Abstract
This study details the history and characteristics of consumption values, text style analyses, and appeal types expressed in magazine commercials from 1955 to 2008. This study analyzes the level of the social structure of commercial expression for each period. Consumption values based on the categories of consumption values by Sheth (1991) were classified through a total commercials analysis. Analyses on closing types of sentences, types of sentences, and rhetorical figures were executed focusing on headline text and text style. Appealing types were composed of rational, emotional, and ethical appeals. For analysis, the crosstab analysis and chi-square test of SPSS are used. The results are as follow. Seven values were constructed, functional value, social value, emotional value, conditional value, epistemic value, fashionable value, and indistinct value. The ratio of emotional value was the highest and functional value, epistemic value conditional value, fashionable value, social value, and indistinct value followed. The emotional value social value, conditional value, fashionable value, and epistemic value that focused on the emotion of consumers increased, while the functional value decreased. Sentences that use narrative styles, hyperboles, and metaphors that increased the interest of readers were dominantly used in the headline texts. For sentence expression, a declarative sentence in a sentence type, exciting curiosity in the expression method where hyperbole and figures of speech in rhetorical expressions are used most often. Emotional appeal was used almost twice more than the reasonable appeal for appeal types of the total commercial. The lower level of reasonable appeal is information that provides the product function. Interest and expression (such as pleasure and achievement) were used most often for emotional appeal. These results show that the most important issue is the emotional value in consumption in understanding the consumer. Marketing managers should also be aware of the functional value as well as an emotional value.