International Journal of Advertising

The Review of Marketing Communications

ISSN: 0265-0487 (Print) 1759-3948 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rina20

Is sexy better than funny? Disentangling the

persuasive effects of pleasure and arousal across
sex and humour appeals

Enny Das, Maryna Galekh & Charlotte Vonkeman

To cite this article: Enny Das, Maryna Galekh & Charlotte Vonkeman (2015) Is sexy better than
funny? Disentangling the persuasive effects of pleasure and arousal across sex and humour
appeals, International Journal of Advertising, 34:3, 406-420

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02650487.2014.997423

Published online: 04 Feb 2015.

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 International Journal of Advertising, 2015
Vol. 34, No. 3, 406 420, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02650487.2014.997423

Is sexy better than funny? Disentangling the persuasive effects of

pleasure and arousal across sex and humour appeals
Enny Dasa*, Maryna Galekhb and Charlotte Vonkemanb,c
a
Department of Communication and Information Sciences, Radboud University, Nijmegen,
The Netherlands; bDepartment of Communication Science, VU University, Amsterdam,
The Netherlands; cDepartment of Economics and Business Administration, VU University,
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
(Received 22 July 2012; accepted 28 November 2014)
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Although it is well known that sex and humour can help sell products, hardly any research
has examined whether there is something particular about sexual advertisements that
makes them more persuasive than other appeals. The present research proposed an
empirically robust way to test the persuasiveness of different emotional appeals (sex,
humour, control) by matching them on pleasure and arousal levels. Two experiments
(N D 162; N D 301) examined the combined persuasive effects of different levels of
pleasure (moderate, high) and arousal (moderate, high) for sexual and nonsexual appeals.
Study 1 used a 3 (appeal: sexual, humorous, control) 2 (pleasure level: moderate, high)
between-subjects design. Study 2 employed a 2 (appeal: sexual, control) 2 (arousal
level: moderate, high) 2 (pleasure level: moderate, high) design. The main dependent
measures were attitudes towards the ad, attitudes towards the brand, and purchase
intentions. The results showed that highly pleasant ads increased persuasion regardless of
arousal and content, and that sexual appeals outperformed nonsexual appeals only under
conditions of moderate pleasure and high arousal.
Keywords: sex; humour; advertising; arousal; pleasure; emotional appeal

Although it is evident that sex, humour, and other emotional advertising appeals can help
sell products, decades of research on the effectiveness of advertising appeals have not
answered one key question: is there something particular about sexual advertisements
that makes them more persuasive than other appeals? If advertisers want to increase sales,
should they choose a very sexy ad over a highly funny ad, or can good fun be equally
powerful as good sex?
In spite of its relevance to marketing communication practice, comparative evidence
regarding the persuasive effects across different emotional appeals (e.g., sex, humour) is sur-
prisingly scarce. The vast majority of research has examined the persuasiveness of one spe-
cific appeal. Research has used a wide range of different operationalizations to assess
responses to emotional appeals, creating the infamous apples and oranges problem when
trying to compare findings across studies. At present, there is evidence that pleasure plays a
key role across different appeals, but comparative evidence regarding the role of arousal is
scarce, and mixed (Huang 2004). Given the key role attributed to arousal in research on sex-
ual appeals in particular, it appears worthwhile to examine whether the implicit assumption
hidden in available published studies i.e, that arousal plays a key role in sexual, but not in
other, emotional appeals can be supported by empirical findings.

*Corresponding author. Email: h.das@let.ru.nl

2015 Advertising Association

 International Journal of Advertising 407

What appears necessary to explicitly test this assumption is research that (1) provides
a stringent test of the comparative persuasiveness of sexual versus other emotional
appeals (humour, control), and (2) assesses the role of the underlying dimensions of plea-
sure and arousal across emotional executions in a consistent and robust way. The objec-
tive of this research was to provide these tests by introducing a paradigm that matched
different emotional appeals on these two key dimensions. In the next section, we start by
reviewing the available evidence regarding the effectiveness of different emotional
appeals and the workings of pleasure and arousal. We then describe two experimental
studies that tested the persuasive effects of different emotional appeals at experimentally
controlled levels (moderate versus high) of pleasure and arousal.

