Power of Emotional Appeal Strategy in advertisements: Does it enhance Brand Awareness through the Mediation of Brand Attitude?

Advertising is the most prominent commercial activity within the competitive marketing environment. Emotional appeals; love, happiness, humor, and excitement are resilient, as a method to generate intimacy, develop trust, retain attention, and transport the listener to another world - all of which can lead to certain behavioral reactions to Brand awareness. Therefore, this paper investigates the impact of the emotional appeal strategy in advertisements on brand awareness of FMCG in the Sri Lankan context, which is mediated by advertising attitudes. Data was gathered via an online questionnaire survey from a sample of 384 FMCG consumers and adopted a quantitative approach through the SmartPLS analysis tool. Findings imply that the Emotional Appeal strategy in advertisements affects Brand Awareness through the mediating effect of Advertising Attitude. Consequently, the emotional responses to advertising are vital to the business by representing customers' current emotional states, which in turn reflect advertising attitudes toward the advertised Brand.