The aim of this study is to fill the existing gaps in the marketing literature, by providing a comprehensive comparison of rational versus emotional appeals based on high and low involvement products to increase advertising effectiveness. Further, this article is an attempt to test, empirically, the effect of different advertising appeals on advertising attitude and consumer purchase decision. Quasi-experimental design method is used in this study to investigate the impacts of different rational and emotional appeals for different product categories (high and low involvement product). Sunscreen and laptop are considered as low involvement and high involvement products, respectively. 160 undergraduate students participated in this experiment from Iranian universities (Islamic Azad Tehran University). In this experiment, participants were randomly exposed to four persuasive messages for each product. Analysis of variance (ANOVA), t-test and regression analysis were used to test the impacts of appeals for high and low involvement products. Our study shows that both advertising appeals (rational and emotional) have a positive effect on advertising attitude and purchase intention. Whereas for low involvement products emotional appeals have a more significant effect on advertising attitude, for high involvement products rational appeals are more influential. This research not only concentrates on the impacts of different emotional and rational appeals, but also provides beneficial insight of advertising appeals for advertising practitioners and academics on designing different product categories (high and low involvement products).
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