Introduction

Advertising is an old phenomenon, which has been evolved over centuries. Multidimensional tactics, which are being incorporated in advertisements to influence consumer behavior, have ushered the advertisement industry into a new era. Since emotions shape consumers' behavior and decision-making, anecdotal shreds of evidence suggest that emotional advertisement (EA) has become a strategic tool to influence consumer behavior favorably in a diversified business world. Advertisers deploy creative strategies, for example, incorporating emotions into advertisements in order to play on consumers' heartstrings with the intention of influencing their decision-making. The oft-quoted emotional descriptions link emotions (E) to gestures, postures, and tactics to manage actions or reactions. Emotions are generally perceived to be categorized in the obvious conceptualized dimensions, for example, negative emotions (shame, disgust, fear, sadness, anger, rage, revenge, disappointment, etc.) and positive emotions (joy, love, pride, happiness, hope, etc.), but there is more emotional context hidden beneath this simple demarcation. Many researchers see the need to study specific emotional states in greater detail. This is the reason that in the marketing context emotional appeals and their incorporation into promotions were rated as firms' most important tools for successful marketing strategies.

Every consumer has different choice criteria for advertised products (a term used to address both products and services). Consumers evaluate products with their unique choice and attention criteria which may include perceptions about the products and different appeal drivers (A), that is, the product's characteristics: how the product sounds, looks, feels, etc.. For example, a food advertisement incorporating the sound of a sizzling steak, or a soft drink advertisement incorporating the sound of a soda cane opening, with soda coming out, may strongly affect consumers making them crave the product to satisfy their hunger and thirst. Hence, marketers attempt to stimulate consumers with emotions and a wide variety of appeal drivers in order to influence consumers to choose their product. In doing so, many celebrities (C) often appear in marketing and promotional communication. For example, featuring of David Beckham, an English soccer star, in Police sunglasses and Vodafone advertisements was associated with an unprecedented increase in the business of the respective companies (Pringle, 2004). One of the strategic tools of modern day marketing is the celebrity endorsement. It is estimated that about 20–30% of advertisements generally feature celebrity endorsers, and this trend has increased considerably in recent decades. Although marketing professionals and other stakeholders are convinced about the effectiveness of celebrity endorsers, yet little is known about what kind of celebrity endorsement is a good fit with EAs, under emotions and appeal drivers, to influence consumers' attention, buying and consumption behavior. The academic literature on marketing varies widely in addressing this dilemma.

Further, it demands investment and effort from companies to lead the market unless they invest in EAs appropriately. Consequently, billions of dollars are invested every year in marketing and advertisement strategies with the intention of influencing the behavior of consumers. However, much of the invested effort and money is wasted on poor marketing ploys which quickly exhaust opportunities to convince consumers to buy their products. There might be many reasons for this failure, which range from the improper combination of emotions (E), celebrity endorsements (C) and supporting appeal drivers (A) in the advertisements. Apart from the industry perspective, the right choice of audience and their gender can determine the success magnitude of the EAs, which ultimately turns into market share maximization. Further, it has been documented that men and women may have different emotional responses towards advertised products, which may impact their attention and consumption patterns. This may further impact the success or failure of the advertised product. Hence, the identification of the proper audience for the advertisement is important to consider for advertisers when developing their advertisements.

Although theoretical and practical developments in the marketing field have advanced exponentially, it is still not known with certainty how to best frame a combination of ACE variables for a particular audience. Moreover, it is also important to probe how the consumer's attention mediates between ACE constructs and consumer behavior. Hence, in a highly sophisticated advertising industry, these concepts still require further research. Although much of the research examines the behavior and profitable relationship with consumers, the industry and academic literature is silent about the prioritized combination of ACE mixes and attention levels in advertisement and their ultimate effect on consumers' behavior. Hence, it demands proper planning, research, and strategies from marketing professionals combined with consumer behavior analysis.

The purpose of this study is twofold. First, it aims to develop an appropriate ACE combination in the psychological realms of consumer behavior. It will not only elucidate the super-dominant combination of ACE mixes, but will also uncover subordinate levels which consist of specific emotions, celebrity endorsements and appeal drivers. Second, the study seeks to reveal the applicability of ACE mixes in measuring women's behavior through partial least squares path modeling (PLS-SEM), a novel approach to advertisement development and consumers' consumption behavior analysis. The study also highlights the mediating role of attention in this overall context which may influence the relationship between ACE constructs and women's consumption behavior. For this purpose, master level Chinese female students at the Fujian Medical University, Fuzhou China, were randomly engaged to participate in the present study with a total sample of 240 respondents. Since it is claimed that women are the most powerful consumers, we take this as a basis to measure Chinese women's response towards ACE-based advertisements. Since some studies suggest that women express emotions three times, on average, more than the men do, the results presented in this study may provide some guidelines to Chinese marketing and advertising professionals to effectively boost business volumes in China by influencing Chinese women's consumption and contagion behavior. ACE research dimensions encapsulated in this study may provoke constructive discussions on advertising and marketing in the Chinese context. This paper proposes a theoretical model which attempts to advance theoretical and practical knowledge with its findings.