The Effect of Marijuana Scenes in Anti-Marijuana Public Service Announcements on Adolescents' Evaluation of Ad Effectiveness

Abstract

This study explored the possible negative impact of a specific ad feature—marijuana scenes—on adolescents' perceptions of ad effectiveness. A secondary data analysis was conducted on adolescents' evaluations of 60 anti-marijuana public service announcements that were a part of national and state anti-drug campaigns directed at adolescents. The major finding of the study was that marijuana scenes in anti-marijuana public service announcements negatively affected ad liking and thought valence toward the ads among adolescents who were at higher levels of risk for marijuana use. This negative impact was not reversed in the presence of strong anti-marijuana arguments. The results may be used to partially explain the lack of effectiveness of the anti-drug media campaign. It may also help researchers design more effective anti-marijuana ads by isolating adverse elements in the ads that may elicit boomerang effects in the target population.

Notes

¹Although argument strength and perceived message effectiveness adopted similar items in their measurement scales, they represented distinct concepts and were evaluated differently. First, argument strength was an assessment of the argument component of the ads, whereas perceived message effectiveness was an assessment of the ads as a whole, including verbal, audio, and visual components. Second, different samples evaluated argument strength and perceived message effectiveness. Arguments were rated as pure verbal sentences extracted from the ads, whereas ads were evaluated in their audiovisual format. Third, perceived ad effectiveness was a holistic evaluation of the ads and therefore was influenced by not only the arguments but also other message features, including marijuana cues, MSV, and so forth. Thus no significant correlation was found between argument strength and perceived message effectiveness (r = .17, p = ns).

²For high-risk adolescents, inspiration was the only emotion that was significantly correlated with marijuana scenes. For low-risk adolescents, feeling afraid was the only other emotion that was significantly related to marijuana scenes, r = .26, p < .05.