Boomerang Effects in Response to Public Health Interventions: Some Unintended Consequences in the Alcoholic Beverage Market

Some warnings and other public health interventions have been found to produce effects opposite to those intended. Researchers employing a variety of methods have observed these boomerang effects in connection with interventions in a number of different contexts. One possible explanation for such boomerang effects lies in the theory of psychological reactance, roughly defined as the state of being aroused in opposition to perceived threats to personal choice. In particular, some consumer reactions described in research on alcoholic beverage warnings, alcohol education efforts, and the minimum drinking age can be concisely explained in terms of psychological reactance. An obvious implication is that boomerang effects should be taken into account as one of the potential costs of launching a mass communication campaign or requiring a warning. In some cases (such as warnings about the health effects of alcohol abuse) there may be so little to be gained in terms of improved consumer knowledge that the potential cost of oppositional attitudes or behavior should receive substantial attention in the evaluation of proposed and current interventions.     

Consumers as time travellers: the moderating effects of risk perception and construal level on consumers’ responses to temporal framing

Abstract

This study investigated the conditions under which temporal framing is more effective in explaining consumers’ responses to ads. Two experiments were conducted with a 2 (temporal framing: near-future vs. distant-future benefits) × 2 (perceived risk: high vs. low) × 2 (construal level: high vs. low) between-subjects factorial design. In Experiment 1, the two-way interaction effect of temporal framing and perceived risk on ad attitudes and purchase intention was found, such that the near-future benefit frame generated more favourable responses to the ad under the high-risk condition. Incorporating construal level theory, the three-way interaction effect was found, with the temporal framing?×?perceived risk interaction appearing more pronounced for low construal consumers only. Experiment 1 also discovered that information diagnosticity mediated the interaction effect of temporal framing and perceived risk on ad attitudes and purchase intention and this mediating process appeared stronger for low construal consumers. Experiment 2 replicated the two-way and three-way interaction effects on purchase intention, providing evidence of the validity of the findings. Theoretical and managerial implications were discussed for researchers and practitioners.     

Fast food,ads, and taste in a Russian child’s mind

Research demonstrates that brands can influence children’s food preferences and potentially contribute to unhealthy consumption patterns. This article extends this line of research by investigating the complex and interacting effects of food brand marketing on experienced taste. The empirical field in a remote Russian town enabled the assessment of branding effects when entering a newly established market. Examining the combination of various advertisement features with emotional brand elicitation, we derive hypotheses about the interplay of brands and advertisement components linked to the perceived taste of a fast food meal. In Novosibirsk, Russia, 778 children and adolescents aged 10–18 years were exposed to fast food advertisements with real and imaginary brand logos and varying advertising claims. The advertisements consisted of a warning, an exaggerated credence claim, or both. A subsequently offered fast food meal—a portion of French fries—was experimentally varied and prepared to be either healthier but less tasty and unsalted, or less healthy but tastier and salted. The findings verify strong and positive brand effects on children’s taste satisfaction. Warnings in advertisements “worked” only for novel fast food brands by negatively affecting taste satisfaction, but increased taste satisfaction when applied in advertisements for established brands. Single credence claims did not improve the taste experience, but counteracted the negative effects of warnings for novel brands. Finally, the established brand influenced taste satisfaction positively when the fries were saltier. The findings reveal various opportunities for fast food marketing to artificially create taste satisfaction for potentially unhealthy food. Public health strategies that focus on advertising claim restrictions should be reconsidered in the context of possible evasion strategies of the food industry and counter‐effects of warnings among strong fast food brands.     

Comprehension of Warnings and Resulting Attitudes

This study demonstrates that education level and warning vocabulary affect consumer reactions to warnings. Consumers who did not complete high school were not able to comprehend warnings that contained difficult vocabulary as well as warnings with simple words. They perceived products that carry warnings with simple words as safer than products labeled with warnings containing difficult words. Finally, consumers with more education were found to have more negative attitudes toward warnings with difficult words than warnings with simple words despite understanding the warnings equally well.     

Contextual priming of visual information in advertisements

Can the program context significantly influence the perception of an ad? Past advertising research has demonstrated contextual priming effects on the verbal part of an ad. Using public service and clothing advertisements, the present two experiments provide evidence for priming effects on visual components. Moreover, in extensive debriefing sessions, participants reported that they were not consciously aware of the influence of the contextual prime-suggesting the presence of implicit memory effects. Future research should focus on advertisements containing both verbal and visual information to better understand context influences on advertisements. 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Advertising effects on consumer welfare: Prices paid and liking for brands selected

The effect of advertising on consumer welfare has been the subject of dispute among economists, arising largely from disagreement among scholars regarding the persuasive versus the informative role of advertising. This paper reports two experiments that explore the welfare implications of advertising effects. Experiment 1 shows that the same advertisements can either increase or decrease prices paid for selected brands, depending on the degree to which the choice situation requires brands to be recalled in order to be considered. However, an increase in prices paid caused by advertising does not necessarily imply detrimental effects on consumer welfare. Experiment 2 shows that, even under circumstances in which differentiating advertising leads consumers to select brands with higher average prices, it can provide useful information to consumers that allows them to make purchases that are more in line with their personal tastes than are the choices of consumers not exposed to the advertisements.     

