Consumers’ responses to advertisements can depend on whether a brand is new or established and on whether the ad explains product features or portrays a lifestyle, according to a series of experiments published in October.
The study in Behavioral Sciences compared functional appeals, which emphasize what a product does, with lifestyle appeals, which connect it to an experience or way of living. Participants rated interest and purchase intentions after viewing different advertising materials.
In tests using real brands, the researchers reported stronger responses to functional appeals for new brands and to lifestyle appeals for mature brands. The results varied across the six studies, and the research measured what participants said they might buy, not sales generated by actual campaigns.
That makes the work a starting point for testing, not a rule that every startup should use product specifications or that established brands should abandon them.
What the researchers compared
Xinliang Xu and colleagues used a sequence of studies involving word associations, ad preferences and purchase-intention ratings. The materials included both fictional and real brands, and both text-only slogans and ads combining images with text.
In one early test, participants saw descriptions of real brands and selected the type of poster they preferred. The researchers analyzed responses from 32 college students after attention-check exclusions. Functional appeals were selected more often for new brands, while lifestyle appeals were selected more often for established brands. Individual participants made multiple selections, so the number of selections is not the number of people.
The researchers then tested purchase intentions. In a text-only experiment using fictional brands, the interaction between brand maturity and appeal type was not statistically significant. A later image-and-text test found stronger purchase interest for lifestyle ads among participants viewing a mature fictional brand, but no significant difference between the two approaches for new brands on that measure.
Later tests with real brands produced more evidence of a matching pattern, although individual outcomes were not identical. For example, in an image-and-text test, participants rated the purchase possibility of mature brands more highly after lifestyle ads than after functional ads; the comparable difference for new brands was not statistically significant.
Features and familiarity
The researchers propose that unfamiliar brands may prompt people to look for concrete information about the product, while familiarity with an established name can make a broader lifestyle message easier to process. That is an interpretation of the pattern, not proof of the motivation behind every response.
A functional message might explain battery life, ingredients or delivery terms. A lifestyle message might show the setting in which a product is used. In practice, many advertisements combine both, and the best balance can depend on the product, audience and what customers already know.
The outcome also depends on the measure. An ad can attract attention without producing extra sales, and a stated intention to buy is not the same as a completed purchase. Our earlier coverage of research into repeated choices and brand preferences examined another way familiarity can matter, in a different experimental setting.
What businesses can test
A small brand could develop two truthful versions of an ad, one explaining a specific product benefit and another showing a relevant use, then compare them with similar audiences. Established businesses can run the same comparison rather than assume familiarity is universal across customer groups.
The useful outcome is not necessarily the ad with the most clicks. Businesses can compare purchases, revenue and contribution after advertising costs, while keeping price, audience and placement as consistent as possible. Small samples can produce noisy differences, so repeated tests are more informative than a single result.
The paper’s participants and stimuli represent a narrow slice of advertising. Results may change with product category, market, creative execution and existing brand knowledge. The researchers also identify product type and actual behavior as areas for further work.
