Fear Advertising Research Paper

IMC Empirical Paper

Understanding the Influence of Fear Advertisements on Consumers to Make Better Health Decisions in India

Sahil Kanolkar – 37256

Suraj Nair – 37285 Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Literature Review

3. Methodology

4. Findings

5. Discussion & Conclusion

6. Limitations of the study

7. References Introduction:

Fear advertisements that depict the graphic health harms are increasingly considered best practices, as exemplified by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention’s current national campaign. Evaluation of responses to these widely used advertisements is important to determine advertisements that are most effective and their mechanisms of action. Our study tested the hypothesis that advertisements

Message framing provides the linkage between behavior and goal attainment. Recent studies highlights the adverse effects of food advertising on health behaviors. There have been many literatures within marketing and advertising industry that discuss the effects of fear and hope primes, but there has been a lack of research examining the moderating influences about how these primes impact consumer health behavioral responses. [1]

The advertisements of food primes causes individuals to depict the imagery of goal related choice focus. This in turn influences responses such as attitude towards the advertisement and the type of food in it. This can create a ‘one good health decision leads to another’ effect and help consumers make healthier future food choices. [1]

Messages intending to arouse a high level of fear or anxiety are unlikely to actually do so. In other words, audiences somehow inoculate themselves against attempts to arouse fear in them. Where a fear response does emerge in the audience it is necessary to distinguish two types of anxiety reaction in the audience – Inhibitory and anticipatory. Messages that successfully evoke greater fear or anxiety in the audience are more likely to be persuasive. In other words, audiences who report greater fear/anxiety following exposure to persuasive messages are also more persuaded by the message. [2]

Emotions (affect heuristics, feelings and gut-feeling reactions are often used as shortcuts.

Extended parallel process model

The Extended Parallel Process Model, or EPPM, includes both thinking and feeling in conjunction with threat and fear appeals (Witte, 1992). EPPM suggests that persuasive fear appeals work best when people have high involvement and high efficacy. In other words, fear appeals are most effective when an individual cares about the issue or situation, and that individual possesses and perceives that they possess the agency to deal with that issue or situation.

Dillard (1994) suggests that “fear appeals have been thought of as messages that attempt to achieve opinion change by establishing the negative consequences of failing to agree with the advocated position” (p. 295). The EPPM (above) looks at the effectiveness of using fear and threat to change attitudes.

Boomerang Effect in EPPM:

If the perception of threat exceeds perception of efficacy:

1. They will avoid the