A Study on the Influence that Consumer's Perception of "Similarity" to a Model in Advertisement Has upon Persuasion Effect.

Kong, Moon Seon(Major in PR and Advertising. The Graduate School of Maa Communication, Chung-Ang University)

The purpose of this study are to confirm the effect of variables that could change consumer's attitude through an advertisement using Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) that has been introduced by American psychologists - Petty, Cacioppo, and others - since 1981, and to test the effect of the variables by high involvement and low involvement.

This study looked into the effect of three independent variables - model with or without physical similarity, the quality of argument, and personal involvment - on the evaluation of advertisement, product and purchasing intention.

Some hair shampooing product was used as a fundamental instruments of operation, and the thesis attempt is based on scrutinizing 240 women - resided in Seoul , with a Bachelor Degree - attitude toward 4 different kinds of commercial message starring:

(1) a model with physical similarity in a strong argument

(2) a model with physical similarity in a weak argument

(3) a model with none-physical similarity in a strong argument

(4) a model with none-physical similarity in a strong argument

The research of women's attitude took into account enviromental elements that could catagorize informally two distinctive groups:

highly involved group and lowly involved group

Two super female models were selected through a pre0-investigation:

Sora Lee, Korean super model as a model with physical similarity and Cindy Crawford as a model with none physical similarity.

The study is designed to demonstrate the following three hypotheses ;

(1) Hypothesis 1:Consumer's attitude depends on whether a model starring in commercial has physical similarity or not.

(2) Hypothesis 1-1:In case of Korean model who has more similarity to consumer than a foreign model, consumer will have more positive attitude toward "the product"

(3) Hypothesis 1-1:In case of Korean model who has more similarity to consumer than a foreign model, consumer will have more positive attitude toward " the advertisement"

(4) Hypothesis 2:Depending on whether consumer has similarity or not, the degree of the influence on attitude changing related to involment and argument would be varied

(5) Hypothesis 2-1:In case of "Model with physical similarity " the degree of personal involvement, rather than the degree of arguement, toward the model determines the consumer's attitude changing.

(6) Hypothesis 2-2:In case of "Model with none physical similarity ", consumer's behavior depends on the quality of argument in commercial rather than the degree of personal involvement

The result of the investigation based on these hypotheses showed that the appearance of a model with or without physical similarity in commercial message definitely affects consumer's evaluation on "product." and "advertisement". However, this element didn't have a quite impact on consumer's purchasing intention.

According to the test result of the hypothesis 2-1, in case of "Model-similarity", the degree of personal involvement was an important element in determining consumer's attitude toward commercial message and their purchasing intentions, and for this reason it is confirmed that a greatly positive influence in the "highly involved group".

However, the nature of argument, strong or weak was another trump for consumer, so message containing strong argument was highly evaluated.

The test result of Hypotheses 2-2 demonstrated that in case of "Model without similarity". consumer;'s attitude toward "products", women's attitude toward "advertisement" and their purchasing intentions were varied according to the degree of arguments, and especially the strong argument received a positive reaction.

Finally, the consequence of the oeration could be summarized as follows:

(1) The advertising effect with foreign model and Korean model depends on the similarity between consumer and the model.

(2) IN case of Korean model identified as consumer, the degree of involvement plays a key-role in the process of consumer's mind changing, so it could be effective to create a "highly involved" environment.

(3) Since the intensity of argument could have an effect on consumer's attitude in the "foreign model" message, a strong argument could have a rfuitful result.

Besides this procedure, it could be possible to demonstrate various ways of selecting and approaching method of correlation "Model-Consumer".