Understanding Matching Effects in Advertising
Loading...
Date
2013-12
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The Ohio State University
Abstract
Abstract:
Previous studies have shown that when persuasive messages contain appeals that match readers’ personal traits or characteristics (e.g., affective/cognitive bases of attitudes, attitude function and self-schema), the message can change people’s attitudes more. Matching the cultural values between messages and readers is another approach that can make the message more persuasive. Our study specifically focuses on the mechanism behind matching individualism-collectivism difference in cultures. That is, an individualistic person may find individualistic messages to be more persuasive than collectivistic messages, and vice versa. In other types of matching effects, matching produces more persuasion because it increases readers’ level of thinking (Brannon & McCabe 2008; Petty, Wheeler & Bizer, 2000; Wheeler, Petty, & Bizer, 2005). We believe that culture matching effects can lead to more persuasion for the same reason. That is, matching individualistic and collectivistic values in advertisements to a person’s own values leads to more persuasiveness only when the arguments are strong because matching really influences thinking toward the messages. In this study, we manipulated whether an advertisement appealed to individualistic vs. collectivistic values and whether the arguments in the message were strong or weak. We also measured participants’ individualism-collectivism differences using an established scale. The data partially supported our hypothesis; participants high in collectivism showed increased processing for the collectivistic (vs. individualistic) advertisement. However, the data for individualism did not show a significant preference for individualistic (vs. collectivistic) messages. These findings may be useful in advertising and health promotion that for matching effects to maximize its persuasiveness, we should also give strong arguments to the readers.
Description
Arts and Sciences Research Scholarship
Summer Research Fellowship - Psychology
Summer Research Fellowship - Psychology
Keywords
Culture Matching Effects in Advertising