x, 125 leaves : ill. ; 29 cmAn experiment was done to investigate whether or not there is a need to treat smokers and
non-smokers as separate target audiences when creating tobacco counter-advertisements.
The Extended Parallel Process Model (Witte, 1992) and Reactance Theory (Brehm,
1966) were used to guide the development of predictions. The study revealed that social
marketers need to have different advertising tactics for smokers and non-smokers, since
smokers have reported more maladaptive coping responses and fewer adaptive coping
responses than non-smokers. Moreover, based on the fact that a smoker’s brand forms an
essential part of their self-identity (Goldberg et al., 1995) the experiment was also
designed to see if smokers would have differing levels of reactance and other
maladaptive coping responses if they saw a counter-advertisement attacking their brand,
one attacking a competing brand, and a non-branded one. The study did not reveal any
significant differences in reactions among the three conditions
