Guilt appeals in advertising: What are their effects?

Abstract

This study examined consumers' emotional responses, their attitudes toward advertisements and brands, attributions about the companies promoting the brands, and purchase intention for ads varying on level of guilt appeal. Sixty working mothers, a prime target of guilt appeals, participated in the study. Results indicated that moderate guilt appeals elicited more felt guilt in the working mothers than did low or high guilt appeals. Furthermore, emotional responses, particularly anger, mediated the relationship between level of guilt appeal and consumers' attitudes and corporate attributions, and an inverse relationship occurred between level of guilt appeal and attitudes and attributions. Purchase intention was affected by the level of the guilt appeal and by anger.

Guilt and giving: A process model of empathy and efficacy

“…Unfortunately, manipulating the appropriate level of guilt in an appeal has proven to be both crucial and difficult. Several studies have found that high levels of guilt may lead to reactance and counterarguing, thus discouraging the desired behavior (e.g., Coulter & Pinto, 1995). This is very similar to the reaction of consumers when presented with a high level of fear (Passyn & Sujan, 2006;Shehryar & Hunt, 2005).…”

“…Maladaptive responses include reactance and/or counterarguing (e.g., Coulter & Pinto, 1995). Reactance occurs when an individual feels s/he is being manipulated and the individual responds in some negative manner as a result (Brehm, 1966).…”

The Role of Visual Rhetoric in the Vegetarian Movement: “Meet Your Meat” Video of Animal Torture on the PETA Website

“…Coulter and Pinto (1995) argued that comparable message manipulations may create different levels of guilt, depending on the context in which individual used to assess certain issue or visual object. …”

Impact of Advertising Appeals on Purchase Intention

“…The usage of the fear appeal in a certain advertising message will, however, be effective up to a certain point when its influence will begin to decline, since a large quantity of fear in an advertised message can lead to selective attention and contradict stated arguments by the observer (Belch and Belch, 2004). Guilt, which is connected with fear, is one of the emotional appeals that are often used and that was studied by Coulter and Pinto (1995).The authors relied on McGuire's theory (1969) that determined that both the low and the high guilt appeals inhibit the feeling of guilt, being that the former is due to a low level of attention while the latter is due to denying the messages that cause suspicion.…”

“…Reactions and attitudes of participants 4. Advertising video: "Aquafresh" Producer: Aquafresh Appeal: Humour Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcTTA6K5dMo…”