Social threat appeals in commercial advertising: the moderating impact of perceived level of self-efficacy and self-esteem on advertising effectiveness

This study investigates the impact of the level of fear evoked by an advertisement (for deodorant) framing a threatening social situation. Where the effectiveness of threat appeals has been investigated extensively in health communication, this study focuses on the impact of social threat appeals in a commercial setting. The study investigates the moderating impact of self-esteem on the interaction effect between the level of fear (evoked by a social threat ad) and perceived level of self-efficacy on brand attitude and purchase intention. Results show that for high self-esteem individuals, fear evoked by a social threat is effective, only when perceived self-efficacy is increased (in line with the EPPM). However, for low self-esteem individuals, high versus low perceived self-efficacy does not influence brand attitudes and purchase intentions in case of a social threat appeal, but perceived self-efficacy does increase the effectiveness of appeals in which a positive social situation is shown

Framing descriptive norms as self-benefit versus environmental benefit : self-construal’s moderating impact in promoting smart energy devices

Recently, awareness has been raised concerning the importance of sustainable energy use. Nevertheless, many obstacles must be overcome to change individuals’ energy consumption habits. This study examines how a message should be framed to convince individuals to purchase a smart energy device that provides feedback on household energy use. As such, this device can assist households in adjusting their energy-wasting habits. Through two experimental studies, this paper examines how a descriptive normative message, indicating that the majority of US households have already purchased a smart energy device, can increase individuals’ intention to purchase the device. Both studies consider the moderating influence of the self-construal, which refers to individuals’ consideration of themselves as either part of a group (interdependent self-construal) or independent from others (independent self-construal). The first study (n = 231) reveals that a descriptive norm (versus no norm) leads to a higher purchase intention through an enhanced normative influence regardless of participants’ self-construal. The second study (n = 128) adds to the finding that combining a descriptive norm with a self-benefit (versus environmental) frame more strongly impacts the purchase intent of individuals with a dominant independence. No significant differences are identified between the two benefit frames’ effectiveness among individuals with a dominant interdependence

Terrorism threat in Belgium : the resilience of Belgian citizens and the protection of governmental reputation by means of communication

In November 2015, the terrorism threat in Belgium confronted both citizens and the government with a situation characterized by high uncertainty. In this context, a national survey was conducted among 805 respondents, with three purposes. First, this case study aimed to explore how Belgians deal with the threat by examining if they change their behavior in public places and seek information about the threat. Second, we investigated why people seek and process information about the terrorism threat based on three determinants,namely their level of involvement with the threat, the expert efficacy of the government, and attitudes towards mass media communication. Finally, this study elaborated on perceived governmental efficacy, researching how governmental reputation is affected through institutional trust and governmental responsibility. The results show that the terrorism threat leads citizens to be more alert in public places and participate less in mass events. Moreover, one fifth stopped traveling by public transport. It was found that Belgian citizens also searched for information several times a day, mostly via traditional media such as television and radio. Furthermore, based on structural equation modelling, we found that information seeking and processing behavior is determined by the cognitive assessment of the risk. This cognitive risk assessment is in turn positively influenced by risk involvement and perceived governmental expert efficacy. However, if the mass media are seen to focus too much on drama and sensationalism then the perception of risk decreases, and this in turn reduces information seeking behavior. In addition, results show that a perception of governmental expert efficacy is able to increase trust and decrease the level of governmental responsibility, which is in turn beneficial for governmental reputation. The implications of these findings are discussed

Children and integrated advertising

This virtual special issue bundles research on how children cope with integrated advertising. When reviewing the wide range of articles written on children and advertising, we notice a shift in research on how advertising affects young children from a more pejorative focus on the negative impact this has on children’s health and well-being to a more optimistic approach in which the focus lays on how children process and cope with advertising. More specific, research in former years largely focus on how children respond to food advertisements and how this negatively affects their health and well-being and may lead to parent-child conflicts (for a review see e.g., McDermott et al., 2006). Through the years, children became an important target group for advertisers due to their growing impact on purchases of their parents and their own spending power. Accordingly, children are heavily targeted with advertisements. Accordingly, for advertisers it became more difficult to break through the advertising clutter and attract children’s attention. In order to be more effective and thanks to technical innovations, the nature of advertisements changed. As such, advertisements are now often fully integrated into media content and interactively engage the user with the commercial content. Accordingly, advertising evokes much less irritation because of the interruption of the media content. In addition, children are often exposed to multiple advertisements at the same time, especially in the digital environment. As a result, in the last decennium, a new stream of research focused on how children process and cope with these embedded advertising formats. In this virtual special issue, we present the important work of Nairn and Fine (2008) explaining the consequences of the new advertising context to the processing of advertising for children. In addition, we present a series of studies published in International Journal of Advertising on how children cope with advergames (An & Kang, 2013, 2014; Hudders et al., 2016; Rifon et al., 2014; Van Wesenbeeck et al., 2016), brand placement (Charry, 2014; Hang, 2012), targeted advertising (Van Reijmersdal et al., 2016) and online advertising (Cornish, 2014; Shin et al., 2012)

Impact of an interactive anti-speeding threat appeal: how much threat is too much?

This study investigates the impact of an interactive television public service announcement (PSA) containing an anti-speeding threat appeal on feelings of telepresence and behavioral intention. In a 2 x 2 x 2 between-subjects factorial design with 213 participants, the level of threat evoked by a traditional PSA, by the interactive part of the PSA (dedicated advertising location) and by the preceding program context are manipulated to be either low or high. The results support the assumptions of the Extended Parallel Processing Model with regard to the effect of the level of perceived threat and perceived efficacy in an interactive media environment, and the important role of telepresence as a processing variable. The results of the three-way interaction effect of threat evoked by the program, the PSA, and the DAL on telepresence show that when the threat levels of the program and the PSA are both either low or high, exposure to the threatening information in the DAL does not generate a significantly higher feeling of telepresence. However, when a low-threat program is followed by a high-threat PSA, the threat level of the DAL has a positive effect on telepresence. The same trend is found with a high-threat program and a low-threat PSA, although the effect of the threat evoked by the DAL on telepresence is not significant at conventional levels. Finally, there is a positive effect of telepresence on the behavioral intention to reduce speeding which is partly mediated by the viewer‟s perceived efficacy to follow the recommended behavior

When to say what during crisis situations: experimental tests of the Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) and stealing thunder

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