Guilt appeals: Persuasion knowledge and charitable giving

This paper applies the persuasion knowledge model to explain consumers' responses to charity guilt appeals. With data obtained through a stimuli‐driven survey, the research examines the relationships between knowledge of persuasion tactics and charities, and the level of felt guilt experienced in response to an advertisement and subsequent donation intentions. The findings show that guilt arousal is positively related to donation intention, and that persuasion and agent knowledge impact the extent of guilt aroused. The research confirms that consumers are active rather than passive processors of marketing communications by revealing the role of persuasion and agent knowledge as methods of coping with and informing responses to guilt appeals. Specifically, the research finds that manipulative intent and the respondents' skepticism toward advertising tactics in general are negatively related to guilt arousal but that their affective evaluation and beliefs about a charity are positively related to feelings of guilt. However, it also shows that there is a positive direct relationship between perceived manipulative intent and the intention to donate. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

内疚广告诉求对消费者道德消费意愿的影响机制研究

基于认知失调理论和心理抗拒理论,通过两个实验探究了企业道德营销中内疚与非内疚诉求影响消费者道德消费意愿的心理作用机制。结果表明,内疚诉求比非内疚诉求更能促进消费者的道德消费意愿,强迫性感受和操纵意图推断发挥了中介作用,且该中介作用受到消费者涉入度的调节。具体而言,低消费者涉入度情境中,相比于非内疚诉求,内疚诉求能够降低消费者的强迫性感受和操纵意图推断,进而增强其道德消费意愿;高消费者涉入度情境中,相比于内疚诉求,非内疚诉求能够降低消费者的强迫性感受和操纵意图推断,进而增强其道德消费意愿。研究结论有助于企业设计道德属性产品的广告策略,有效降低受众心理抗拒反应,提升受众广告体验,进而推动道德消费。     

Guilt appeals in cause-related marketing

Despite the growth of cause-related marketing (CRM), little is known about how consumers process cause-focused messages that contain emotional appeals. The present research seeks to further the understanding of guilt appeals in CRM by clarifying the moderating roles of product type and donation magnitude, and exploring the situations when a guilt appeal backfires. Although experimental results indicate that a guilt appeal is more effective than a non-guilt appeal, a guilt appeal backfires when the perceived hedonic value of a product is high. A high donation magnitude also eliminates CRM effectiveness of the guilt appeal. There is an interaction between guilt appeal and donation magnitude when promoting hedonic products with CRM. The findings underscore the importance for marketers of learning more about how guilt appeals work, and in turn describe how practitioners can avoid negative consumer reactions to their guilt appeals.     

Guilt Appeals and Prosocial Behavior: An Experimental Analysis of the Effects of Anticipatory Versus Reactive Guilt Appeals on the Effectiveness of Blood Donor Appeals

This study investigates the effectiveness of guilt-arousing communication in promoting prosocial behavior. By analyzing the distinct effects of anticipatory versus reactive guilt appeals, we contribute to the discussion of guilt appeals as drivers of prosocial behavior, especially blood donation. Research on persuasive communication provides the theoretical basis of our study and we validate our hypotheses by means of two 2?×?2 factorial between-subjects designs. We find that anticipatory rather than reactive guilt appeals are more effective in generating prosocial action tendencies. Compared to noninformational reference group influences, messages endorsed by members of informational reference groups yielded more favorable attitudinal responses. Besides their significant main effect, two-sided messages reinforce the favorable impact of anticipatory guilt appeals. The study concludes with practical implications for nonprofit organizations and public blood donor services as well as avenues for future research.     

Scared Stiff? The Effectiveness of Threat Appeals in Counseling Services Advertising to High‐Anxiety Students

This exploratory study proposes and tests a theoretical model that analyzes threat appeals in regard to their effectiveness for high‐anxiety students, one of the major target groups for counseling services. In particular, affective and cognitive responses to a threat appeal advertisement and their effects on attitude toward the advertisement and behavior are examined. The results suggest that a strong threat appeal is not effective for counseling services but that positive emotions toward the advertisement and cognitive involvement have a positive impact on advertising outcomes. The study contributes further to knowledge of threat appeal effectiveness, targeting “anxious” audiences.     