Emotional appeals: affective dimensions

Emotional appeals can be as diverse as human emotions; for example, ads can be funny,
sexy, moving, or scary. A key question that has received quite some scholarly attention is
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how many different dimensions of affect play a role in advertising research. Propositions
across advertising models differ, ranging from the inclusion of one, two, three, four, five,
or more emotion dimensions (Geuens and De Pelsmacker 1998b). Most models agree,
however, that pleasure and arousal constitute two key dimensions.
Pleasure can best be viewed as a continuum ranging from extreme unhappiness to
extreme happiness or ecstasy. Researchers appear to agree that pleasure constitutes a key
response to advertisements that drives ad effectiveness, although this dimension is labeled
differently across models. For example, Holbrook and Batra (1987), Mehrabian and
Russells (1974), and Olney et al. (1991) developed and assessed scales that include a
pleasure dimension, but Edell and Burke (1987) labeled the dimension warmth in their
emotion list. The pleasure dimension plays a central role in emotional appeals: the plea-
sure principle goes for sexual appeals as well as warmth, humour, and romantic appeals
(De Pelsmacker, Geuens, and Van den Bergh 2005; Eisend 2009; Huang 2004; LaTour
1990; Reichert, Heckler, and Jackson 2001).
There is some empirical evidence to suggest that different emotional executions do
not differ on the pleasure dimension. Geuens and De Pelsmacker (1998a) found that
humour and warmth appeals both affected cheerfulness and carefreeness. In another
study, humorous, warm, and erotic appeals did not lead to significant differences in ad-
evoked feelings (Geuens and De Pelsmacker 1998b). There is also evidence that different
emotional appeals increase persuasion via positive feelings; sex and romantic appeals
have been found to increase pleasure, which, in turn, increased persuasion (Holbrook and
Batra 1987; Holbrook and OShaughnessy 1984; Huang 2004). In addition, a meta-analy-
sis on humour in advertising supported the assumed relationship between humour, affect,
and attitudes towards the ad. (Eisend 2009).
A second important dimension in emotional responses to advertising that different mod-
els appear to agree on is arousal. Arousal can be defined as the level of alertness or activa-
tion on a continuum that ranges from sleep on the one end to frenzied excitement at the
other end (e.g., Reisenzein 1994; Russell 1989). Arousal plays a role in many, albeit not
all, conceptualizations of emotions in advertising. The dimension of arousal is explicitly
included in the emotion scales developed and used by Holbrook and Batra (1987), Mehra-
bian and Russell (1974), Olney et al. (1991), and Steenkamp, Baumgartner, and Van der
Wulp (1996). It also overlaps with the dimension upbeat in the scales developed by Edell
and Burke (1987), although the latter factor is valenced, whereas the former is valence-
free. Arousal is not universally acknowledged as a key dimension across studies. For
 408 E. Das et al.

example, Derbaixs (1995) replication of Edell and Burke (1987) dimensions resulted in a
revised scale that yielded a positive and a negative dimension but no arousal dimension.
Emotional appeals often aim to elicit arousal: humour and erotic appeals are often
arousing, but, also, negatively valenced executions such as fear appeals can increase
arousal (Huang 2004; LaTour 1990; Reichert, Heckler, and Jackson 2001). The role of
arousal across different emotional appeals has remained unclear, as the majority of empir-
ical studies examined effects within one specific emotional appeal (Baron 1982;
Simpson, Horton, Brown 1996), and measures of arousal are absent in the vast majority
of studies on emotional appeals other than sex. The absence of robust tests of the interplay
between arousal and pleasure in advertising is all the more striking considering that sev-
eral different theoretical perspectives outside the advertising domain propose that these
two factors should interact in their effects on consumer responses. In the next section, we
discuss theory and evidence regarding the interplay of pleasure and arousal from other
research domains, and then propose implications for the persuasiveness of sex (vs.
humour, and control) appeals.
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Interplay of pleasure and arousal: theory and evidence

Different theories converge on the assumption that arousal polarizes affective responses.
According to Zillmans (1971) excitation transfer hypothesis, any arousal experienced
before or during message processing whether or not this arousal is linked to the mes-
sage or caused by an unrelated event or action will intensify message valence effects,
because arousal is generic rather than content-specific. The dynamic complexity hypothe-
sis (Paulhus and Lim 1994) builds on the idea that arousal reduces cognitive capacity,
proposing that that arousal polarizes evaluative judgments by increasing selective proc-
essing of important (evaluative) cues at the expense of less important ones. Both theories
would thus predict that arousal increases or decreases persuasion depending on the level
of pleasure an ad evokes.
Empirical support for these propositions comes mainly from studies outside the adver-
tising domain. For example, arousal elicited by either physical exercise or emotional
audio material polarized male participants liking of a female target, depending on her
attractiveness (White, Fishbein, and Rutstein 1981). Likewise, arousal elicited by one
movie influenced judgment of a subsequently viewed movie, causing distraction effects
after immediate viewing of the second movie and excitation transfer effects with longer
time intervals between films (Zillman, Mody and Cantor 1974). In a study of peoples
evaluation of famous figures and social acquaintances, Paulhus and Lim (1994) found
that arousal resulted in simpler perceptions and that these simpler perceptions seemed to
lead to more polarized judgments. Also consistent with the dynamic complexity hypothe-
sis, arousal polarized brand evaluation by increasing peoples reliance on whichever cues
good or bad were perceived to be more diagnostic in an advertising context (Pham
1996).
To the best of our knowledge, there is no published research that has tested the cogni-
tive capacity and excitation transfer hypotheses across different emotional advertising
appeals. Both models would predict that arousal should polarize persuasion for ads that
differ on the pleasure dimension, thus leading to increased persuasion for pleasurable ads
and decreased persuasion for unpleasant ads, regardless of whether this pleasure is evoked
by sex, humour, or any other emotional appeal. Ariely and Loewenstein (2006) present a
related but slightly deviating perspective, by allocating a specific role to sexual arousal.
These authors propose that exposure to sexual stimuli elicits drive-like feelings, which
 International Journal of Advertising 409

