Research articleHow Broadcast Volume and Emotional Content Affect Youth Recall of Anti-Tobacco Advertising
Introduction
As the seriousness of the global tobacco epidemic becomes more and more apparent, public health agencies have funneled resources into interventions designed to reduce tobacco use. Televised anti-tobacco advertisements have been shown to be effective for reducing both adult smoking1, 2, 3 and youth smoking.4, 5, 6, 7 A downside is their great expense.8 In light of the high cost of such campaigns, it is important for programs to make evidence-based decisions regarding the design of advertisements for particular audiences (i.e., what themes and execution styles are likely to be most effective).
The question of effective anti-tobacco advertisement characteristics has been addressed by a number of investigators. A series of studies by Wakefield and colleagues9, 10 compared audience response to advertisements that varied in theme, emotional tone, and executional style, demonstrating that the ads rated as most effective and the ads most likely to be recalled 1 week later were those that included either personal testimonials or visceral negative imagery. Similar results have been reported by Biener and colleagues,11, 12, 13 who found that both youth and adults rate more highly ads that deal with the negative consequences of smoking in an emotionally evocative way than those that focus on normative issues (e.g., teenagers shouldn't smoke) or cessation tips that use humor. These findings seem to contradict a large body of consumer research that, while supporting the notion that emotional responses to ads are an important determinant of their effectiveness,14, 15 focuses on the goal of eliciting positive emotions such as warmth and pleasure.16, 17 The discrepancy is likely due to the difference between trying to sell a product versus trying to “unsell” a behavior. Much of the research on emotion in health communications has focused on fear appeals, which have been shown to be effective as long as the audience members can see an appropriate action to take to reduce their vulnerability to harm.18 It has been argued that since the appropriate action—to reduce or quit smoking—is quite obvious in anti-tobacco advertisements, fear appeals would be expected to be effective.13
It is not always the case that the negative affect evoked in anti-tobacco advertisements is fear. It is often sadness, empathy for another's loss, or perhaps even guilt for exposing family members to the dangers of secondhand smoke. It seems likely, however, that the underlying dimension of importance in anti-tobacco advertising is the level of emotion aroused in the audience when viewing the advertisement. Several studies that have explicitly assessed the perceived emotional intensity in anti-tobacco advertisements, as well as the valence of the emotion and the predominant message, have shown that (1) the level of emotional intensity is the strongest predictor of perceived effectiveness and (2) it is correlated with messages either of the negative health impacts of smoking or of loss, fear, anger, or sadness resulting from tobacco use.12, 13
The body of research investigating message sensation-value—the degree to which a message elicits sensory, affective, and arousal responses19—supports the hypothesis that the arousal properties of advertisements (usually anti-drug advertisements) are the key to their effectiveness. Although theoretically the most effective messages should be those with arousal properties that match the audience's biologically based level of optimal arousal,20 studies tend to show that highly arousing messages are more effective (i.e., lead to better attention, recall, and comprehension) regardless of audience members' individual level of need for sensation.21, 22, 23, 24
It has been repeatedly demonstrated that media weight (measured in terms of gross rating points [GRPs] or targeted rating points reaching a designated audience segment) is an important determinant of viewer exposure and recall. Both viewer exposure and recall are necessary, but not sufficient, for advertising effectiveness.25, 26, 27 The costs of achieving a given level of exposure for anti-tobacco advertisements vary with the complexity of the local media markets.28 Presumably, economic constraints would dictate that the minimum exposure consistent with effectiveness would be the best. It seems reasonable to predict that the level of arousal evoked by an advertisement would have an impact on its likelihood of being attended to and recalled. Consequently, highly arousing anti-tobacco advertisements may need fewer exposures than less-arousing ones. To date, that supposition had not been investigated in a real-world setting. It was put to the test in this study, which investigated the relationship among media weight, emotional intensity, and the likelihood of an ad's being recalled by youth. The following hypotheses were tested: (1) holding media weight constant, increases in emotional intensity will result in increases in recall; and (2) for a given rate of increase in recall, advertisements low in emotional intensity will require larger increases in media weight than will advertisements high in intensity.
Section snippets
Overview
The Massachusetts Tobacco Control Program (MTCP) sponsored an intensive mass-media campaign between 1994 and 2001. Expending an average of $13 million per year, the campaign over the course of 8 years produced several hundred spots that varied in terms of target audience, emotional intensity, and emotional tone. In addition to the MTCP ads, anti-tobacco ads sponsored by the American Legacy Foundation's truth™ campaign were broadcast in Massachusetts, as were campaigns by tobacco companies
Outcome Variable
The outcome variable was confirmed recall of nine specific anti-tobacco ads. Respondents were given a brief description of the ad and asked if they recalled having seen it; if so, they were asked to provide additional details. Recall was confirmed if the respondent produced recognizable details of the ad in question.
Emotional intensity of advertisements
The emotional intensity of an individual ad was assessed by 72 youth who viewed the ads in six middle-school classrooms. They rated each ad on a number of 7-point scales designed to
Results
The 3332 youth were aged 14.5 years on average; the group was split approximately equally between boys and girls. Seventy-nine percent were non-Hispanic white, and more than two thirds came from households where the adult informant had at least some post-secondary education. On average they reported watching TV between 7:00 pm and 10:00 pm at night 4.3 days a week. Fifty-four percent were committed nonsmokers, 15.6% were ambivalent nonsmokers, 22.6% were experimenters, and 7.8% were established
Discussion
These findings demonstrate that, independent of media weight, anti-tobacco advertisements high in emotional intensity are more likely to be recalled than are advertisements low in emotional intensity. Furthermore, if the advertisement is high rather than low in emotional intensity, then increases in media weight are less important for generating high rates of recall. The greater recall of emotionally intense advertisements could be the result of two different processes: attending more
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