Mark Forehand

What We See Makes Us Who We Are: Priming Ethnic Self-Awareness and Advertising Response

The authors propose that “ethnic self-awareness”—a temporary state during which a person is more sensitive to information related to his or her own ethnicity—moderates consumer response to targeted advertising. Ethnic self-awareness occurs when a person engages in a process of self-categorization and uses ethnic criteria as the basis for this categorization. The authors hypothesize that “ethnic primes”—visual or verbal cues that draw attention to ethnicity—direct self-categorization and increase ethnic self-awareness. To test these hypotheses, the authors conduct two experiments. Using 109 Asian and Caucasian participants, Experiment 1 assessed the impact of exposure to an Asian ethnic prime on ethnic self-awareness and on response to targeted television advertising. Exposure to an ethnic prime increased the rate at which participants spontaneously mentioned their ethnicity in self-descriptions (a measure of ethnic self-awareness) and caused participants to respond more favorably to same-ethnicity spokespeople and advertising that targeted their ethnicity. Experiment 2 tested the theory in a print advertising context and extended the design by manipulating the type of ethnic prime participants saw (Asian or Caucasian) and the market that the focal advertisement targeted (Asian or Caucasian). Experiment 2 replicated the findings of Experiment 1 when the focal advertisement targeted Asians, but not when it targeted Caucasians.

Implicit Self-Referencing: The Effect of Nonvolitional Self-Association on Brand and Product Attitude

In three experiments, nonvolitional self-association is shown to improve implicit attitude, self-reported attitude, purchase intention, and product choice for both product categories and fictional brands. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrate that arbitrary categorization of self-related content with novel stimuli improved evaluations by creating new self-object associations in memory and that the influence of self-association is moderated by implicit self-esteem. Experiment 3 shows that such implicit self-referencing does not require conscious self-categorization and occurs even when novel stimuli are simply presented in close proximity to self-related content. In this final experiment, subjects responded more positively to brands featured in banner ads on a personal social networking webpage than when featured on an equivalent nonpersonal social networking page. This automatic self-association effect was mediated by the degree to which the advertising prompted an implicit association between the self and the advertised brands.

Riding coattails: : when co-branding helps versus hurts less-known brands

New brands often partner with well-known brands under the assumption that they will benefit from the awareness and positive associations that well-known brands yield. However, this associations-transfer explanation may not predict co-branding results when the expected benefits of the co-branded product are presented simultaneously with the co-branding information. In this case, the results of co-branding instead follow the predictions of adaptive-learning theory which posits that consumers may differentially associate each brand with the outcome as a result of cue interaction effects. Three experiments show that the presence of a well-known brand can weaken or strengthen the association between the less-known brand and the co-branding outcome depending on the timing of the presentation of product benefit information. When this information was presented simultaneously with co-branding information (at a delay after co-branding information), the presence of a well-known brand weakened (strengthened) the association of the less-known brand with the outcome and thereby lowered (improved) evaluation of the less-known brand.

Extending Overjustification: The Effect of Perceived Reward-Giver Intention on Response to Rewards

The perceived intention model incorporates a new moderator, beliefs about reward-giver intention, into the overjustification paradigm. In 2 simulated shopping studies featuring products paired with promotional rewards, consumers who believed the marketer was promotion focused (reward used to encourage purchase) reported lower purchase intentions and brand attitudes for promoted products after promotion, whereas consumers who believed the marketer was reward focused (promotion used to distribute the reward) showed no attitude change. Promotion-focus beliefs lowered attitudes by heightening the contingency between the promotion and purchase and thereby increasing the perceived causal role of the reward. This effect was contingent on initial behavior--postpromotion attitude change occurred for consumers who actively engaged in product decisions but not for consumers who passively observed the choice sets.

An Interpretive Frame Model of Identity-Dependent Learning: The Moderating Role of Content-State Association

Although it is well known that advertising can momentarily activate specific consumer identities and thereby influence preference for identity-relevant products, the influence of such identity activation on consumer memory is undocumented. Identity activation encourages consumers to link advertising content to their identity during encoding, and these links facilitate subsequent recognition if the identity is again activated at retrieval. This identity-dependent processing produces different recognition outcomes for information that is strongly related, moderately related, and unrelated to the identity. Identity activation at both encoding and retrieval improved recognition of advertising content moderately related to the identity but had no effect on recognition of unrelated content. Identity activation at retrieval improved recognition of strongly related content, regardless of whether identity was primed externally at encoding. These results support an interpretative frame process at encoding and suggest that content-state association is a critical moderator of state-dependent learning.