narrow the focus of attention to a tunnel vision (Ariely and Loewenstein 2006). In this
tunnel vision, individuals become primarily focused on information related to sex; deci-
sions regarding sexual information may be facilitated, while decisions unrelated to sex
may be suppressed. According to this perspective, then, not all arousal effects are equal;
especially sexual arousal should increase the effectiveness of sexual ads, regardless of
whether these ads are pleasurable or not.
Thus far, no study has explicitly tested and compared cognitive capacity, excitation
transfer, and tunnel vision assumptions across different emotional appeals, although several
studies have yielded research findings relevant to the present research question. Gorn,
Pham, and Sin reported (2001) that arousal elicited before participants saw an ad influenced
ad evaluations. Specifically, ad evaluations were more polarized in the direction of the ads
affective tone under high arousal than under low arousal. Huang (2004) showed that plea-
sure and arousal play a different role in sexual versus romantic appeals; whereas arousal
moderated the relationship between pleasure and ad effectiveness for romantic appeals,
pleasure mediated the relationship between arousal and ad effectiveness for sexual appeals.
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Another study found that sexual television programs decreased overall cognitive capacity,
measured in intelligence quotient (IQ) scores, and increased appreciation for sex appeals
(versus other appeals) during the commercial break (Das et al. 2009). Research on sexual
behaviour has shown that activation of the sexual system facilitates decisions regarding
sexual information (Spiering, Everaerd, and Elzinga 2002). Also outside the advertising
domain, Ariely and Loewenstein (2006) reported that highly aroused participants were
more supportive of dubious seduction strategies, which suggests that sexual arousal may
increase support for sexual stimuli and actions low on pleasure.
Overall, these findings provide some support for the assumption that sexual arousal
produces effects different from other forms of arousal, but the role of pleasure and appeal
type remains unclear. Moreover, the lack of robust empirical tests across different emo-
tional appeals and the inconsistency of theoretical perspectives and findings underscore
the importance of assessing how arousal and pleasure interact in sexual (vs. other)
appeals. The objective of the present research was to provide this test.

Overview and research question

The main goal of the present research was to disentangle the persuasive effects of plea-
sure and arousal for sex (vs. control) appeals. In order to prevent methodological difficul-
ties in comparing advertisements with apples and oranges executions, we used a
paradigm that matched different emotional appeals (sex, humour, control) on the underly-
ing dimensions of pleasure (moderate versus high; Experiments 1, 2) and arousal (moder-
ate versus high; Experiment 2). Theoretical perspectives either predict (a) that arousal
should polarize pleasure effects across different appeals, i.e., a two-way interaction
between pleasure and arousal (Paulhus and Lim 1994; Zillman 1971), or (b) that sexual
arousal, but not other arousal, increases persuasion for sexual ads regardless of pleasure
(Ariely and Loewenstein 2006; Das et al. 2009), i.e., a two way interaction between
appeal type and arousal. Because of conflicting theorizing and because previous research
regarding the interplay between pleasure and arousal across different emotional execu-
tions is scarce, and inconclusive, we formulated the following research question:

RQ1:Do the combined effects of different levels of pleasure (moderate, high) and
arousal (moderate, high) on ad attitudes and attitudes towards the brand differ for
sexual and nonsexual appeals?
 410 E. Das et al.

Experiment 1
Experiment 1 examined the effects of pleasure (moderate, high) for different emotional
appeals (sexual, humorous, control). Because it was crucial to our study that ads with
high levels of pleasure would be perceived as significantly more pleasant than ads with
moderate levels of pleasure, pleasure levels across different appeals types were matched
based on the findings of a pilot study.

Method
Materials
Online ads were screened for a pilot test, which resulted in a preliminary set of 21 ads. For
the sexy ad condition, images of couples engaged in seductive behaviour were selected
because research has shown that men and women respond similarly to the depiction of
sexual images of heterosexual couples (Huang 2004). For the humorous condition, ads
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with funny content were selected. For the control condition, ads without overt sexual or
humorous content were selected.
A pretest of these materials was then conducted on a separate pool of respondents. A
total of 23 participants (54.2% male, 45.8% female) from 16 to 52 years old were invited
via email to participate in an online experiment. In the experiment, participants rated four
or five images that were presented in random order. Immediately after viewing an ad, par-
ticipants rated how pleasant they thought the ad was. Pleasure was measured on six-items
semantic differentials (Simpson, Horton and Brown 1996), e.g., pleased/annoyed, con-
tented/ melancholic (Cronbachs alpha D 0.96).
Three ads were selected for the high pleasure condition based on their scores on per-
ceived pleasure: one sexy ad (M D 4.67, SD D 0.49), one humorous ad (M D 4.83, SD D
1.42), and one neutral ad (M D 4.71, SD D 0.53). These three ads were equally pleasurable
(F(2, 21) D 0.06, ns). Three ads were selected for the moderate pleasure condition based on
their moderate scores on perceived pleasure: one sexy ad (e.g., M D 3.75, SD D 1.25), one
humorous ad (e.g., M D 4.01, SD D 1.05), and one neutral ad (e.g., M D 3.60, SD D 1.20).
These three ads were also equally pleasurable (F(2, 32) D 0.51, ns). The high and moderate
pleasure conditions differed significantly (F (1, 57) D 12.52, p < 0.001).
The pre-selected images were then turned into an advertisement for a mobile phone.
We chose a mobile phone because (a) a wide variety of respondents had some affinity
with the product, and (b) a product category was needed for which different types of stim-
uli (i.e., sexual and humorous) could be applied in a realistic, credible manner. Because
mobile phones serve several different purposes in human life for example, to talk to a
loved one, or close a business deal different appeal types apply. A fictitious brand
name, TCV mobile networks, was used to eliminate brand awareness effects. The slogan
Reach out and touch someone was added to create a realistic and complete advertise-
ment. This is an existing slogan from a Bell Systems commercial that aired in the late
1970s in the US and therefore unlikely to be familiar to Europeans in 2010.

