Advertising-Induced Embarrassment

Abstract

Consumer embarrassment is a concern for many advertisers. Yet little is known about ad-induced embarrassment. The authors investigate when and why consumers experience embarrassment as a result of exposure to socially sensitive advertisements. The theory distinguishes between viewing potentially embarrassing ads together with an audience that shares the social identity targeted by the ad and viewing the same ads together with an audience that does not share the targeted social identity. Four studies provide support for the theory, demonstrating that advertising targeting and social context jointly influence feelings of embarrassment and advertising effectiveness. These findings have important theoretical and practical implications for advertisers.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors thank Rick Bagozzi, John Cacioppo, Darren Dahl, Naomi Ellemers, Daniel Fernandes, Stijn van Osselaer, and Nader Tavassoli for their comments. The authors also thank Maartje Schoolderman for help with data collection and SCA for sharing some the commercials used in the studies.

FUNDING

This research was funded by the Institute for Sales and Account Management and the European Commission (through a Marie Curie Fellowship to the first author).

Notes

1. Adding the neutral ad order counterbalancing factor to the model left all results unchanged.

2. Mere anchoring cannot account for the results. The two embarrassing ads were not rated differently when they were presented first (p > .20). We observed, however, a marginal difference within the male viewing partner condition in embarrassment generated by the female and youth ads when they were presented first (M = 2.99 versus 2.23, p < .08). This finding raises the possibility that the three-way interaction emerged as a consequence of a floor effect in the embarrassment generated by the youth ad when this was presented first in the presence of a male. To rule out this explanation, we reestimated the three-way ANOVA removing participants in the male viewing partner condition who selected the lowest embarrassment score for the first embarrassing ad in the sequence; 11 participants were excluded, 7 based on scores on the youth ad. Despite this reduction, the three-way interaction remained significant, F (2, 160) = 3.26, p < .05, and the pattern of results was unchanged.