Attitudes towards and Beliefs about HIV Testing among Latino Immigrant MSM: A Comparison of Testers and Nontesters

Latino immigrant men who have sex with men (MSM) are at risk for HIV and delayed diagnosis. An exploratory study using qualitative interviews that assess the beliefs and attitudes of 54 Latino immigrant MSM in Seattle, Washington, is presented. The goal of this research is to determine whether attitudinal differences exist between participants who had and had not been tested and to use any insight into the development of a media campaign to promote testing. Over one-third of the men have never been tested for HIV. Nontesters are more likely to be men who have sex with men and women, have less knowledge about HIV risks, perceive their sexual behaviors as less risky, and deflect HIV-related stigma. Testers are more likely to be self-identified as being gays. Both groups believe that fear of a positive result is the main barrier to testing. Both groups believe that family members have negative attitudes towards HIV testing and that having Latino staff at HIV testing sites hinders confidentiality. Financial concerns with regard to the cost of testing were also expressed by both groups. Based on these insights, recommended strategies for the development of HIV prevention and testing campaigns are made.

HIV Prevention Messages Targeting Young Latino Immigrant MSM

Young Latino immigrant men who have sex with men (MSM) are at risk for HIV and for delayed diagnosis. A need exists to raise awareness about HIV prevention in this population, including the benefits of timely HIV testing. This project was developed through collaboration between University of WA researchers and Entre Hermanos, a community-based organization serving Latinos. Building from a community-based participatory research approach, the researchers developed a campaign that was executed by Activate Brands, based in Denver, Colorado. The authors (a) describe the development of HIV prevention messages through the integration of previously collected formative data; (b) describe the process of translating these messages into PSAs, including the application of a marketing strategy; (c) describe testing the PSAs within the Latino MSM community; and (c) determine a set of important factors to consider when developing HIV prevention messages for young Latino MSM who do not identify as gay.

Social Marketing, Stages of Change, and Public Health Smoking Interventions

As a “thought experiment,” the authors used a modified stages of change model for smoking to define homogeneous segments within various hypothetical populations. The authors then estimated the population effect of public health interventions that targeted the different segments. Under most assumptions, interventions that emphasized primary and secondary prevention, by targeting the Never Smoker, Maintenance, or Action segments, resulted in the highest nonsmoking life expectancy. This result is consistent with both social marketing and public health principles. Although the best thing for an individual smoker is to stop smoking, the greatest public health benefit is achieved by interventions that target nonsmokers.

Barriers to and Facilitators of Alcohol Use Disorder Pharmacotherapy in Primary Care: A Qualitative Study in Five VA Clinics

BackgroundThree medications are FDA-approved and recommended for treating alcohol use disorders (AUD) but they are not offered to most patients with AUD. Primary care (PC) may be an optimal setting in which to offer and prescribe AUD medications, but multiple barriers are likely.Objective This qualitative study used social marketing theory, a behavior change approach that employs business marketing techniques including “segmenting the market,” to describe (1) barriers and facilitators to prescribing AUD medications in PC, and (2) beliefs of PC providers after they were segmented into groups more and less willing to prescribe AUD medications.DesignQualitative, interview-based study.ParticipantsTwenty-four providers from five VA PC clinics.ApproachProviders completed in-person semi-structured interviews, which were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using social marketing theory and thematic analysis. Providers were divided into two groups based on consensus review.Key ResultsBarriers included lack of knowledge and experience, beliefs that medications cannot replace specialty addiction treatment, and alcohol-related stigma. Facilitators included training, support for prescribing, and behavioral staff to support follow-up. Providers more willing to prescribe viewed prescribing for AUD as part of their role as a PC provider, framed medications as a potentially effective “tool” or “foot in the door” for treating AUD, and believed that providing AUD medications in PC might catalyze change while reducing stigma and addressing other barriers to specialty treatment. Those less willing believed that medications could not effectively treat AUD, and that treating AUD was the role of specialty addiction treatment providers, not PC providers, and would require time and expertise they do not have.ConclusionsWe identified barriers to and facilitators of prescribing AUD medications in PC, which, if addressed and/or capitalized on, may increase provision of AUD medications. Providers more willing to prescribe may be the optimal target of a customized implementation intervention to promote changes in prescribing.

Hypertension identification via emergency responders: A randomized controlled intervention study

OBJECTIVE The objective was to test the effectiveness of a mail campaign that included blood pressure (BP) measurements from patients treated by emergency medical technicians (EMTs) to motivate them to (re)check their BP at a fire station. The mailing used a 2×2 research design tailoring on risk and source personalization. METHOD In this randomized controlled trial, participants were randomized into a control group or one of four experimental groups. Participants residing in one of four fire departments in a Pacific Northwest metropolitan area were eligible if they had a systolic BP≥160 mm Hg and/or diastolic BP≥100 mm Hg when seen by EMTs during the study period (July 2007-September 2009). RESULTS Of 7106 eligible participants, 40.7% were reached for a follow-up interview. Multivariable logistic regression analysis showed that although the absolute number of fire station BP checks was low (4%), participants who received any mailed intervention had a 3 to 5-fold increase in the odds of reporting a fire station BP check over controls. Fire station visits did not differ by type of tailored mailing. CONCLUSION Partnering with Emergency Medical Services is an innovative way to identify high-risk community members for population health interventions.