Design, participants and procedure

The design was 3 (sexual ad vs. humorous ad vs. control ad) 2 (moderate pleasure vs.
high pleasure) between participants. One hundred and sixty-two Dutch consumers
(85.2% males, 14.8% females)1 from 16 to 56 years old (M D 26.49, SD D 6.72) and
from different social networks were invited via email or an online link to participate in an
 International Journal of Advertising 411

online experiment. All participants were heterosexual except for one person, who
reported being homosexual. Of the total participants, 96.3% did not know the telephone
provider from the commercial. All participants had a mobile phone, which they used for
conversations on average 197 minutes per month, and for text messages on average
47 times per month. Most participants were satisfied with their current provider (M D
3.86, SD D 0.73). Participation was voluntary.
The computer randomly assigned participants to one of the six experimental condi-
tions (high or moderate pleasure; sexual, humorous, control). Participants were first
exposed to the ad, and then asked to fill out an online questionnaire. Because the pretest
merely assessed whether pleasure levels were matched across different appeals types, we
included manipulation checks for sex and humour in the main study. The sexual appeal of
the ads was verified on a three-item 5-point Likert scale from Strongly agree to
Strongly disagree: This ad is asexual; This ad is erotic; This ad is sensual
(Cronbachs alpha D 0.88). The humorous appeal of the different ads was measured on a
threee-item 5-point Likert scale from Strongly agree to Strongly disagree: This ad is
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humorous; This ad is amusing; This ad is serious (Cronbachs alpha D 0.86). Pleasure

was assessed with six-item 9-point semantic differentials (Simpson, Horton, and Brown
1996) for example, pleased/annoyed, contented/melancholic (Cronbachs alpha D
0.92). Attitudes towards the ad (Aad) were measured on a five-item 5-point Likert scale
(De Pelsmacker and Geuens 1999; Cronbachs alpha D 0.77). At the end of the question-
naire, participants were thanked and debriefed.

Results
The effectiveness of the manipulation of appeal type was tested with a 3-way (appeal:
sexual vs. humorous vs. control) analysis of variance (ANOVA) with post hoc compari-
sons. The results confirmed that ads in the sexual condition were perceived as more sex-
ual (M D 3.69, SD D 0.56) than ads in the humorous (M D 1.58, SD D 0.51; p < 0.001)
or the control condition (M D 1.67, SD D 0.68, p < 0.001; F (2,159) D 212,45, p <
0.001). The ANOVA also revealed a significant difference for perceived humour (F
(2,159) D 11.92; p < 0.001). Post hoc comparisons showed that humorous ads were per-
ceived as more humorous (M D 2.95, SD D 0.97) than ads in the sexual condition (M D
2.22, SD D 0.67; p < 0.002), but the difference with the control condition was not signifi-
cant (M D 2.82, SD D 0.86; ns).
A 2 (level of pleasure: moderate vs. high) 3 (appeal: sexual vs. humorous vs. con-
trol) ANOVA confirmed that ads in the high pleasure condition were perceived as more
pleasant (M D 4.20, SD D 0.87) than ads in the moderate pleasure condition (M D 3.83,
SD D 0.69; F(1,156) D 8.45, p < 0.01). Appeal had no significant effect on pleasure (F
(2, 156) D 1.32, ns), and the interaction between level of pleasure and appeal was not sig-
nificant (F(2, 156) D 0.78, ns).
For our main analysis on attitudes towards the ad, we used a 2 (level of pleasure:
moderate vs. high) 3 (appeal: sexual vs. humorous vs. neutral) ANOVA. Results
showed a marginally significant difference between the high and moderate pleasure levels
for attitudes towards the ad (Aad; F(2,156) D 3.05, p < 0.10). Participants who saw the
highly pleasant ads had more positive attitudes towards the ad (M D 2.45, SD D 0.74)
than participants who saw the moderately pleasant ads (M D 2.29, SD D 0.72). No signifi-
cant differences between sexual, humorous, and control ads were observed (F(2,156) D
1.73, ns), and no significant interaction between level of pleasure and ad content (F
(2,156) D 0.30, ns; see Figure 1).
 412 E. Das et al.
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Figure 1. Main effect of pleasure on attitudes towards the ad across different appeals (humorous,
sexual, control) in Experiment 1.

Discussion
This study matched sexual, humorous, and control appeals on moderate or high levels of
pleasure, in order to assess whether sexual appeals are more persuasive than other appeals
when pleasure levels are controlled for. The results indicate that levels of pleasure rather
than appeal type determined attitudes towards the advertisements: ads with completely
different emotional appeals sex, humour, or control elicited equal attitudes towards
the ad when the level of pleasure was held constant. The present effects were observed
even for relatively small differences in pleasure (moderate vs. high) and suggest that
larger differences in pleasure would lead to greater persuasive differences. The findings
extend previous studies (Geuens and De Pelsmacker 1999b) which suggested that differ-
ent emotional appeals have similar effects on ad-evoked feelings, which, in turn, predict
attitudes towards the ad. Likewise, our findings suggest that different appeals have similar
effects on consumers appreciation for an ad, provided they evoke equal levels of
pleasure.
It should be noted that although the ads used in this experiment were carefully pre-
tested for pleasure levels and checked for specific appeal type, the humour condition was
perceived as more humorous than the sexual appeal, but as equally humorous as the con-
trol condition. These findings suggest that our control condition may have been funnier
than anticipated, and underscore the need to replicate the observed findings in a second
study. This was one of the objectives of Experiment 2.