Guilt Regulation: The Relative Effects of Altruistic Versus Egoistic Appeals for Charity Advertising

This article examines how egoistic (versus altruistic) appeals in charity advertising help regulate guilt and result in more favorable ad attitudes and donation intentions. The proposed affect forecasting and regulation model depicts the process by which guilt states are mitigated more effectively by egoistic appeals, because they strengthen the affect forecasting belief that giving to charity leads to happiness. Such enhanced affect forecasting beliefs further improve ad attitudes, which lead to greater donation intentions. This research tests the proposed model by exploring three possible types of guilt: existing guilt (Study 1), integral guilt (Study 2), and incidental guilt (Study 3).     

Guilt and giving: A process model of empathy and efficacy

This research develops a model of consumer response to charity appeals. Using the Extended Parallel Process Model from the fear appeal literature as a foundation, the current model proposes that empathy and self‐efficacy generate guilt and reduce maladaptive responses, which, in turn, shapes donation intention. The results demonstrate that the impact of empathy on charitable donation intention is fully mediated by guilt and maladaptive responses. The impact of self‐efficacy is partially mediated by guilt and maladaptive responses. Therefore, both empathy and self‐efficacy determine whether guilt or maladaptive responses result. This model clarifies the process through which guilt appeals operate, by identifying the roles of empathy and self‐efficacy. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Guilt, Shame, and Reparative Behavior: The Effect of Psychological Proximity

Research has paid scant attention to reparative behavior to compensate for unintended wrongdoing or to the role of emotions in doing the right thing. We propose a new approach to investigating reparative behavior by looking at moral emotions and psychological proximity. In this study, we compare the effects of moral emotions (guilt and shame) on the level of compensation for financial harm. We also investigate the role of transgressors’ perceived psychological proximity to the victims of wrongdoing. Our hypotheses were tested through a scenario based questionnaire on a sample of 261 participants. Analyses indicate that (1) guilt has a stronger effect on the level of compensation than shame; (2) psychological proximity influences the level of guilt, shame, and compensation; and (3) shame interacts with psychological proximity to predict compensation, whereas guilt mediates the relationship between psychological proximity and compensation.     

Away from “Unified Nostalgia”: Conceptual Differences of Personal and Historical Nostalgia Appeals in Advertising

Studies suggest that nostalgia can be split into two distinct forms: Personal and Historical nostalgia. This research explores these varieties of nostalgic appeal and, based on literature, proposes differing effects these variations may have on the important consumer behavior responses of cognition, emotions, attitudes, and purchase intentions. A review of the literature suggests that significant differences will exist dependent on the type of nostalgic appeal being used. The call for scales to test these appeals independently of one another is also made. Finally, this evidence suggests that treatment of nostalgia as a “unified” concept may be inaccurate in predicting true consumer responses and future studies should treat the two types as separate appeals if rigor is to be suggested.     

Fear, guilt, and shame appeals in social marketing

This paper presents the results from a qualitative study of income support recipients with regard to how they feel about advertising which overtly appeals to their sense of fear, guilt and shame. The motivation of the study was to provide formative research for a social marketing campaign designed to increase compliance with income reporting requirements. This study shows that negative appeals with this group of people are more likely to invoke self-protection and inaction rather than an active response such as volunteering to comply. Social marketers need to consider the use of fear, guilt and shame to gain voluntary compliance as the study suggests an overuse of these negative appeals. While more formative research is required, the future research direction aim would be to develop an instrument to measure the impact of shame on pro-social decision-making; particularly in the context of close social networks rather than the wider society.     

The Effect of Acculturation on Reparative Behavior in Shame and Guilt Cultures

As the number of immigration and their later generations grow in the workforce of more developed Western countries, understanding the processes and consequences of acculturation has gained a new level of importance. An old and re-emerging issue is the morality and reparative behavior in Western versus Eastern cultures, as well as its antecedents and consequences. We examined the effects of acculturation on the perception of psychological proximity, the intensity of moral emotions of shame and guilt, and the degree of compensation to victims of one＇s wrongdoing. Our sample was comprised of a collectivistic group from a shame culture, China, and an acculturated group of Chinese living in a much less collectivistic society of a guilt culture, Canada. Our results indicated that participants＇ perception of psychological proximity to other people and the level of compensation offered to the victims of transgression were significantly different among the two samples. Furthermore, shame and guilt mediated the relationship between perceived psychological proximity and the decision to compensate differently.     