Adolescents’ Assessments of Advertisements for Unhealthy Food: an Example of Warning Labels for Soft Drinks

The potential of advertising to deceive young adolescents is problematic especially when it results in unhealthy food choices. Health warnings are supposed to raise awareness of the risky nature of a food product. However, these warnings compete for consumer’s attention with other advertising components set by marketers, such as product claims, visual frames, and images. To examine perception, attitudes, and behavioural intentions towards an ad, adolescents were exposed with fictitious soft drink advertisements in an experimental design. Hereby, we systematically varied warning labels and visual frames as key design elements of the advertisement. Results suggest that the effects of warnings on attitudes and purchase intention are mitigated by accompanying advertising elements. A single positive visual cue is sufficient to provoke purchase intentions. Overall, distraction from health warnings peaks in the youngest age groups and decreases with age. Findings raise concerns about how public health regulations on advertisements should be designed when the purpose is to inform especially younger adolescents of possible health risks. We discuss several implications for ethical marketing techniques of food products.     

Uncertainty in Prerelease Advertising

Firms frequently advertise products and services before they are launched. Yet how to best design such advertisements is not well understood. The current article investigates how consumers respond to uncertainty in prerelease advertisements. Across five studies, including both field and lab studies, we first provide evidence for the positive effect of uncertain prerelease advertisements using real consumer behavior on Facebook and YouTube and at the box office. Next, we uncover the mechanism underlying this effect (i.e., inflated outcome expectancies), outline a managerially relevant boundary condition (i.e., the positive effect reverses when a preorder opportunity is offered), and demonstrate that the effect of uncertainty on consumer response differs in prerelease versus postrelease advertisements depending on consumers’ perceived risk. Finally, we discuss implications for marketing research as well as for the design of prerelease advertisements for stimulating prerelease buzz and word of mouth.     

Alcohol Warning Labels in the UK

Abstract

In July 2003, it was reported that twelve alcoholics were attempting to sue drink manufacturers for failing to warn them of the dangers of drinking alcohol. This alleged failure to warn is remarkably similar to the alleged failure to warn on which the flood of tobacco claims in the United States and Europe was based, resulting in a dramatic increase in regulation, including the requirement that tobacco products must carry health warnings.

Could this gentle trickle of interest in litigating against alcoholic drinks manufacturers be the beginning of a torrent of tobacco-style regulation and litigation?

This article examines the history of the health warning and asks whether it is likely that alcohol health warnings will become mandatory in Europe and, more specifically, the United Kingdom.     

The differential roles of verbs,nouns, and adjectives in English and Chinese messages among bilingual consumers

Different word categories have distinct impacts on consumers' perceptions of a good or a service. Through 3 studies, this article tests the use of verbs, nouns, and adjectives among bilingual consumers. Study 1 examines word category use among bilinguals who speak both English and Chinese through an open-ended questionnaire. Study 2 measures the participants' reactions toward advertisements which are composed of different word categories. In Study 3, two experiments test the word category effect in the service domain. The findings indicate that: (1) to describe a good or a service, bilinguals prefer adjectives and nouns in general, while using more verbs in Chinese contexts; (2) English advertisements are perceived as more informative than Chinese ones, and noun-composed advertisements are perceived as more informative than the ones with verbs or adjectives; (3) the interaction effect of language and word category on purchase intentions is true for both advertisements and services; specifically, noun-composed messages are more efficient in affecting bilinguals' purchase decisions in Chinese contexts, while adjective-composed advertisements work better in English contexts; and (4) in the service domain, the interaction of language and word category has an impact on positive word-of-mouth and website use experience satisfaction. Conceptual and managerial implications are provided.     

The association between adolescents' receiver characteristics and exposure to the alcohol warning label

The association between receiver characteristics and awareness of, exposure to, memory for, and beliefs about the alcohol warning label were examined. The receiver characteristics studied were sex, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, school grades, religious service attendance, alcohol use, friends' alcohol use, drinking from the alcohol container, and television viewing. Independent cross‐sectional samples of 12th‐grade students (n=6,391) completed a questionnaire before and after the federally mandated warning appeared on alcohol beverage containers. Many of the receiver characteristics were significantly associated with the warning measures. There was not much evidence indicating that receiver characteristics moderated the association between the appearance of the warning and warning awareness, exposure, memory, or beliefs. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Harmonization of product information for child-care products

Abstract

This paper gives an overview of the prenormative research that has been conducted to achieve harmonization of product information for child-care products. This research supports the work of a project group of the European Committee for Standardization (CEN/TC 252/WG 6/PG 5). The project group is preparing a chapter on product information requirements for a CEN report on the safety of children's products. In the first study, the product information currently provided with child-care products was studied. In the second study, the following was drawn up: two lists of requirements, one for the legibility and one for the understandability of product information, a warning grammar, and a basic set of explicit warnings against the most frequent and severe hazards. In the third study, the effectiveness of explicit warnings for child-care products was investigated. The results of this study indicate that people perceive products with explicit warnings as more hazardous and the possible injuries in case of an accident as more severe. In a fourth study, warning symbols were designed for a number of warnings of the basic set. Future research will focus on testing the combination of warnings and symbols for child-care products for com-prehensibility in a number of European countries.     

