Beyong response - Investigating consumer perceptions that drive likability of direct response advertisements

Though the strength of direct response advertising lies in its accountability, trends in the direct marketing industry indicate that to complement sales, other measures are needed for enhancing long-term customer relationships. Two effectiveness measures of this type are advertisement likability and feeling toward direct response products-services. Thirty randomly selected direct response print ads were evaluated by 146 respondents, yielding 730 ad evaluations regarding perceptions that impact ad likability and feeling toward direct response products-services. A factor analysis of 27 content scales resulted in 5 ad content categories that were used to examine their impact on feelings and likability of direct response ads: 1. informational content, 2. entertaining content, 3. warmth, 4. annoying, and 5. overexposed.