Experiment 2
Experiment 2 set out to replicate and extend Experiment 1 in two specific ways. First,
whereas Experiment 1 focused on the role of pleasure, the present experiment also varied
arousal levels across different emotional executions. Arousal is a particularly interesting
factor because the available empirical evidence suggests arousal plays a more important
role for sexual appeals than for other emotional appeals, and because theoretical perspec-
tives on the interplay between pleasure and arousal are inconsistent. Second, the present
study was designed to test the effects of emotional appeals, pleasure, and arousal not only
on attitudes towards the ad, but also on attitudes towards the brand, and purchase
 International Journal of Advertising 413

intentions. In order to prevent an overly complex research design, we dropped the humour
condition, thus comparing sexual appeals to nonsexual appeals. Experiment 2 thus sys-
tematically examined the effects of pleasure (high vs. moderate) and arousal (high vs.
moderate) across sex versus control appeals on attitudes towards the ad, attitudes towards
the brand, and purchase intentions.

Method
Materials
Crucial to the present study was the fact that the sex appeals would be indeed perceived as
sexual, and that ads significantly differed on levels of pleasure and arousal. Initially,
online images were screened, which resulted in a preliminary set of 24 images. For the
sex appeal condition, images of couples engaged in seductive behaviour were selected
because research has shown that men and women respond similarly to the depiction of
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sexual images of heterosexual couples (Huang 2004), and because the same conceptuali-
zation was used in Experiment 1. For the neutral condition, images without overt sexual
content were selected.
A pretest was then conducted on a separate pool of respondents. One hundred and
twenty participants (56.7% males, 43.3% females) from 21 to 60 years old were invited
via email to participate in an online experiment. There was a link to a web application in
the email. As soon as participants clicked the link, they were asked to rate six images,
which were presented in random order by the computer program. This procedure resulted
in 15 individual judgments across all 24 images. Immediately after viewing the image,
participants were asked to rate it on pleasure, sexual content, and arousal.
Sexual content was measured on a three-item 5-point Likert scale from Strongly
agree to Strongly disagree: This ad is asexual; This image is erotic; This image is
sensual (Cronbachs alpha D 0.89). Pleasure was measured on six-item 9-point semantic
differentials (Simpson, Horton, and Brown 1996), such as pleased/annoyed, contented/
melancholic (Cronbachs alpha D 0.96). Arousal was measured on six-item 9-point
semantic differentials (from Simpson, Horton, and Brown 1996), such as exited/calm,
stimulated/relaxed (Cronbachs alpha D 0.85). From the 24 images, first a selection of
eight images was made that matched the criteria for the different experimental conditions
sexual/nonsexual, moderate/high on pleasure, moderate/high on arousal. We then con-
ducted ANOVAs to ascertain whether the selected images differed significantly.
Sexual content. A one-way (type of image: sexual vs. neutral) ANOVA on the mea-
sure of the sexual appeals confirmed that images in the sexual condition were perceived
as more sexual (M D 3.46, SD D 0.95) than images in the neutral condition (M D 1.60,
SD D 0.65; F (1, 112) D 151.41, p < 0.001).
Pleasure. Four images were selected for the high pleasure condition based on their
scores on perceived pleasure: two sexual images (M D 6.35, SD D 0.99, M D 6.51, SD D
1.19), and two neutral images (M D 6.33, SD D 1.18, M D 6.60, SD D 1.32). All four
images scored high on the pleasure scale and did not significantly differ from each other
(F(3, 56) D 0.176, ns). Four images were selected for the moderate pleasure condition:
two sexual images (M D 4.28, SD D 1.37, M D 4.54, SD D 1.07), and two neutral images
(M D 4.04, SD D 0.95, M D 4.10, SD D 1.42). All four images scored moderately on plea-
sure and did not significantly differ from each other (F(3, 50) D 0.40, ns). The images that
were selected for the high and moderate pleasure conditions differed significantly (F(1,
112) D 100.21, p < 0.001).
 414 E. Das et al.

Arousal. Four images were selected for the high arousal condition: two sexy images
(M D 5.49, SD D 0.47; M D 6.29, SD D 0.92), and two neutral images (M D 5.81, SD D
1.21; M D 5.86, SD D 1.07). All four images scored high on the arousal scale and did not
significantly differ from each other (F(3, 52) D 1.539, ns). Four images were selected for
the moderate arousal condition: two sexy images (M D 5.37, SD D 0.70; M D 5.42, SD D
1.24), and two neutral images (M D 5.04; SD D 0.93, M D 5.08, SD D 0.74). All four
images scored moderately on arousal and did not significantly differ from each other (F
(3, 54) D 0.621, ns). Between images that were selected for the high arousal condition
and images that were selected for the moderate arousal condition, there was a significant
difference (F (1, 112) D 13.04, p < 0.001).
All materials were applied to an advertisement for a (transformational) product: a
camera. A camera was chosen in order to appeal to a large audience, and because it is
suited to different types of advertising appeals. A fictitious brand Wrexon was chosen
to prevent brand familiarity effects. The slogan Picture life was added to all
advertisements.
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Design, participants, and procedure

The design was 2 (appeal type: sexual vs. control) 2 (pleasure: moderate vs. high) 2
(arousal: moderate vs. high) between participants. Three hundred and one respondents
older than 18 years (M D 30.71, SD D 10.29) participated the study (53% male, 47%
female). 93.7% were Dutch; the remaining participants were from other European coun-
tries (of which 36.6% were English, 18.3% German, 7.4% Spanish, 6.9% Portuguese,
6.3% French, and 24.5% other). The majority were heterosexual (87.4%); 9% were bisex-
ual and 3.7% were homosexual. Participants were recruited through different social net-
works via email with a link to an online questionnaire. Participation was voluntary.
In the actual experiment, participants were invited via email to participate in an online
experiment, in which they were randomly assigned to one of eight experimental condi-
tions. Immediately after viewing the ad, participants were asked to answer questions
about how they felt after viewing the ad. The scales for ad content (sexual), pleasure, and
attitude towards the ad were copied from Experiment 1. Arousal was measured on six 9-
point semantic differentials (Simpson, Horton, and Brown 1996), such as exited/calm,
stimulated/relaxed (Cronbachs alpha D 0.80). In addition, attitude towards the brand and
purchase intentions were measured. Attitudes towards the brand (AB) were measured on
a four-item, 5-point Likert scale (Geuens and De Pelsmacker 1999) with a Cronbachs
alpha of 0.79. Purchase Intentions (PI) were measured on a four-item, 5-point Likert scale
(Geuens and De Pelsmacker 1999), with a Cronbachs alpha of 0.83.

