LOW ELABORATION LIKELIHOOD, AFFECTIVE ATTITUDE FORMATION 95the target. The Affect-as-Information model posits that consumers may use feelings as a source
of information to form an overall evaluation of a product or brand, not by means of a simple
association, but through a controlled inferential process or, in other words, in an informed,
deliberate manner.^65 A feeling-based inference often referred to is the ‘how-do-I-feel-about-
it’ model. According to this model, consumers evaluate brands/objects by imagining the
brand in their minds and asking themselves ‘How do I feel about this brand/object?’ Next
they infer like/dislike or satisfaction/dissatisfaction from the valence of their feelings.^66
Consumers may even infer the strength of their preference from the strength of the feelings
that the brand or object evokes.^67 Note that we are talking about real feelings (i.e. ‘subjective
experiences of affective states and responses with a somato-visceral component’), not about
affective or hedonic beliefs (such as ‘It would be great to spend a weekend in Stockholm’).^68
These feelings can be evoked either integrally by looking at the product or imagining the
product, or by a pre-existing or contextually induced mood.^69 However, a prerequisite of the
Affect-as-Information model is that when people inspect their feelings to judge a brand or
object, they do not inspect their mood states at that moment, but their feelings in response
to the brand or object. So, if consumers decide not to go to the movies, it is because the
thought of going to the movies makes them feel unpleasant, not because they happen to be
in a bad mood. As a consequence, for feelings to influence the product evaluation, they must
be perceived as representative of the product, i.e. consumers must be convinced that these
feelings are genuine affective responses to this product. Moreover, feelings not only need to
be representative, but also have to be relevant for the evaluation at hand and match consumers’
goals.^70 For example, when a consumer has made an appointment to go to the dentist, the fact
that he or she does not feel happy about going may not be considered to be relevant by this
person, and he or she might still go. In fact, when consumers’ purchase motivations are
hedonic rather than functional, the likelihood that they will perceive their feelings as relevant
and follow the ‘how-do-I-feel-about-it’ model is much more likely.^71
It should be obvious that feelings should not be assigned a heuristic or peripheral role here.
Under high elaboration likelihood, people use their feelings because they believe they contain
valuable information. When consumers closely scrutinise the arguments in a message, mood
and ad-evoked emotions can be considered as an argument or a central cue.^72 One way to elicit
strong ad-evoked feelings is to make consumers think of pleasant things in the past, such
as the birth of a baby, a wedding, a first romance, etc. Another way is to use nostalgic ads.
Nostalgic ads make use of music, movie stars, fashion products, symbols or styles that were
popular during a consumer’s youth. Research has indicated that early experience performs a
determining role in shaping subsequent preferences and actually can influence consumers’
lifelong preferences.^73 For example, it has been shown that consumers retain a lifelong attach-
ment to the styles of popular music they experienced in their late teens and early twenties.Low elaboration likelihood, affective attitude formation
While central-route processing and cognitively based attitude formation predominated in
the 1960s and 1970s, models characterised by peripheral processing of mainly affective
elements received a lot of attention in the 1990s. The attitude towards the ad (Aad) and feelings
transfer, classical conditioning and the mere exposure effect are some models that have been
frequently referred to in the literature.Aad transfer
From the 1980s onwards, research on low-involvement, affective processing has boomed.
Among the first to indicate that how one evaluates an ad may be transferred to how one
evaluates the brand were Mitchell and Olson.^74 They used an ad picturing a kitten and aM03_PELS3221_05_SE_C03.indd 95 6/5/13 3:03 PM