Abstract
Purpose - This study investigates whether the effectiveness of self trait-advertisement versus communion-focused advertisement on product evaluations depends on a type of pride felt as ambient emotion. It also explores whether the mediating roles of cognitive and affective response to the effect of the advertisement type on product evaluation are moderated by types of pride such as hubristic pride or authentic pride. Research Design, Data, and Methodology - This research uses a restaurant service as the experimental object and employs a 2 (pride type: hubristic pride vs. authentic pride) × 2 (advertisement type: self trait-focused advertisement versus communion-focused advertisement) between-subjects design, with cognitive response and affective response as within-subject. Each experimental group consisted of 40 undergraduate students assigned to participate in the experiment. One questionnaire from the authentic pride and self-trait focused advertisement group and two questionnaires from the hubristic pride and communion-focused advertisement group were removed due to answer errors, resulting in a participant number of 157. The author conducts a 2 (pride type: hubristic pride vs. authentic pride) × 2 (advertisement type: self trait-focused advertisement versus communion-focused advertisement) ANOVA on advertised product evaluations, and to better understand the interaction effects, also conducts separate analysis of the hubristic and the authentic pride groups. Additionally, the study conducts mediated moderation analysis to check the mediation role difference of the cognitive response and the affective response to each advertisement on the interaction effects on product evaluations between the hubristic and the authentic pride groups. Results - The findings indicate that participants in the hubristic pride group more positively evaluate the product in self-trait focused advertisement, whereas participants in the authentic pride group more positively evaluate the product in communion-focused advertisements. In addition, the mediating role of cognitive response on the positive interaction effect of advertisement type and pride type on product evaluation is partially moderated by the pride type. However, the mediating role of affective response on the positive interaction effect of advertisement type and pride type on the product evaluation is not moderated by the pride type. Conclusions - The results of this study contribute to advertisement theory development by exploring interaction effects of ambient pride type and advertisement type on product evaluation, as well as to the theory of consumer behavior by exploring how pride type moderates the mediating roles of cognitive response on the positive interaction effect of advertisement type and pride type on product evaluation. From the perspective of the current research, advertisers should research what kinds of events consumers have experienced to increase the effectiveness of their advertisements, and use self-trait advertisements when consumers are grouped under ambient hubristic pride, and use communion-focused advertisements when consumers are grouped under ambient authentic pride. However, future research is necessary to discover the reasons why the mediating role of affective response to advertisements in the interaction effects of pride type and advertisement type on product evaluation is not moderated by pride type.