Results
A unifactor ANOVA on perceived pleasure confirmed that ads in the high pleasure condi-
tion were perceived as more pleasant (M D 6.15, SD D 1.24) than ads in the moderate
pleasure condition (M D 4.28, SD D 1.49; F(1, 300) D 145.23, p < 0.001, hp2 D 33). A
similar ANOVA on the measure of arousal confirmed that ads in the high arousal condi-
tion were perceived as more arousing (M D 5.60, SD D 1.05) than ads in the moderate
arousal condition (M D 4.87, SD D 1.33; F(1, 300) D 29.12, p < 0.001, hp2 D 0.09).
For the main analyses, we used 2 (level of pleasure: high vs. moderate) 2 (level of
arousal: high vs. moderate) 2 (appeal: sexual vs. neutral) ANOVAs for our dependent
measures (Aad, AB, PI). A 2 (level of pleasure: high vs. moderate) 2 (level of arousal:
 International Journal of Advertising 415

high vs. moderate) 2 (appeal: sexual vs. control) ANOVA on the attitude towards the
ad yielded a significant effect of pleasure (F(1, 293) D 48.70, p < 0.001, hp2 D 0.14).
Highly pleasant ads elicited more positive attitudes towards the ad (M D 3.16, SD D
0.72) than moderately pleasant ads (M D 2.58, SD D 0.74). Appeal and level of arousal
had no main effects on attitudes towards the ad, respectively (F(1,293) D 0.52, ns; and F
(1,293) D 0.901, ns). However, an interaction effect between appeal and level of arousal
was observed (F(1, 293) D 14.42, p < 0.001, hp2 D 0.05). Simple effects analysis showed
that in the moderate arousal conditions, sexual appeals elicited significantly less positive
attitudes towards the ad (M D 2.96, SE D 0.09) than ads in the control conditions (M D
2.96, SE D 0.08; F (1,293) D 4.69, p  0.05, hp2 D 0.02). Under high arousal conditions,
however, the effect of sexual appeals was more positive (M D 3.10, SE D 0.08) compared
to the control condition (M D 2.72, SE D 0.08; F(1, 293) D 6.56, p < 0.05, hp2 D 0.02).
In addition, a three-way interaction between level of pleasure, level of arousal, and
appeal was observed (F(1, 293) D 6.56, p < 0.05, hp2 D 0.02). Simple effects analysis
revealed that appeal had no effect on attitudes towards the ad in the high pleasure condi-
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tion (F(1, 293) D 0.17, ns; and F(1, 293) D 0.66, ns) for moderate arousal and high
arousal conditions, respectively. In the moderate pleasure condition, sexual appeal (vs.
control) negatively affected attitudes towards the ad in the moderate arousal condition (F
(1, 293) D 7.40, p < 0.01, hp2 D 0.03) and positively affected attitudes towards the ad in
the high arousal condition (F(1, 293) D 13.94, p < 0.01, hp2 D 0.05; see Figure 2).
A 2 (level of pleasure) 2 (level of arousal) 2 (appeal) ANOVA on attitudes
towards the brand yielded a main effect for pleasure (F(1, 293) D 17.509, p < 0.001, hp2
D 0.06). Pleasant ads elicited more positive attitudes towards the brand (M D 3.19, SD D
0.53) than less pleasant ads (M D 2.90, SD D 0.67). Appeal and level of arousal had no
main effects on attitudes towards the brand, respectively (F(1,293) D 1.45, ns; and F
(1,293) D 0.11, ns). Again, an interaction between appeal and level of arousal was
observed (F(1, 293) D 8.42, p < 0.05, hp2 D 0.03). Under conditions of moderate arousal,
sexual appeal did not differ significantly from the control appeal (F(1, 293) D 1.43, ns),
but under conditions of high arousal, this difference was significant (F (1,293) D 8.49, p
D 0.01, hp2 D 0.03). When highly arousing, ads featuring a sexual appeal elicited more
positive attitudes towards the advertised brand (M D 3.20, SE D 0.07) than control ads
(M D 2.92, SE D 0.07).

Figure 2. Interactive effects of pleasure (moderate, high), arousal (moderate, high), and appeal
(sexual, neutral) on attitudes towards the ad in Experiment 2.
 416 E. Das et al.

