Emotion and style in 30-second television advertisements targeted at men, women, boys, and girls.

A program for objective textual analysis which incorporated measures of style, word emotionality, and word imagery, was used to score the verbal portion of 152 30-sec. television advertisements. This analysis indicated that advertisements directed at children were more active, longer, and less negative than those directed at adults. A comparison of advertisements directed at males and females regardless of age showed greater linguistic complexity (more words, fewer common words) when their text was directed at women and girls. Each of the 13 stylistic and emotional measures used to describe advertisements produced at least one significant difference associated with the age or the sex of the target population or their interaction.