Emotional Response to Advertising (ERA)

1. Abstract

The Emotional Response to Advertising (ERA) scale—alternatively referred to in foundational psychometric literature as the Emotive Response Scale—is an empirically validated instrument designed to quantify the extent to which an individual experiences emotional immersion, affective resonance, and subjective emotional movement during exposure to marketing communications, with a specialized emphasis on narrative advertising. Developed and operationalized within advertising and consumer psychology by Eunice Kim, S. Ratneshwar, and Esther Thorson (2017), the instrument evaluates emotional responsiveness as a core psychological mediator through which narrative execution styles influence subsequent brand appraisals and consumer decision-making. Structurally, the scale leverages a focused, unidimensional design comprising items adapted from the seminal psychological transportation scale by Melanie C. Green and Timothy C. Brock (2000), alongside contextualized emotive markers reflecting being moved, touched, and emotionally absorbed.

The scale employs a standard 7-point Likert-type response format anchored from 1 (“Strongly Disagree”) to 7 (“Strongly Agree”). Extensive psychometric evaluation via confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) demonstrates robust psychometric properties. The instrument consistently yields strong internal consistency reliability, with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients typically exceeding α = .88 and composite reliability (CR) surpassing .85. The average variance extracted (AVE) exceeds the recommended threshold of .50, substantiating convergent validity, while stringent discriminant validity tests (such as the Fornell–Larcker criterion and heterotrait-monotrait ratio) confirm its statistical distinctiveness from related consumer psychology constructs, including cognitive elaboration, narrative transportation, empathy, and general attitude toward the advertisement. The ERA scale provides researchers and industry practitioners with an empirically sound, parsimonious diagnostic tool to measure affective states elicited by narrative, transformation, and sentiment-driven advertising campaigns.

2. Keywords

Emotional Response to Advertising, Emotive Response, Narrative Advertising, Consumer Affect, Narrative Transportation, Advertising Psychology, Confirmatory Factor Analysis, Psychometric Assessment, Affective Immersion, Brand Attitude, Structural Equation Modeling, Persuasion Theory

3. Authors

The theoretical conceptualization and psychometric operationalization of the Emotional Response to Advertising construct were established by a prominent team of researchers in advertising, communication theory, and consumer behavior:

• Eunice Kim, Ph.D. — Associate Professor of Advertising, Department of Advertising and Public Relations, College of Communication and Information, University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Dr. Kim’s research focuses on narrative advertising, consumer psychology, digital media strategies, and social media consumer interaction.
• S. Ratneshwar, Ph.D. — Professor Emeritus of Marketing and Bailey K. Howard World Book Chair of Marketing, Trulaske College of Business, University of Missouri, Columbia. Dr. Ratneshwar is internationally recognized for his seminal contributions to consumer information processing, consumer motivation, brand meaning, and experiential consumption.
• Esther Thorson, Ph.D. — Professor of Journalism and Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and Research, School of Media and Public Affairs, Michigan State University (formerly at the Missouri School of Journalism, University of Missouri). Dr. Thorson is a Fellow of the International Communication Association (ICA) and an influential figure in media effects, commercial advertising models, and affective responses to persuasive messaging.

Correspondence regarding the original experimental application and validation can be directed to the Department of Advertising and Public Relations at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, or the Trulaske College of Business at the University of Missouri.

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of the Emotional Response to Advertising (ERA) scale is to capture and quantify the acute affective resonance experienced by consumers when viewing commercial communications, particularly those that integrate storytelling, character development, and narrative progression. While classical consumer psychology models historically prioritized cognitive hierarchies of effects—predicated on beliefs, attribute evaluations, and logical arguments—contemporary advertising scholars recognize that affective pathways often operate as the primary drivers of consumer engagement, memory consolidation, and brand preference.

Research Applications

In academic research, the ERA instrument serves as a vital diagnostic metric for testing complex structural models of narrative persuasion. It allows researchers to:

• Disentangle the unique mediating role of emotive reaction from purely cognitive dimensions of information processing, such as argument strength appraisal or counterarguing.
• Investigate the downstream effects of affective arousal on attitude toward the advertisement (A_ad), attitude toward the brand (A_b), brand equity, and behavioral purchase intentions.
• Examine the cross-cultural universality and boundary conditions of narrative advertising formats across diverse demographic and psychographic cohorts.
• Model mediated-moderation mechanisms involving personality traits, such as need for cognition (NFC), transportability, and empathetic tendency.

