How the tone and wording of advertisements interact

This research investigates how the tone and wording of advertisements interact. This previously neglected area of research is explored in the context of television advertisements for mobile phones. Reports on an experiment with two independent variables – affective tone and message framing – shows how these variables interact regarding attitudes towards the ad, and recall, for a New Zealand sample. Results suggest that incongruous matching works best, namely happy ads with negative frames, and sad ads with positive frames, providing new insights for advertising practitioners and academics. Theoretical and managerial implications and directions for future research are also discussed.