These effects were qualified by a significant three-way interaction between level of

pleasure, level of arousal, and appeal (F(1, 293) D 4.13, p < 0.05, hp2 D 0.01). Similar to
the findings for attitudes towards the ad, simple effects analysis revealed that under condi-
tions of high pleasure, attitudes towards the brand were positive regardless of appeal and
arousal levels (F(1,293) D 0.00, ns; and F(1,293) D 0.65, ns) for moderate arousal and
high arousal conditions, respectively. In the moderate pleasure conditions, the sexual
appeal that was moderately arousing had a marginally significant negative effect on atti-
tudes towards the brand (M D 2.74, SE D 0.10) compared to neutral, moderately arousing
content (M D 2.97, SE D 0.09), F(1, 293) D 2.83, p < 0.10, hp2 D 0.01). In the moderate
pleasure, high arousal condition, sexual appeal had a positive effect on attitude towards
the brand (M D 3.18, SE D 0.10), compared to the control appeal, (M D 2.73, SE D 0.10),
F(1, 293) D 11.03, p < 0.001, hp2 D 0.04).
A 2 (level of pleasure: high vs. moderate) 2 (level of arousal: high vs. moderate)
2 (ad content: sexual vs. neutral) ANOVA on purchase intentions (PI) again yielded a sig-
nificant main effect for pleasure (F(1, 293) D 7.48, p < 0.05, hp2 D 0.03). Pleasant ads
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elicited higher purchase intentions (M D 2.98, SD D 0.56) than less pleasant ads (M D
2.80, SD D 0.62). Appeal and level of arousal had no main effects on purchase intentions,
respectively (F(1,293) D 0.575, ns; and F(1,293) D 0.16, ns). Again, the pleasure main
effect was qualified by an interaction effect between appeal and level of arousal (F(1,
293) D 10.45, p < 0.001, hp2 D 0.03). Simple effects analyses showed that under condi-
tions of moderate arousal, sexual content significantly decreased purchase intentions (M
D 2.74, SD D 0.07) compared to the control conditions (M D 3.01, SD D 0.07, F(1, 293)
D 7.91, p < 0.01, hp2 D 0.03). In the high arousal conditions, sexual content led to higher
purchase intentions (M D 2.99, SD D 0.07) compared to the control conditions (M D
2.82, SD D 0.07). This effect was marginally significant (F(1, 293) D 3.08, p < 0.10, hp2
D 0.01).
These effects were qualified by a significant three-way interaction between level of
pleasure, level of arousal, and appeal (F(1,293) D 8.76, p < 0.05, hp2 D 0.03). Similar to
the findings on Aad and AB, sexual content and arousal only affected brand attitudes
under moderate pleasure conditions. Under high pleasure conditions, attitudes were posi-
tive regardless of appeal and arousal levels (F(1, 293) D 0.40, ns and F(1, 293) D 0.15,
ns) for moderate arousal and high arousal conditions, respectively). Under moderate plea-
sure conditions, highly arousing sexual appeals induced higher purchase intentions (M D
3.05, SD D 0.09) than control appeals (M D 2.96, SD D 0.09, F(1, 293) D 8.27, p < 0.01,
hp2 D 0.03). Sexual appeals that scored moderately on arousal, however, elicited signifi-
cantly lower purchase intentions (M D 2.52, SD D 0.09) than the control appeal (M D
3.05, SD D 0.09, F(1, 293) D 11.72, p < 0.001, hp2 D 0.04).

Discussion
The findings of Experiment 2 show a pattern that is highly consistent with the first study.
Replicating and extending Experiment 1, ads that elicited high levels of pleasure had pos-
itive effects on attitudes towards the ad, attitudes towards the brand, and intentions,
regardless of appeal. Extending Experiment 1, appeal and arousal level played a role in
the persuasion process only for ads that scored relatively low on pleasure. Specifically, in
moderate pleasure conditions, sexual appeals increased persuasion for high levels of
arousal, but decreased persuasion for moderate levels of arousal. These findings under-
score the important role of arousal for sexual ads in particular. Previous studies suggested
that sexual arousal may elicit a tunnel vision that increases persuasion in particular for
 International Journal of Advertising 417

sexual ads (Das et al. 2008). The present findings show that arousal produced beneficial
persuasion effects for sexual ads, but not for nonsexual ads. Importantly, these effects
occur only for appeals that are not extremely pleasant. Highly pleasant appeals are per-
suasive, regardless of appeal and arousal.

General discussion
Although much research has been conducted to determine the persuasive effects of differ-
ent types of emotional ad appeals, the present research was the first to systematically dis-
entangle the effects of pleasure and arousal on persuasion across different emotional
executions. Our main research question was: Do the combined effects of different levels
of pleasure (moderate, high) and arousal (moderate, high) on ad attitudes and attitudes
towards the brand differ for sexual and nonsexual appeals? The robust overall pattern of
findings across studies suggests that appeal and arousal have no effect on persuasion
when pleasure levels are high. Sexual appeals outperform nonsexual appeals only when
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pleasure is moderate and arousal is high. Sexual appeals are less persuasive than nonsex-
ual appeals for moderate pleasure and arousal levels.
The findings thus suggest that the pleasure principle is paramount in explaining ad
persuasiveness: pleasurable ads generate favourable attitudes towards the ad and the
advertised brand, and generate higher purchase intentions, regardless of whether an
appeal uses sex, humour, or other elements to sell a product. By systematically varying
appeal, as well as pleasure and arousal levels in ads, the present study showed that it does
not matter if humour, sex, or some other type of appeal is used to sell a product, as long
as the advertisement is pleasant.
A second implication is that, in line with expectations arising from the abundance of
research on the role of arousal in sexual ads in particular, arousal does appear to be espe-
cially important for sexual content. As far as we know, the present research is the first to
explicitly compare the role that arousal plays in the persuasion process for sexual versus
nonsexual ads. Our findings show that sexual content enhanced ad persuasiveness under
conditions of moderate pleasure and high arousal. In contrast, arousal decreased persua-
sion for nonsexual and moderately pleasant ads. These results are in line with previous
findings, suggesting that there may be something particular about sexual arousal (Baron
1982; Simpson, Horton, Brown 1996), creating a tunnel vision that increases persuasion
in particular for sexual ads (Ariely and Loewenstein 2006; Das et al. 2008). The limited
available evidence further supports this notion by showing that pleasure and arousal play
a different role in sexual versus romantic appeals; whereas arousal moderates the relation-
ship between pleasure and ad effectiveness for romantic appeals (Huang 2004), pleasure
mediated the relationship between arousal and ad effectiveness for sexual appeals (Huang
2004). Taken together, arousal may boost the persuasiveness of not-so-pleasant sexual
ads in particular. Using arousal in not-so-pleasant nonsexual ads may backfire, and
decrease persuasion.
Finally, our findings suggest that excitation transfer and dynamic complexity hypothe-
ses do not necessarily hold in an advertising context. According to these hypotheses,
arousal should polarize pleasure effects, regardless of appeal type (Paulhus and Lim
1994; Zillman 1971). Although the negative effect of nonsexual arousal under moderate
pleasure conditions may be taken as an indication of polarization in a negative direction,
no matching polarization in a positive direction was observed under high pleasure condi-
tions. In addition, for sexual arousal, no polarization was observed for either moderate or
high pleasure conditions. Overall, these findings underscore the important role of the
 418 E. Das et al.

