"Affective Reactions" of Rural and Urban Voters to Government Campaign Commercials in Maharashtra

Purpose: The purpose of this paper was to study viewers' perception in Pune region, India about commercials of various campaigns run by the government. The present study undertook a review of extant literature and appreciative inquiry based survey using Schlinger's viewer response profile scale.

Design/Methodology/Approach: Schlinger's viewer response profile is a widely used tool in advertising research, in both commercial and academic environments. It is used in advertisement testing to gauge viewers' reactions to television commercials. Keeping in mind the purpose of the study, we attempted to study the viewers' perception in the form of reactions to television commercials of two government campaigns.

Findings: This research paper probed viewers' affective reactions to government campaign commercials using the Schlinger's scale. The study reported that viewers' affective reactions were independent of change in respondents' demographics. Also, there existed significant difference for two dimensions namely Confusion and Government Brand Recognition between rural and urban segments.

Practical Implications: The study findings may act as a feedback which would help the advertisers and practitioners to understand the viewers' perception about such campaign commercials. The study also pointed out a few areas which act like barriers for the government to achieve its goal despite of its best efforts.

Social Implications: The study findings revealed the social perception about campaign commercials in India and thus laid a base for the subject to establish and to be picked up by researchers to validate further in another setup of location with a larger sample size.

Originality/Value: The present study ventured into a new domain, that is, it is one of the initial attempts to understand the relevance of advertising government campaign commercials from the lens of a marketing professional.