Information Sources in Advertising History. Edited and compiled by Richard W. Pollay,ed. Westport,Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1979, 330 pp

Abstract

This research examined how consumers responded to different print advertisements for a green laundry detergent. Hypotheses based on the salience literature were developed and tested in a laboratory experiment. One group considered a “green” appeal which emphasized the environmental attributes of the product. Another group considered a “non-green” appeal which emphasized the cost-saving attributes of the product. We measured each subject's involvement with the environment. Our results showed that for those highly involved with the environment, there were no significant differences in purchase intent, attitude toward the ad, and support arguments between appeals. However, for those less involved with the environment, the green appeal was significantly more persuasive than the non-green appeal in terms of the same variables.     

How donor's regulatory focus changes the effectiveness of a sadness-evoking charity appeal

Past research offers conflicting findings on whether sadness-evoking charity appeals help solicit a donation. To reconcile these findings, we introduce prospective donors' regulatory focus as a moderator for understanding when and why sadness appeals motivate or demotivate giving. Specifically, we propose that the sense of helplessness or loss of control associated with sadness appeals increases donors' sensitivity to advertiser's manipulative persuasion tactics, as those tactics can threaten donors' control over their donation decision. As a result, sadness appeals are more likely to activate persuasion knowledge among prevention- (vs. promotion-) oriented donors who tend to be vigilant against manipulative persuasion attempts. Across six main studies and two supplementary studies, we find that a prevention (vs. promotion) focus discourages charitable giving when it is solicited using a sadness appeal, whereas regulatory focus does not affect the giving when other emotion appeals (e.g., happiness appeal or guilt appeal) are used. We find that a prevention (vs. promotion) focus demotivates donation solicited by a sadness appeal because it activates persuasion knowledge that evaluates solicitor's motive behind the sadness appeal, resulting in increased skepticism, dampened feelings of sympathy, and consequently, reduced charitable giving. However, when persuasion knowledge is deactivated (e.g., when donors' cognitive capacity is constrained or the soliciting charity has a reliable reputation), regulatory focus no longer affects donor skepticism, sympathy, and charitable giving, even when a sadness appeal is used to call for donation.     

Fear Appeals in Print Advertising: An Analysis of Arousal and Ad Response

Abstract

This paper examines the tenability of a two-dimensional (tension and energy) formulation of fear arousal effects in the context of print advertising. Intuitively, stimulation of fear parallels a two-part continuum of increasing tension. This exploratory study stems from the theoretical premise that increasing tension generates energy up to a certain point, and beyond that “threshold,” increasing tension arouses anxiety which begins to deplete energy. The study examines the effects of two print ad stimuli on the multidimensional structure of arousal, resulting attitude toward the ad and behavioral intention. The results indicate that print ad induced arousal effects fell short of the “threshold” point. However, a comparison between fear appeal treatment groups reveals that the stronger fear appeal resulted in arousal effects showing “progress” toward the threshold point. Thus, these results lend credibility to the idea of a “threshold” separating a two-part continuum of increasing tension. General implications of these results are discussed, and tentative suggestions in regard to the design and use of fear appeals using both print and video stimuli are furnished.     

The Effects of Guilt-Appeal Intensity on Persuasive and Emotional Outcomes: The Moderating Role of Sponsor Motive

Studies examining the persuasive effects of guilt appeals have yielded mixed results. The current study hypothesizes that source motive (profit versus not for profit) is a key moderating variable underlying these inconsistences. A controlled experiment tested the moderating role of sponsor motive on the relationship between guilt-appeal intensity and persuasiveness of the appeal and ad liking. Findings confirmed the notion that sponsor motive moderates the effects of guilt appeals: When guilt appeals are commercially oriented there is a relative failure of high-intensity guilt appeals compared to moderate-intensity guilt appeals. Moderate-intensity guilt appeals cause more-positive brand attitudes than high-intensity appeals. Yet, when guilt appeals are nonprofit, increases in intensity of guilt communicated lead to positive results. As the guilt-intensity increased, ad liking and persuasiveness increased. It appears that guilt-appeal intensity did not have an effect on brand attitudes when the message was nonprofit.     

