Information and Emotion in Advertising: A Content Analysis on the Internet in Brazil

Abstract

The significant increase in the number of users and transactions over the Internet has highlighted the importance of this channel, bringing new opportunities and challenges for advertising. However, the way advertisers use information and emotional appeals in their messages is still a subject little studied. Hence, the objectives of this paper are to: a) analyze some general features of Internet advertising; and b) explore the information content and emotional appeal of Internet advertising. We conducted an exploratory search through content analysis of a sample of 156 ads on sites using a convenience sample of Brazilian Internet users. The results showed that the advertising on the analyzed sites was for an assortment of products but the products were concentrated in a few categories. The types of informational content most commonly used are "availability" and "components or content" of products. Also the advertisements use only positive emotional appeals, which bring opportunities to create campaigns. This study contributes knowledge about the use of internet in marketing communications and suggests the direction of future research.