    2. Du, Jiangang & Song, Binbin & Wang, Xiaoqin & Wu, Zhangjian, 2024. "Busyness and diverse choice: How perceived busyness shapes consumer’s preference for variety seeking," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    3. Dessart, Laurence & Pitardi, Valentina, 2019. "How stories generate consumer engagement: An exploratory study," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 183-195.
    4. Zheng, Chundong & Liu, Xinru & Liu, Shuqin, 2024. "How to make busy individuals donate more? The matching effect of charitable appeals and busyness on willingness to donate," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    5. Zhang, Mingyue & Chen, Haipeng (Allan), 2024. "Risk-taking to restore negative self-view: The effect of autonomy and subjective business on financial risk-taking," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    6. Jiatong Dai & Guanghua Sheng, 2022. "Advertising strategies and sustainable development: The effects of green advertising appeals and subjective busyness on green purchase intention," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(7), pages 3421-3436, November.
    7. Dharun Kasilingam & Soundararaj Ajitha, 2022. "Storytelling in advertisements: understanding the effect of humor and drama on the attitude toward brands," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 29(4), pages 341-362, July.
    8. Frances McGinnity & Emma Calvert, 2008. "Yuppie Kvetch? Work-life Conflict and Social Class in Western Europe," Papers WP239, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    9. Zhang, Jason Q. & Craciun, Georgiana & Shin, Dongwoo, 2010. "When does electronic word-of-mouth matter? A study of consumer product reviews," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 63(12), pages 1336-1341, December.
    10. Leder, Susanne & Mannetti, Lucia & Hölzl, Erik & Kirchler, Erich, 2010. "Regulatory fit effects on perceived fiscal exchange and tax compliance," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 271-277, April.
    11. Ki, Chung-Wha (Chloe) & Cuevas, Leslie M. & Chong, Sze Man & Lim, Heejin, 2020. "Influencer marketing: Social media influencers as human brands attaching to followers and yielding positive marketing results by fulfilling needs," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
    12. Adams, Leen & Faseur, Tineke & Geuens, Maggie, 2010. "The Influence of the Self-Regulatory Focus on the Effectiveness of Stop-Smoking Campaigns for Young Smokers," Working Papers 2010/38, Hogeschool-Universiteit Brussel, Faculteit Economie en Management.
    13. Malik, Faiza & Ishaq, Muhammad Ishtiaq, 2023. "Impact of minimalist practices on consumer happiness and financial well-being," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    14. Almudena Sevilla Sanz & Jose Ignacio GImenez Nadal, 2007. "A Note on Leisure Inequality in the US: 1965-2003," Economics Series Working Papers 374, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    15. Singh, Jaywant & Crisafulli, Benedetta & Quamina, La Toya & Xue, Melanie Tao, 2020. "‘To trust or not to trust’: The impact of social media influencers on the reputation of corporate brands in crisis," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 464-480.
    16. Cao, Xinyue & Qu, Zhirui & Liu, Yan & Hu, JiaJing, 2021. "How the destination short video affects the customers' attitude: The role of narrative transportation," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    17. Kai Dominik Renchen, 2020. "Influencer Impact on Brand Awareness: A Mixed Method Survey in the German Fashion Segment," European Journal of Business Science and Technology, Mendel University in Brno, Faculty of Business and Economics, vol. 6(2), pages 138-153.
    18. Lucia Mannetti & Ambra Brizi & Mauro Giacomantonio & E Tory Higgins, 2013. "Framing Political Messages to Fit the Audience’s Regulatory Orientation: How to Improve the Efficacy of the Same Message Content," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(10), pages 1-1, October.
    19. Cheng, Yin-Hui & Yen, HsiuJu Rebecca & Chuang, Shih-Chieh & Chang, Chia-Jung, 2013. "Product option framing under the influence of a promotion versus prevention focus," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 402-413.
    20. Sengupta, Atri & Deb, Soumya Guha & Mittal, Shashank, 2021. "The underlying motivational process behind portfolio diversification choice decisions of individual investors: An experimental design," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:joreco:v:84:y:2025:i:c:s0969698924004685. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-retailing-and-consumer-services .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.