Exploring the Selective Use of Ad Blockers and Testing Banner Appeals to Reduce Ad Blocking

Ad blocker proliferation threatens the revenue streams of many websites and raises fears about the viability of digital advertising as a whole. Although industry initiatives have increasingly aimed to mitigate ad blocking, surprisingly little research addresses the problem. It remains largely unknown which factors drive ad blocking or help unblocking or “whitelisting” of select websites. This article presents an exploratory survey study of 1,634 ad blocker users and uncovers the main factors driving ad blocking and conditions for unblocking select websites. The conditions suggest changes to online advertising in line with current industry initiatives, as well as opportunities for direct appeals to ad blocker users. A field experiment with 294,331 users tests whether banner appeals can reduce ad blocking. The results show that these appeals reduce ad blocking among 1% of the ad blocker users, and among frequent visitors who encounter repeated banner appeals, this percentage increases to 2%. However, repeated banners also lead to fewer website visits of users not conforming to the appeal, which suggests a trade-off between reducing ad blocking among some users and further increasing avoidance behaviors among others.     

From elicitation to consumption: assessing the longitudinal effectiveness of negative emotional appeals in social marketing

Abstract

Negative emotional appeals are used frequently in social marketing. Focusing on guilt and fear appeals, existing theories fail to explain emotional appeal effectiveness in changing consumption behaviour over time. To address this limitation, an elicitation–consumption framework is developed for fear and guilt appeal use. An agenda for further research, outlining three research questions and four propositions, is also presented. This framework integrates the study of how emotional appeals are communicated with how they are experienced during decision-making; complementing current theorising by offering a framework for experimental testing of the delayed, longitudinal effects of social marketing campaigns. The elicitation–consumption framework aids practitioners seeking to design effective emotional appeals by encouraging an effects-based communication approach.     

A Model of the Effects of Self-efficacy on the Perceived Ethicality and Performance of Fear Appeals in Advertising

The primary purpose of this study was to better understand the effects of consumers' perceived self-efficacy on their perceptions of the ethicality of a fear appeal and subsequent attitudes towards the ad, the brand, and purchase intentions. In this study, a total of 305 consumer responses were investigated to determine attitudes toward a fear appeal ad. The results suggest that the use of strong fear appeals may not be perceived as unethical if consumers feel they can use the recommended product to effectively eliminate the threat posed by the ad.     

Moderating Role of Consumer Self-Concept on the Effectiveness of Two Nostalgia Appeals

Existing empirical studies suggest that evoked nostalgia about a brand is positively related to attitude toward the brand. However, it is unlikely that nostalgia appeals are universally effective. Therefore, this research investigates two types of consumer nostalgias—individualistic nostalgia and collectivistic nostalgia— and examines how the relative effectiveness of these two nostalgia appeals is moderated by consumer self-concept (independent versus interdependent). Based on a two-phase study with time-honored Chinese brands, we reveal that, for consumers with an independent self-concept, an individualistic nostalgia appeal is more effective than a collectivistic nostalgia appeal, whereas for consumers with an interdependent self-concept, a collectivistic nostalgia appeal is more effective than an individualistic nostalgia appeal.     

The Communications—Effectiveness of Comparative Advertising for a New Brand on Users of the Dominant Brand

Abstract

An experiment was employed to examine the effectiveness of comparative magazine advertising appeals when employed by new brands competing with a dominant brand in their product category. Three experimental treatments were used: a direct comparative copy appeal; a “brand X” comparative copy appeal in which comparisons were made with “the leading brand;” and, a non-comparative copy appeal. Results of the experiment suggest that a non-comparative or straight sell appeal is more effective than comparative appeals for new brands competing with a dominant brand.