Guangzhi Zhao and Cornelia Pechmann
Executive Summary
Worldwide, aggressive campaigns have been undertaken to dissuade adolescents from taking up cigarette smoking. In the United States, more than 20 states have initiated mass media advertising campaigns to dissuade adolescents from taking up smoking, and a half billion dollars was spent on the campaigns in 2005, or approximately $2 per capita. However, all antismoking advertisements may not be equally persuasive. There is evidence that many antismoking advertisements do not significantly reduce adolescents' intent to smoke relative to an unexposed control group. Thus, a critical question facing tobacco control officials and their advertising agencies is how to create effective antismoking advertisements, particularly for adolescents.
In this research, the authors studied how viewer characteristics (specifically, viewers' regulatory focus) together with two message execution factors (i.e., the message's regulatory focus and the message frame) jointly affect the persuasiveness of antismoking advertisements. Working from regulatory focus theory, the authors propose that there are two segments of adolescents: promotion-focused adolescents, who are motivated to realize achievements and ensure opportunities for advancement, and prevention-focused adolescents, who are motivated to avoid hazards and ensure that situations are safe and secure. In addition, the authors propose that antismoking messages can be differentiated using a two-dimensional framework. First, an antismoking message can have either a promotion focus, which highlights promotion- or advancement-related consequences (e.g., social approval), or a prevention focus, which highlights prevention- or security-related consequences (e.g., social disapproval). Second, an antismoking message can be framed either positively or negatively. A positive message frame emphasizes the favorable outcomes of refraining from smoking (e.g., either attaining social approval or avoiding social disapproval), whereas a negative message frame emphasizes the unfavorable outcomes of smoking (e.g., either incurring social disapproval or forgoing social approval).
Taking into account these two message execution factors and viewers' regulatory focus, the authors propose that antismoking advertisements are the most persuasive when viewers' regulatory focus, the message's regulatory focus, and the message frame function synergistically. Specifically, for promotion-focused adolescents, a promotion-focused positively framed antismoking message should be the most effective at persuading them not to smoke, whereas for prevention-focused adolescents, a prevention-focused negatively framed antismoking message should be the most effective at persuading them not to smoke. The authors' propositions are supported in two experimental studies, in which approximately 1000 adolescents from five high schools in southern California saw either antismoking advertisements or control advertisements in a television show. The antismoking advertising messages differed with respect to the message's regulatory focus (promotion versus prevention) and the message frame (positive versus negative). Viewers' regulatory focus was measured as a personality trait (Experiment 1) and was then manipulated or primed by varying the situation or context (Experiment 2).
This research shows the viewers' regulatory focus may be a useful segmentation variable for marketing to adolescents. Viewers' regulatory focus affects the perceived relevance of the advertising message and, thus, message persuasion. Furthermore, the message's regulatory focus in conjunction with the message frame affects message comprehension. Promotion–positive and prevention–negative messages are more comprehensible than either promotion–negative or prevention–positive messages. The findings also indicate that viewers' regulatory focus can be altered temporarily by situations. For example, a prevention focus can be activated in an audience through television shows, such as 24, whereas a promotion focus can be activated in an audience through television shows such as American Idol. Thus, it may be possible to create advertisements that are either promotion or prevention focused and to run those advertisements on television shows that prime the desired regulatory focus to maximize the advertisements' impact.
Biography
Guangzhi Zhao (Ph D, University of California, Irvine) is Assistant Professor of Marketing in the School of Business at the University of Kansas. Dr. Zhao has taught consumer behavior, advertising and marketing communication, and promotion strategy. Dr. Zhao's research has examined factors contributing to advertising's effectiveness. Much of his work has involved the study of antismoking advertising's effects on adolescents. Dr. Zhao's work has appeared in the Journal of Marketing. His current research focuses on consumer regulatory focus and advertising, risk communication to consumers, and theory-based social interventions.
Cornelia Pechmann (PhD, Vanderbilt University) is Professor of Marketing in the Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine. Dr. Pechmann's research focuses on the effects of controversial forms of advertising on consumers, and she has conducted considerable research on comparative advertising and tobacco-related advertising. She has received $1.5 million in grants to study the effects of pro- and antismoking media messages on adolescents, including messages in movies and on television shows. Dr. Pechmann has published more50 refereed articles, chapters, and proceedings in leading outlets, such as Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, and American Journal of Public Health, and her work has been cited in The Wall Street Journal and other major newspapers. She serves on the editorial review boards of Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Psychology, and Journal of Public Policy & Marketing. She has served as a consultant to the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy's youth antidrug media campaign. Dr. Pechmann was cochair of the 2005 Association for Consumer Research North American Conference.
Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. XLIV, No. 4, November 2007
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