Fear appeals in anti-smoking advertising: How important is self-efficacy?

Abstract

in London. His research interests lie in consumer behaviour and marketing communications. In particular, Dr. Manyiwa focuses on issues to do with the interaction between advertising and consumer behaviour in the context of important social issues such as public health and consumer debt. Simon's work has been presented in the Journal of Consumer Behaviour Ross Brennan is a Reader in Marketing at Middlesex University. His research interests lie in social marketing, business to business marketing, and marketing education. Ross's work has been published in journals such as the

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

“…Individual level Females are more persuaded by fear-based messages than males Lennon, Rentfro, and O'Leary (2010) and Samu and Bhatnagar (2008) The tendency to seek strong sensations/experiences weakens the persuasiveness of fear appeals Becheur, Dib, Merunka, and Valette-Florence (2008) Individuals with favourable attitudes to advertised behaviour more persuaded by fear appeals than those with less favourable attitude Jäger and Eisend (2013) Repeated exposure or familiarity with a behaviour reduces the persuasiveness of fear appeals Andrews et al (2014), Kessels et al (2014) and Kim et al (2014) Self-efficacy influences attitudes towards the advert and increases persuasiveness Manyiwa and Brennan (2012) Low-intensity fear-based appeals work better with high uncertainty-avoidant respondents than highintensity appeals Reardon, Miller, Foubert, Vida, and Rybina (2006) Individuals highly committed to the worldview of drinking alcohol are less responsive to death-based fear appeals than lesser appeals Shehryar and Hunt (2005) Individuals with children are more responsive to potential health threats Latour and Tanner (2003) Stronger experiences of fear increase persuasion Terblanche-Smit and Terblanche (2010) More influenced by fear appeals when discussed with friends than with strangers Samu and Bhatnagar (2008) (Continued ) …”

Attitude toward smoking: the effect of negative smoking-related pictures

“…Fear appeals have been widely used in social marketing with the aim of reducing harmful behaviour (Manyiwa & Brennan, 2012, pp. 1419-1437.…”

“…15-22) indicated that eliminating the tobacco display might reduce attempts to purchase tobacco -the display ban reduced the urges to smoke. Moreover, Manyiwa and Brennan (2012) argue that despite the fact that fear appeals are frequently used in anti-smoking advertising, the evidence on their effectiveness is mixed, and in some studies strong fear appeals have even been found to reinforce the undesirable behaviour. Therefore, aiming to contribute to the scientific discussion on a bipolar effectiveness of fear appealbased pictorial warnings on cigarette packaging, the scientific problem of the research is framed by a question: what is the effect of smoking-related pictures illustrating the danger of smoking on consumer attitude?…”

Subconscious responses to fear-appeal health warnings: An exploratory study of cigarette packaging

“…Although fear-based social marketing campaigns (communication campaigns using marketing principles to address societal problems) have been implemented internationally to point out the dangers of smoking, their effectiveness has been questioned (Manyiwa & Brennan 2012;Prevention First 2008; Van't Riet & Ruiter 2013). One possible reason is that the impact of these campaigns on consumers' emotional and subconscious responses has never been properly assessed.…”