pleasure principle in persuasion. Although previous research had already established the
important role of pleasure, our research adds to these findings by providing comparative
evidence for the relative importance of pleasure and arousal across sex, humour, and con-
trol appeals. Findings show that arousal and appeal type play second fiddle to pleasure.
Arousing materials or specific appeals (sex, humour) do not boost the effectiveness of
highly pleasant ads. Arousal can, however, boost the effectiveness of moderately pleasant
sexual ads.

Managerial implications
The results of the present study raise some interesting issues with regard to the often-used
marketing mantra sex sells. Is there something particular about sexual advertisements
that makes them stand out from other emotional executions such as humorous appeals?
The answer to this question is yes, and no. In terms of persuasion, there is nothing particu-
lar about sexual appeals. Sex sells, but so does a good joke, or an attractive image. If an
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appeal scores high on pleasure, it works, and sex does not work better than any other
appeal.
In terms of underlying processes, however, there is something particular about sexual
appeals: the persuasive power of sexual arousal. In recent years, certain fashion brands
have launched ads that pair sexual appeals with violence. Such ads could be classified as
not very pleasurable, but highly arousing. For instance, in 2010, Calvin Klein launched a
print campaign to promote their jeans line. The ad depicted a female model, posing with
three male models. The womans head rested in the lap of one man, who appeared to grab
a handful of her hair, while another man, whose jeans were unbuttoned, straddled her.
The ad generated a storm of complaints for being suggestive of sexual violence and gang
rape, and has consequently been banned in Australia (Abraham 2010). Our findings sug-
gest that arousal actually works in terms of persuasion for sexual ads that are rela-
tively low on the pleasure dimension, thus underscoring the effectiveness of shock
strategies like the above-mentioned Calvin Klein ad. At the same time, our findings sug-
gest that advertisements do not need to be shocking in order to be effective. On the con-
trary, any pleasurable ad works, regardless of its actual content.

Limitations and future research

The objective of the present research was to compare the persuasiveness and underlying
processes of sexual versus other appeals (humour, control). In order to do so, we needed
products that would yield credible sexual, humorous, and control ads. We chose mobile
phones and cameras because both products matched with different message strategies.
Comparing sexual ads for lingerie with humorous ads for beer, and control ads for dog
food (for example) would have introduced the methodological problem of confounding
factors. Hence, matching product per emotional execution would have interfered with the
main goal of this research, which was to provide a robust test of pleasure and arousal
effects across different appeals. A potential drawback of this approach, however, is that
the different appeals across studies may be considered only moderately congruent with
the advertised product. Research suggests that ads that feature sexual content incongruent
with the advertised or service or product are less effective than congruent ads (Severn,
Belch, and Belch 1990). When the sexual content is congruent with the product, such as
in lingerie advertisements, the name of the advertised brand appears easier to remember
(Richmond and Hartman 1982; Sengupta and Dahl 2008). It is possible that the moderate
 International Journal of Advertising 419

product-appeal congruency has affected the outcomes of the present study, and that sex-
ual appeals outperform other appeals for highly congruent products. Future studies should
test this possibility.
Future studies should also extend the findings of the present study to determine how
the relationship between arousal, pleasure, and content works for other emotional adver-
tising appeals, and for specific subcategories of sexual appeals (e.g. seduction, tempta-
tion). In the present research, we used images of couples engaged in seductive behaviour
for our sexual appeals because men and women respond similarly to depiction of sexual
images of heterosexual couples (Huang 2004). It may be that arousal boosts the persua-
siveness of ads with high degrees of sexual explicitness in particular, but not of ads dis-
playing companionate love (low on sexual explicitness and high on the relationship
level). Likewise, emotional appeals that appear to build on arousal in the sense that
arousal is part of the ad script, or relevant for the product at hand such as a high-energy
ad for a sports drink, may benefit more from high levels of arousal than other emotional
appeals that generate more tender feelings such as those that include puppy dogs or young
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children.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Note
1. Since our sample included more male than female participants, we tested for potential gender
effects to ascertain that the findings were not gender specific. Adding gender as a covariate in
the analysis did not reveal any gender effects neither direct nor in interaction with the plea-
sure condition.

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