Fear Appeals in Advertising: When Do They Work

Fear appeals do bring home the severity of the impending consequences, but they can also alienate consumers if the ads do not offer immediate remedial steps that are feasible. The fear induced should not be very strong. And message arguments or sources should be strong enough to discourage counter arguing. Fear works best when:

• Consumers are not sufficiently motivated. It raises problem salience; it helps to lift them out of apathy and inaction.
• The solution is clear, and not too difficult to implement.

Fear may backfire if consumers can’t implement the solution or decide not to want to. Then there is, for them, only one option—to dismiss the threat and disparage the fear-mongering ad.

Most consumers have self-selectivity bias—they dismiss a negative-consequence ad by rationalizing that “it won’t happen to me.” To counter this tendency, an ad should show not only the risk consequences but also the risk probability as well. A current TV commercial for Zocor (a cholesterol control medication) shows two identical and perfectly normal looking persons going about their chores and one of them falling down suddenly—due to high cholesterol; the message: “Anyone may be suffering from high cholesterol!”

……………………………………………………………………………

Source: MyCBBook (Chapter 8) www.mycbbook.com Google keyword: MyCBBook