Expression of emotions in ads over time

Although advertising is generally meant to inform consumers of a given product or service, marketers often also resort to emotions to appeal to consumers and raise awareness for their offering. Substantial research efforts have been interested in emotional advertising and its impact on consumers’ attitude formation. Ideally, the ad evokes the desired emotional response from consumers, although real-world examples have initiated adverse feedback. While existing research focuses on the emotions elicited in consumers, we investigate how advertisers have expressed emotions in their print advertisements over the past century. Our sample consists of all issues of “The Economist” in the time period 1900 – 2014. We analyze both textual and visual cues provided in the ads, as well as the articles of the magazine to understand how the display of emotions has developed over time. Thereby, we consider how the emotion portrayed in ads and articles compares and whether it changes due to historical events. From a managerial perspective, our study predicts to what extent the emotions of ads and articles are synchronized with the general societal sentiment