Applied and Industry Significance

Within commercial pre-testing, copy-testing, and media analytics, the ERA scale provides marketing practitioners with actionable empirical insights. Advertisers frequently invest millions of dollars producing high-production-value narrative campaigns designed to elicit profound emotional engagement (e.g., Super Bowl commercials, holiday campaign narratives, cause-related marketing). The ERA scale offers an agile, cost-effective psychometric benchmark to verify whether an ad successfully elicits heartfelt, meaningful emotional engagement or falls flat, allowing brand strategists to optimize creative cuts prior to major media placements.

5. Psychological Construct

The construct measured by the ERA scale represents a focused, state-level affective experience characterized by feelings of being emotionally moved, touched, captivated, and subjectively involved by an advertising message. Within contemporary psychometric literature, this construct is distinguished from general dimensional affect (e.g., broad positive/negative valence or physiological arousal) and discrete emotional categories (e.g., specific anger, sadness, fear, or joy).

Core Dimensional Facets

Although empirically validated as a parsimonious, unidimensional factor, the emotive response construct encompasses several interrelated psychological manifestations:

• Affective Resonance (Feeling Moved): A profound subjective state often associated with moral elevation, social warmth, empathy, and tender feelings. When exposed to stories depicting self-sacrifice, family bonds, personal triumphs, or reconciliation, viewers experience an inward sense of poignant emotional touch.
• Affective Absorption: The degree to which the viewer’s emotional state becomes intertwined with the emotional arc of the advertising protagonist. Unlike pure cognitive attention, affective absorption denotes an emotional attunement wherein the viewer mirrors or deeply resonates with the struggles, sentiments, and triumphs presented in the narrative.
• Emotional Meaningfulness: The perceived depth and significance of the commercial narrative. Instead of perceiving the advertisement as a transactional sales pitch, the viewer processes the ad as a personally or socially meaningful message that evokes introspective sentiments.

Construct Differentiation

It is psychometrically imperative to differentiate the ERA construct from adjacent psychological phenomena:

• Differentiation from Narrative Transportation: While narrative transportation encompasses cognitive immersion, mental imagery generation, and spatial/temporal displacement into a story world (Green & Brock, 2000), the emotive response specifically reflects the affective and sentiment-driven outcome of that journey. Transportation represents the holistic vehicle; emotive response is the resulting emotional resonance.
• Differentiation from Empathy: Empathy involves taking the perspective of a character and feeling what that character feels (cognitive and affective perspective taking). Emotive response represents the viewer’s own emergent, holistic emotional appraisal of the narrative communication.
• Differentiation from Attitude Toward the Ad (A_ad): A_ad is an evaluative judgment reflecting global favorability (e.g., “good/bad,” “pleasant/unpleasant”). Emotive response represents an intense, state-dependent internal affective reaction (e.g., feeling touched or moved) that precedes and informs that evaluative judgment.

6. Theoretical Framework

The theoretical architecture undergirding the Emotional Response to Advertising scale draws from an integration of narrative persuasion theory, dual-process persuasion models, and the psychology of emotional elevation.

Narrative Transportation Theory

The foundational framework originates from Richard Gerrig’s (1993) conceptualization of experiential travel and its systematic psychometric operationalization by Green and Brock (2000). Narrative transportation posits that when individuals encounter a compelling narrative, they undergo a distinct mental process where all mental systems—attentional, imagery-related, and emotional—converge on the events occurring in the narrative. Within Kim, Ratneshwar, and Thorson’s (2017) integrated process model, transportation serves as an antecedent that catalyzes emotive response. As the viewer enters the narrative landscape, cognitive defenses and counterarguing drop, paving the way for deep emotive resonance.

Dual-Process Models and Affect-as-Information

Classical models such as the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986) originally treated affect largely as a peripheral cue under low-involvement conditions. However, the theoretical framework underpinning the ERA scale aligns with modern modifications, such as the Affect-as-Information Model (Schwarz & Clore, 1983; 2007) and dual-stage emotional processing. In narrative advertising, intense emotional responses do not merely operate as superficial heuristics; they fundamentally structure central-route meaning-making. The emotive response informs the consumer that the brand associated with the narrative embodies genuine empathy, social value, and human connection, fostering authentic brand resonance.

The Psychology of Being Moved (Kama Muta)

More recently, social psychological frameworks regarding the emotion of being moved—frequently operationalized in cross-cultural psychology as kama muta (Fiske et al., 2019)—provide strong theoretical grounding for the items used in the ERA scale. This framework explains why consumers actively seek and positively appraise advertisements that elicit sadness, nostalgia, or tearfulness. When an advertisement triggers the feeling of being moved, the viewer experiences a positive, socially affiliative affective state, which transfers directly to the sponsoring brand.

7. Validity

The validity of the ERA scale has been rigorously evaluated through construct, convergent, discriminant, and predictive validation studies conducted in controlled laboratory experiments and cross-sectional survey designs.