The Use of Vivid Stimuli to Enhance Comprehension of the Content of Product Warning Messages

Thousands of consumers are injured annually using consumer products. It is intuitively plausible that vivid product warnings may improve communication of the hazards associated with product use, yet vividness effects have been difficult to demonstrate empirically. Vivid product warnings are shown to increase accurate memory of the hazards associated with product use by enhancing cognitive elaboration on the content of a product warning message. Moreover, vivid product warnings may not, in and of themselves, generate negative elaborations regarding the safety of the product in question.     

Do Plain Packaging and Pictorial Warnings Affect Smokers' and Non‐Smokers' Behavioral Intentions?

This research considers how tobacco warnings, plain packaging, and interactions between these measures affect behavioral intentions. While existing literature shows the superiority of pictorial warning labels (PWLs ) vs. text‐only tobacco warnings, few studies have examined the interaction effects of warnings and plain packaging on smoking intentions. Nor has earlier work examined the influence of smoking status (smoker vs. non‐smoker) on both warning and plain packaging effectiveness. Our experimental study addressed this gap by surveying 338 individuals using a factorial design with two manipulated factors (PWLs vs. text‐only warnings; plain pack vs. current branded tobacco pack). Results show that the plain pack and warnings work independently and in unison to influence smokers' and non‐smokers' behavioral intentions. The findings are particularly relevant to the many countries currently considering plain packaging and facing opposition from tobacco companies.     

Product Design: Preference for Rounded versus Angular Design Elements

Two experiments tested whether a general relative preference for objects with rounded rather than angular form (Bar & Neta, 2006, 2007) can be applied in the context of the design of consumer products. Images of product packaging—a chocolate product (Experiment 1) and water and bleach bottles (Experiment 2)—were manipulated with regard to the shape of both contour and graphics. There was a preference for rounded designs that extended to self‐report purchase likelihood—with additive effects of contour and graphics shape that could not be accounted for by design typicality or perceived ease of use.     

Making unique choices or being like others: How priming self‐concepts influences advertising effectiveness

Two experiments tested the hypothesis that priming independent and interdependent self‐concepts affects responses to advertisements. In Experiment 1, for a privately consumed product, the influence of product assortment size on ad effectiveness was moderated by the accessibility of these self‐concepts. Experiment 2 replicated this finding for a publicly consumed product and also examined an additional ad feature, consensus information. Ad effectiveness was enhanced by larger product assortment only when the independent self‐concept was primed and by the presence of consensus information only when the interdependent self‐concept was primed. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Designing warnings to compensate for age-related changes in perceptual and cognitive abilities

A variety of individual difference variables affect whether or not someone notices, encodes, comprehends, and complies with a warning. Failures at any of these stages reduce the effectiveness of warnings. Development of effective warnings must be based on understanding the characteristics of the product user. As the population grows older, consideration of age-related changes in perceptual and cognitive abilities becomes more relevant to the warning designer. For example, aging researchers have identified a variety of changes in the visual system (e.g., acuity, contrast sensitivity, and color discrimination) and cognitive function (e.g., working memory and reading comprehension). By considering the abilities of the product user, the impact of these age-related changes may be minimized. The goal of this article is to describe findings from research on aging and to make recommendations about how designers can increase the effectiveness of warnings for the older adult. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

A Hong Kong view of offensive advertising

Considerable research has been conducted on offensive advertising in Western countries. However, not much is known about consumers' views of offensive advertising in an Asian context. This research, which was conducted in Hong Kong, aimed at identifying what product/service advertisements consumers find offensive, what executional styles consumers find offensive, consumers' tolerance of offensive advertisements in different media and the effects of offensive advertisements on consumers' purchase intentions. The results from a survey of 200 consumers showed that chat-line services and funeral services were considered the most offensive products or services to be advertised. When looking at the manner of advertising, sexist themes, indecent language and nudity were found to be the major reasons for the respondents finding advertisements offensive. In general, direct mail was considered to be a medium that prompts lower tolerance by consumers to potentially offensive advertisements while men and women's magazines were considered to be media that prompt higher tolerance to potentially offensive advertisements. Finally, it was found that levels of advertising offensiveness had an effect on purchase intentions.