Aesthetics is one of the various attributes a product might have, is usually expressed by the design of a product and perceived by consumers as visual information. Since aesthetics of a product represents overall beauty or attraction conveyed through its design, it could determine the first impression of consumers toward a product and urge them to choose or purchase it.In fact, however, consumers do not always follow exactly the principles of aesthetics in all occasions. The aesthetics sought for by consumers differ individually depending on their personal taste and preference, and may even be influenced by the culture they are in or their subjective experiences. There is a certain type of aesthetics which consumers become especially attached to or like better according to the personal conditions and environments they are situated in.Nevertheless, few studies have been conducted so far to investigate how consumers react to certain aesthetics in compliance with their self-construals. In the sector of advertisement, for example, no sufficient investigations have been made to examine what kind of matching between a copy message and aesthetic design expressed in color and shape can most effectively persuade consumers into highly valuing the advertised product. Still less are the studies on whether the consumers' type of self-construals may moderate the roles of aesthetic level perceived at ads on the matching between the design and the copy message in ads. It is thus the objective of the present study to theoretically examine consumers' self-construals affecting their decisions, and to review aesthetic theory by dividing the aesthetics of products expressed in color and shape into aesthetics of harmony and that of emphasis. This study also aims to conduct an empirical analysis of the effects the level of matching between aesthetic design and copy message perceived by consumers who used to be exposed to advertisements of goods may exercise upon their product evaluation. Another objective of the present paper is to empirically analyze whether the roles of aesthetic level perceived at ads in recognizing matching level between the aesthetic design and the message of the ads can be moderated by types of consumers' self-construals. For this aim, this paper divided aesthetics of product design into those of harmony and of emphasis, and divides self-construals into independent and dependent ones in an attempt to map out between-subject experimental design of 2 (design aesthetics: emphasis and harmony) × 2 (self-construals: independent and dependent) groups. Perfume bottles were selected in this study as the object of empirical analysis. Selected were four designs of perfume bottles that express aesthetics of harmony and those of emphasis respectively. Four perfume bottles with design of harmonious aesthetics were grouped into one bundle, and four other perfume bottles with design of emphatic aesthetics were grouped into another. A preliminary survey was performed to 51 college students to find which group of perfume bottles would incite them to perceive harmonious and emphatic aesthetics. In the questionnaire, bundles of advertisements for the perfume bottle that best fit in with each 4 experimental group were presented together with the copies which were worked out to enable the respondents to feel primed with the agreed self-construal and to perceive harmonious as well as emphatic aesthetics with the perfume bottle. Respondents of each experimental group were exposed to one of four types of questionnaire with independent or interdependent self-construal-priming items and one type of the bundles of advertisement for perfume bottles, and then were asked to reply to such items as arranged in order of measuring 'the grade of attention to the advertisement', 'the characters of advertisement copy', 'self-construal', 'aesthetics of emphasis', 'aesthetics of harmony', 'matching of design and copy in the advertisement' as well as 'product evaluation'. Seventy copies of questionnaires by type were distributed to members of each corresponding experimental group and, out of the total, 280 copies were collected. Of them, 273 were put to an empirical analysis after excluding 7 unfaithful replies. The ANOVA of SPSS 18.0 and structural equation model of AMOS 18.0 was used to analyze the hypotheses, which resulted in the following outcomes:First, independent self-construal-oriented consumers were found to favor more the goods with design of emphatic aesthetics than those of harmonious aesthetics, while dependent self-construal-oriented consumers were more fond of the products with design of harmonious aesthetics than those of emphatic aesthetics. Second, when exposed to the advertisements composed of the design of harmonious (emphatic) aesthetics and harmonious (emphatic) message, consumers tended to perceive more intensively the level of matching between aesthetic design and message, which in turn might have positive impact upon evaluation of the perfume goods advertised.Third, the analysis confirmed that the emphatic aesthetics perceived from the advertisements of emphatic aesthetics could exercise more positive impacts upon the level of matching between emphatic design and emphatic message in the independent self-construal group than in the dependent group.Fourth, no difference in the positive effects of the perception of harmonious aesthetics in the advertisements upon the level of matching between harmonious design and message was found to exist between the independent and dependent self-construal groups. Since this seemed to result from the big standard error (.227) of the estimation factor in the route of independent self-construal group, repeated empirical studies should be performed using different samples to ensure reliability.In this study, efforts were made to configurate product design and copy message by the aesthetics of emphasis and harmony after dividing aesthetics in advertisements to emphatic and harmonious aesthetics respectively. Consequently, it was investigated if aesthetics perceived in each bundle of advertisements could influence the level of matching between product design and copy message and if consumers' inclination of self-construal could moderate the level of matching, affecting by thus evaluation of advertised products. The present study is thought to contribute to progress of theory in that it offers in a structural manner such concepts as aesthetics perceived in the bundles of design and copy message in the product advertisement, the level of matching between design and copy message of the advertisement and the difference in perception of matching due to consumers' self-construals, beyond simple dimension where consumers are exclusively fond of aesthetic products.Moreover, what is important in advertisement is matching between the design and copy message. When consumers of the independent self-construal group are exposed to bundles of advertisement with emphatic aesthetic design and copy message, the extent of their perception of matching between design and copy could exercise more positive impact upon evaluation of products. Marketers should therefore endeavor to develop emphatic aesthetics design and to insert copy messages in advertisement design with a focus on emphasis in order to persuade self-constural consumers more effectively.Key-words: aesthetics, self-construals, advertising copyStudent ID Number: 201450002