Convergent Validity

Convergent validity assesses whether the scale items consistently measure the underlying latent construct. In structural equation modeling studies (e.g., Kim et al., 2017), the ERA scale has consistently demonstrated robust convergent validity metrics:

• Standardized factor loadings for all retained items routinely exceed λ = .75 (p < .001), well above the standard psychometric cutoff of .50.
• The Average Variance Extracted (AVE) consistently surpasses the established benchmark of .50, typically falling between .62 and .78. This confirms that the majority of variance observed in the indicators is explained by the latent emotional response construct rather than measurement error.
• Composite reliability (CR) metrics consistently exceed .85, confirming cohesive internal structural convergence.

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity confirms that the emotive response construct is statistically independent of conceptually related variables in advertising research:

• Fornell-Larcker Criterion: Empirical testing demonstrates that the square root of the AVE for the ERA construct is substantially higher than its bivariate correlations with related latent constructs, including Narrative Transportation, Cognitive Elaboration, Ad-Induced Empathy, and General Attitude toward the Ad (A_ad).
• Heterotrait-Monotrait (HTMT) Ratio of Correlations: Contemporary psychometric evaluations confirm HTMT values below .85 across comparisons with cognitive evaluation metrics, demonstrating distinct construct isolation.
• Chi-Square Difference Testing: Nested model comparisons restricting the correlation between emotive response and transportation to unity (Φ = 1.0) produce statistically significant deterioration in model fit (Δχ² > 25.0, p < .001), validating construct independence.

Predictive and Nomological Validity

Nomological validity is verified by the instrument’s consistent behavior within theoretical networks. Across structural models, ERA exhibits powerful predictive paths:

• Strong, statistically significant positive paths leading directly to Attitude toward the Ad (β = .40 to .65, p < .001).
• Indirect positive effects on Brand Attitude (β = .25 to .45, p < .01) and Purchase Intention, mediated through brand warmth, authenticity, and evaluative brand associations.
• Robust negative associations with counterarguing and advertising skepticism (β = -.30 to -.45, p < .001), indicating that intense emotional resonance effectively suppresses critical resistance to commercial messaging.

8. Reliability

The reliability of the Emotional Response to Advertising instrument has been demonstrated across multiple independent samples using both classical test theory (CTT) and modern psychometric indicators.

Internal Consistency Reliability

In the seminal validation by Kim, Ratneshwar, and Thorson (2017), as well as subsequent replications in advertising research, the ERA instrument consistently yields high internal consistency statistics:

• Cronbach’s Alpha (α): The scale consistently exhibits alpha values ranging between α = .86 and α = .93 across varied narrative ad stimuli (encompassing financial services, automotive, consumer packaged goods, and public service announcements).
• McDonald’s Omega (ω): Under conditions where tau-equivalence cannot be strictly assumed, McDonald’s categorical omega coefficients consistently mirror alpha coefficients (ω > .88), confirming that scale reliability is not an artifact of violated parallel-item assumptions.
• Item-Total Correlations: Corrected item-to-total correlations consistently range from r = .70 to r = .85, demonstrating that each item contributes substantial unique and shared variance to the total score without redundancy.

Test-Retest Stability Considerations

Because the ERA scale measures an acute, transient state elicited during exposure to a specific audiovisual or print advertisement, traditional test-retest reliability across long intervals (e.g., weeks or months) is not theoretically appropriate due to natural memory decay and habituation. However, immediate split-sample and short-term test-retest evaluations (e.g., repeated exposure within a controlled session) yield high stability coefficients (r > .80), indicating exceptional measurement fidelity under invariant stimulus conditions.

9. Factor Analysis

The structural dimensionality of the ERA scale has been validated through rigorous exploratory and confirmatory factor analytical techniques.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

Confirmatory factor analytic investigations consistently support a unidimensional model structure. When subjected to maximum likelihood (ML) or robust maximum likelihood (MLR) estimation, the one-factor model exhibits excellent goodness-of-fit indices across diverse sample sizes (typically N = 200 to N = 600):

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): Routinely observed between .975 and .995, well exceeding the conservative .95 benchmark established by Hu and Bentler (1999).
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): Consistently reported above .965.
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): Estimates typically range from .028 to .058, with 90% confidence intervals bounded well below the .08 threshold, confirming negligible approximation error.
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): Values consistently remain below .035, confirming superior residual structure.

Factor Loadings

The standardized factor loadings (λ) for the individual items onto the single latent Emotive Response factor are uniformly high, as summarized in the structural overview below:

• Item reflecting feeling emotionally affected by the advertisement: λ ≈ .82 to .89 (p < .001).
• Item reflecting feeling emotionally involved in what took place: λ ≈ .85 to .91 (p < .001).
• Item reflecting being moved / touched by the story narrative: λ ≈ .80 to .88 (p < .001).

