Kevin Guan

19294736

EMOTIONAL COMPATIBILITY AND THE EFFECTIVENESS OF ANTI-DRINKING MESSAGES: A

DEFENSIVE PROCESSING PERSPECTIVE ON SHAME AND GUILT
Journal of Marketing Research (JMR) – April 1, 2010
Nidhi Agrawal and Adam Duhachek

Question: Do anti-drinking advertisements that center on emotional appeals accomplish the role
of discouraging people from drinking?

Hypothesis: Anti-drinking advertisements that center on emotional appeals are not effective

Summary

The authors show that advertisements that attempt to make drinkers feel guilty or

shameful can make drinkers defensive about their behaviors, and actually cause them to consume

even more alcohol. People who initially feel guilt are tempted to reduce their guilt by

unconsciously trying to block out their guilt and actively dismiss those feelings. The drinkers

accomplish that by separating their own drinking with that of the consequences of the drinkers in

the advertisements. The researchers conclude that emotional appeal anti-drinking advertisements

not only can be blocked out by viewers but also have the effect of distorting drinkers’ outlook on

the consequences of drinking. All in all, these findings indicate that anti-drinking advertisements

that use emotional appeals are not effective at stopping people from drinking, and may even

encourage them to drink more.

Next Steps

Further research should be done on whether anti-drinking advertisements work at all. It is

hard to imagine that short depiction of possible consequences or events that happened to

complete strangers can have a profound effect on drinkers who have great incentive to consume

alcohol at a much later time when the message of the advertisements has been forgotten.