Marieke L. Fransen

A typology of consumer strategies for resisting advertising, and a review of mechanisms for countering them

This article presents a typology of the different ways in which consumers resist advertising, and the tactics that can be used to counter or avoid such resistance. It brings together literatures from different fields of study, including advertising, marketing, communication science and psychology. Although researchers in these subfields have shown a substantial interest in (consumer) resistance, these streams of literature are poorly connected. This article aims to facilitate the exchange of knowledge, and serve as a starting point for future research. Our ACE typology distinguishes three types of resistance strategies: Avoiding, Contesting, and Empowering. We introduce these strategies, and present research describing advertising tactics that may be used to neutralize each of them.

Strategies and motives for resistance to persuasion: an integrative framework.

Persuasion is an important element of human communication. But in many situations, we resist rather than embrace persuasive attempts. Resistance to persuasion has been studied in many different disciplines, including communication science, psychology, and marketing. The present paper reviews and connects these diverse literatures, and provides an organizing framework for understanding and studying resistance. Four clusters of resistance strategies are defined (avoidance, contesting, biased processing, and empowerment), and these clusters are related to different motivations for resisting persuasion (threat to freedom, reluctance to change, and concerns of deception). We propose that, while avoidance strategies may be triggered by any of these motivations, contesting strategies are linked primarily to concerns of deception, while empowerment and biased processing strategies are most common when people are reluctant to change.

Effects of Disclosing Sponsored Content in Blogs How the Use of Resistance Strategies Mediates Effects on Persuasion

This article presents two studies examining the effects of disclosing online native advertising (i.e., sponsored content in blogs) on people’s brand attitude and purchase intentions. To investigate the mechanisms underlying these effects, we integrated resistance theories with the persuasion knowledge model. We theorize that disclosures activate people’s persuasion knowledge, which in turn evokes resistance strategies that people use to cope with the persuasion attempt made in the blog. We tested our predications with two experiments (N = 118 and N = 134). We found that participants indeed activated persuasion knowledge in response to disclosures, after which they used both cognitive (counterarguing) and affective (negative affect) resistance strategies to decrease persuasion. The obtained insights do not only advance our theoretical understanding of how disclosures of sponsored blogs affect persuasion but also provide valuable insights for legislators, advertisers, and bloggers.

Matching the Message: The Role of Regulatory Fit in Negative Managerial Communication

The experiments presented here examine how managers and executives can improve the effectiveness of their negative written communications (i.e., refusal of employees’ requests) by incorporating the concept of fit into their message framing. By applying regulatory focus theory, the authors suggest that an outcome-based fit between the message and the recipient leads to more favorable work outcomes. The results of Experiment 1 show that employees retain greater feelings of psychological empowerment when they receive a written refusal framed in terms that match (versus mismatch) their current regulatory focus. Moreover, data from Experiment 2 demonstrate that employees perceive a written refusal as more fair when it is framed in terms that match (versus mismatch) their activated regulatory focus. However, this effect was not found when an employee’s request was approved, an observation that stresses the importance of regulatory fit in negative managerial communications specifically. Finally, this article discusses management implications for designing successful negative written managerial communications.

Increasing sponsorship effectiveness through brand experience.

This quasi-experimental field study examines whether companies can improve the effectiveness of their sponsorship investments by creating a brand experience. Data were collected among participants of a sponsored marathon. During this event participants had the opportunity to engage in an experience orchestrated by one of the main sponsors of the event. We compare the data of participants who ran the marathon and also engaged in the experience with those who solely ran the marathon. The results reveal that participating in the experience increases top of mind awareness, brand recall and attitudes towards the sponsoring brand, compared to just running the marathon. Additionally, within the experience condition, brand experience and flow predict brand attitudes.

Matching Communication Modalities: The Effects of Modality Congruence and Processing Style on Brand Evaluation and Brand Choice

Previous research has shown that prior brand exposure (e.g., through advertising) can positively influence brand consideration, brand attitudes, and brand choice. In the present studies, the authors argue that the effects of prior brand exposure depend on the communication modality (visual vs. aural) in which exposure (i.e., advertising) takes place and the modality in which evaluations and choices are made. It was hypothesized and found that congruence in communication modalities has a positive effect on brand evaluation and brand choice, compared to incongruence in modalities. Perceptual fluency is proposed to be the underlying mechanism explaining these effects. Moreover, the results demonstrated that the effects of modality congruence are moderated by individuals’ processing style in such a way that the impact is stronger under conditions of data-driven as opposed to conceptually driven, processing.These results indicate that consumer responses depend on the interaction between the modality in which consumers are exposed to the brand in advertising and the modality in which consumers encounter the brand in a purchase situation.

Hindering facial mimicry in ad viewing: effects on consumers’ emotions, attitudes and purchase intentions

Recent findings in consumer psychology demonstrate that embodied cognition and bodily mimicry may influence consumers’ attitudes, intentions, and behavior (e.g. Hung & Labroo, 2011; Howard & Gengler, 2001). For example, when two friends (Bill and John) watch a funny advertisement and they both smile this might facilitate each other’s expressiveness and subjective emotional experience. However, when Bill unexpectedly sneers at the funny ad this can be perceived as an incoherent reaction and could therefore interfere with John’s initial cheerful expression. This might reduce his concomitant subjective positive feelings subsequently affecting responses towards the advertisement and the advertised product.

Persuasion in advertising: when does it work, and when does it not?

At its best, advertising wins the hearts and minds of consumers, swaying or solidifying preferences and producing a solid return on investment. But advertising messages do not always receive a warm...

Signalling product healthiness through symbolic package cues: Effects of package shape and goal congruence on consumer behaviour

Three studies show that product packaging shape serves as a cue that communicates healthiness of food products. Inspired by embodiment accounts, we show that packaging that simulates a slim body shape acts as a symbolic cue for product healthiness (e.g., low in calories), as opposed to packaging that simulates a wide body shape. Furthermore, we show that the effect of slim package shape on consumer behaviour is goal dependent. Whereas simulation of a slim (vs. wide) body shape increases choice likelihood and product attitude when consumers have a health-relevant shopping goal, packaging shape does not affect these outcomes when consumers have a hedonic shopping goal. In Study 3, we adopt a realistic shopping paradigm using a shelf with authentic products, and find that a slim (as opposed to wide) package shape increases on-shelf product recognition and increases product attitude for healthy products. We discuss results and implications regarding product positioning and the packaging design process.

Framing in Entertainment-Education: Effects on Processes of Narrative Persuasion

ABSTRACT Nowadays, entertainment-education (E-E) is often used as a persuasive strategy to stimulate prosocial behavior. Although E-E is mostly regarded as a persuasive strategy in itself, in an increasing number of E-E programs several persuasive strategies are used to communicate the educational message to the audience. This study investigates the effects of a strategy widely used in health communication, but not previously studied in the field of E-E: framing. To this means we examined the effect of two different ways an E-E message can be framed: by emphasizing either the losses of not performing the behavior in question or the gains of performing this behavior. A serial multiple mediation model showed that framing affected intention to refrain from drunk cycling via counterarguing and attitude toward drunk cycling; the use of a gain frame decreased counterarguing, which decreased the attitude toward drunk cycling. This subsequently resulted in a higher intention to refrain from this behavior. Implications of these results are discussed.