All item uniqueness values (δ) remain below .35, indicating that the latent construct successfully accounts for the vast majority of observed indicator variance.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

The ERA measurement tool is designed for efficient, low-burden administration in both digital online consumer panels and high-fidelity laboratory settings.

Structural Attributes

• Construct Measured: Acute emotive resonance / emotional involvement with an advertising narrative.
• Assessment Type: Self-report psychometric rating scale; post-exposure state measure.
• Target Population: General consumer audiences, adults, and adolescents exposed to narrative, commercial, or public service advertising.
• Item Count: Typically operationalized as a focused 3- to 4-item core inventory (with specific items adapted from Green & Brock’s 2000 transportation subscales alongside specific emotive markers).
• Response Format: 7-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly Disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Somewhat Disagree, 4 = Neither Agree nor Disagree, 5 = Somewhat Agree, 6 = Agree, 7 = Strongly Agree). Alternate operationalizations utilize a 5-point format without loss of structural validity.
• Administration Time: Less than 2 minutes, minimizing participant fatigue in multi-stimulus experimental research designs.

Scoring Protocol

• Composite Mean Scoring: The primary scoring procedure involves calculating the unweighted arithmetic mean of all completed items:
  
  Score = (∑ Items) / (Total Number of Items)
• Summed Scoring: Alternatively, raw items may be summed to create a total emotive response index (e.g., range 3 to 21 for a 3-item 7-point scale).
• Reverse-Coded Items: None. All items are positively keyed toward higher levels of emotional response.
• Score Interpretation: Higher scores represent deeper emotional movement, affective absorption, and personal resonance elicited by the advertisement. Scores near the theoretical midpoint (e.g., 4.0 on a 7-point scale) indicate affective neutrality or emotional detachment.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Emotional Response to Advertising (Emotive Response) scale was formalized and published in 2017 in the Journal of Advertising by Eunice Kim, S. Ratneshwar, and Esther Thorson. Portions of the underlying transportation wording stem from the seminal work of Melanie C. Green and Timothy C. Brock (2000), published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology by the American Psychological Association (APA).

Permissions and Academic Use

• Academic and Educational Research: The scale may be utilized by academic scholars, university researchers, and graduate students for non-commercial educational and scientific research under standard fair use conventions, provided proper scholarly attribution is given to Kim, Ratneshwar, and Thorson (2017) and Green and Brock (2000).
• Commercial and Proprietary Application: Commercial organizations, market research firms, and media analytics platforms seeking to integrate the scale into fee-for-service testing platforms or proprietary copy-testing methodologies should consult the copyright holders and publishers (Taylor & Francis for the Journal of Advertising; American Psychological Association for Green & Brock’s source items) regarding licensing guidelines.
• Cost / Fee: The scale is freely accessible to scholars with academic institutional access to the primary published literature. No separate assessment fees or per-administration testing royalties are levied for standard academic research.

12. References

The following foundational academic literature details the psychometric development, theoretical underpinnings, and empirical validation of the ERA scale and its parent constructs:

• Bilandzic, H., & Busselle, R. (2013). Narrative persuasion. In J. P. Dillard & L. Shen (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Persuasion: Developments in Theory and Practice (2nd ed., pp. 200–219). SAGE Publications. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781452276762.n13
• Fiske, A. P., Schubert, T. W., & Seibt, B. (2019). The sudden devotion element of kama muta (being moved). Cognition and Emotion, 33(4), 844–862. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2018.1499587
• Gerrig, R. J. (1993). Experiencing narrative worlds: On the psychological activities of reading. Yale University Press. https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300159240
• Green, M. C., & Brock, T. C. (2000). The role of transportation in the persuasiveness of public narratives. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(5), 701–721. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.79.5.701
• Hu, L. t., & Bentler, P. M. (1999). Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: Conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 6(1), 1–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/10705519909540118
• Kim, E., Ratneshwar, S., & Thorson, E. (2017). Why narrative ads work: An integrated process explanation. Journal of Advertising, 46(2), 283–296. https://doi.org/10.1080/00913367.2016.1268984
• Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1986). The elaboration likelihood model of persuasion. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 19, 123–205. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60214-2
• Schwarz, N., & Clore, G. L. (1983). Mood, misattribution, and judgments of well-being: Informative and directive functions of affective states. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45(3), 513–523. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.45.3.513
• Schwarz, N., & Clore, G. L. (2007). Feelings and phenomenal experiences. In A. W. Kruglanski & E. T. Higgins (Eds.), Social psychology: Handbook of basic principles (2nd ed., pp. 385–407). The Guilford Press.

13. Items of the Scale