Advertising Framing Effects and Consideration of Future Consequences

Many consumers have a difficult time considering the future consequences of their behaviors and are prone to discount future health risks. The two experiments presented here test the effectiveness of framing techniques designed to persuade consumers who typically do not consider the future consequences of their behaviors to make better health decisions. Results from Study 1 show that present-oriented consumers can be more strongly persuaded by messages that emphasize proximal rather than distal consequences of unhealthy food choices. Findings of Study 2 suggest that messages focused on promotion strategies (vs. prevention strategies) result in higher behavioral intentions for present-oriented consumers. ********** Approximately one-third of Americans are overweight and another third are obese (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] 2010). Being overweight increases the risk for the top three causes of death for Americans--heart disease, cancer and cerebrovascular ailments (including strokes)--and is strongly linked to the sixth leading killer, diabetes (CDC 2009). Body fat, obesity and associated health ailments are oftentimes directly related to consumers' choices, behaviors and lifestyles. Lifestyle behaviors such as unhealthy diets (overeating) and lack of exercise contribute to the obesity epidemic and pose a severe risk to public health. Studying why people consistently make poor health decisions--overeating and lack of exercise--with potentially harmful long-term consequences is a difficult and complicated task (Nayga 2000; Mazis and Raymond 1997). One explanation as to why some consumers make poor health decisions is that they may have a lower propensity to consider the future consequences of their behavior. Given the recent media attention to the obesity epidemic, it is likely that most consumers are aware of the relationship between diet and exercise behaviors and weight-related disorders (Binkley 2006; Huston and Finke 2003). However, differences in the degree to which people are concerned with the potential future consequence behaviors may play a strong role in the decisions they make related to eating and exercising. In addition to individual factors, public health communication has become a popular way to try to persuade consumers to make better health decisions. Health messages can and often do vary in terms of how they are framed (or phrased), and it is sometimes unclear what specific messages resonate with consumers. Message framing is a generic term representing how a message is presented. For instance, health information can be communicated in terms of raw numbers (18 million Americans per year suffer from diabetes), cost (diabetes costs the US $132 billion annually) and percentages (diabetes afflicts 6.3% of the US population). The meaning and effectiveness of the message is determined, in large part, by how it is framed. Consumers can construe objective information as more or less meaningful, relevant and important depending on the message frame. Some research has shown that framing a health risk message in a manner that makes the risk seem more immediate (i.e., days) rather than distant (i.e., years) can effectively persuade consumers to take the risks more seriously (Chandran and Menon 2004). Moreover, health-related persuasive messages can be promotional (eat more fruits and vegetables to achieve good health) or preventive (avoid foods high in saturated fat to avoid poor health). This article will examine whether an individual's time orientation (present vs. future) will influence their perception of and intent to act on health advertisements that differ in the framing of the health message. Study 1 examines ads that are framed in two different ways: (1) proximal framed messages and (2)distally framed messages. Study 2 examines promotion framed messages vs. prevention framed messages. CONCEPTUALIZATION AND HYPOTHESES Temporal Framing Effects Many studies in marketing and psychology have demonstrated robust message framing effects across a variety of domains (see Levin, Schneider, and Gaeth 1998 for a review). …