| Through advertising, marketers place their ads in an environment overpopulated with information, competing with hundreds of other advertisers for the same consumer attention. For ads to be successful, they must be able to rise above the advertising clutter in order to penetrate the well-developed perceptual screening system that consumers develop as part of their media viewing behaviors. One approach often utilized in the creative development of ads is the inclusion of information that is incongruent with consumers' previously developed schemata or expectations. The goal of this study was to investigate the role of information incongruency and message involvement through the pictorial element of tourism print ads. The attitudinal evaluations of ad viewers were measured for various combinations of incongruency and involvement, for a better understanding of how to design effective destination print ads. Linear mixed modeling and path analyses were used to explore the relationships between various constructs like incongruency, involvement, attention, cognitive and affective attitude. It was found that for destination advertisers to generate higher affective attitude towards their ads in consumers, they needed to creatively select pictures depicted in their ads. For ads depicting low-involvement attractions (such as farmlands, gardens, etc.), unexpected-relevant pictures helped advertisers to increase ad viewers' affective attitude-towards-the-ad. The key in making ads depicting high-involvement attractions (such as water, nightlife, festivals/events, etc.) effective was to choose pictures that were relevant in conveying the main theme of ads. It was found that for ads to generate the highest cognitive attitude-towards-the-ad in consumers as well, destination advertisers need to creatively select pictures for ads. Ads that depicted low-involvement attractions (such as farmlands, gardens, etc.), unexpected-relevant pictures generated the highest cognitive attitude-towards-the-ad in subjects. For ads depicting high-involvement attractions (such as water, nightlife, festivals/events, etc), relevant pictures still generated higher cognitive attitude-towards-the-ad in subjects than irrelevant pictures; however, unexpectancy of pictures did not generate any higher cognitive attitude-towards-the-ad than expectancy of pictures. Thus, the findings of this study potentially suggest ways to advertise destination attractions in print ads. The ultimate goal of destination advertisers is to persuade viewers to visit their destinations. By using different incongruent information characteristics in ads, the advertisers can increase the likelihood of higher returns on their advertising investments. |
