The impact of level of threat and self-efficacy on consumer responses for commercial products : the moderating role of self-esteem

Where the use and effectiveness of threat appeals has been investigated extensively in social marketing, this study focuses on the impact of social threat appeals in a commercial setting (ad for deodorant). The study investigates the moderating impact of self-esteem on the appraisal of threat and efficacy evoked by a message and on the interaction effect of self-efficacy and level of social threat on brand attitude and purchase intention. Results show that, contrary to previous findings, high threat appeals can be effective for low self-esteem people, but only when self-efficacy is increased explicitly in the message.status: publishe

The effectiveness of reassuring and fear-arousing messages on consumer attitudes towards GM food

This study investigates the impact of a threat appeal versus a reassuring appeal on consumers’ attitudes towards GM food. A between-subject factorial experiment manipulated three types of information about GM food: a fear-arousing message, a reassuring message, and a message combining both a fear- arousing and a reassuring message. Additionally, comparison with a control group was made. The hypotheses were based upon the EPPM (Witte, 1992) and Means-End Chain theory (Gutman, 1982). The results show that the reassuring message significantly increases respondents’ attitude towards GM food, compared to the fear arousing message, the combination message, and the control group. The ethical personality trait ‘moral equity’ moderates this main effect. While high moral people indicate significantly lower attitudes towards GM food than low moral people, this difference becomes even more striking in the reassuring conditio

The effectiveness of regulatory (in)congruent ads: the moderating role of an ad’s rational versus emotional tone

In a 2 (ad tone: emotional versus rational) x 2 (ad's regulatory focus: prevention versus promotion) x 2 (viewer's self-regulatory focus: prevention versus promotion) between-subjects experimental design, the effectiveness of fair trade campaigns is tested. The results show that, in the case of a rational ad, regulatory congruence (versus incongruence) effects were found (though only for prevention focused people), whereas in the case of an emotional ad, regulatory incongruence (versus congruence) effects were found (though only for promotion focused people)

Two-sided messages for health risk prevention: the role of argument type, refutation and issue ambivalence

The present experimental research extends message sidedness literature to a health prevention context. Second, it addresses not only rational, but also affective two-sided messages. Third, this research explains a gap in message sidedness literature by addressing the impact of issue ambivalence on the effectiveness of refutational versus non-refutational two-sided messages

The impact of message sidedness on adolescents' binge drinking intentions after peer pressure : the moderating role of issue involvement

Ample studies demonstrate the dire effects of binge drinking, which is the episodic or irregular consumption of excessive amounts of alcohol, especially among adolescents (Oei and Morawska, 2004; Vik et al., 2003. Hence, there is a strong need for prevention programs to reduce alcohol use among adolescents (Swahn et al., 2004)