Temperament's thumbprint: dispositional factors in the formation of attitude-toward-the-ad

Consumers faced with a rushed, cluttered advertising message environment and complex messages may make purchase decisions based on affect alone. In low involvement situations, affective responses—preferences, attitudes, attraction, and aesthetic judgments—to ad execution and the emotional content of the ad may be more influential than product attributes.

Attitude-toward-the-ad (Aad) or ad liking is used to explore the affective response of different types of consumers to contrasting advertising appeals. The antecedents of Aad for both central (high involvement) and peripheral (low involvement) processing have been identified. Temperament type is likely to influence ad perception in central processing and mood in peripheral processing.

Temperament type, the characteristic way an individual approaches, modifies, simplifies and reacts to the environment, is posited as an essential part of the emotional criteria used to screen ads. Participants were classified into four temperament type groups—Artisans, nationals. Guardians, and Idealists—using the Keirsey Temperament Sorter.

A convenience sample of college-aged females responded to each of six ads on a series of bipolar adjective scales representing the three dimensions of Aad—overall liking, liking for ad execution, liking for emotional content. The ads were chosen as exemplars of the ad types—utilitarian, symbolic, and hedonic—by a panel similar demographically to the subjects. The ads represented three product types— utilitarian (skin moisturizer), symbolic (fashion shoes), and hedonic (fragrance).

A series of multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) using Aad components as dependent variables provides support for the hypothesis that temperament types differ in their response to ads and that these differences form a characteristic affective response pattern. However, a suspected confound between ad type and product type gives impetus to further research.

This study suggests replacing the speculation that individual differences such as a positive or negative outlook on life may influence the formation of Aad with a revised model reflecting the influence of individual differences such as temperament on both the ad perception and mood subsystem. Findings indicate that individual differences can be specified and empirically demonstrated as moderators of Aad.