The Unintended Consequences of Disclosure: Effect of Manipulating Sponsor Identification on the Perceived Credibility and Effectiveness of Smoking Cessation Advertisements

Abstract

One reason that tobacco-sponsored smoking cessation ads are less effective than those sponsored by public health agencies may be that the persuasive arguments in tobacco-sponsored ads are inherently weaker than arguments made in public health ads. An alternate explanation is that sponsorship disclosure on the face of the ad activates resistance, partly because of credibility judgments directed toward tobacco companies. The authors test hypotheses in a 3 (sponsor identification) × 2 (ad content) randomized factorial experiment (N = 270). Results indicate that judgments of sponsor credibility play a mediating role in perceptions of ad effectiveness, with identification of a tobacco company as the sponsor of cessation ads undermining perceived credibility compared with the same ads without the tobacco company identified. However, the reduction in credibility resulting from tobacco sponsorship can be partially overcome when the sponsor is placed on more direct ad content (public health ads). The effects of credibility on perceived effectiveness were stronger for more ambiguous ad content and driven by participants with lower levels of involvement (nonsmokers). Credibility judgments are not as important when the ad content is more direct about the health consequences of smoking. Implications of study results for theory and public policy are explored.

Acknowledgments

This article benefited greatly from the ideas and databases generated by National Institutes of Health grant 5R01CA113407-4 (Smoking Cessation and Advertising: An Econometric Study).

Notes

¹Although findings from many of these studies are important in demonstrating the impact of advertising on anti-smoking attitudes, they do not necessarily suggest that the ads directly led to attitude or behavior change as campaigns often occur simultaneously with additional interventions (e.g., in-class antismoking curricula, antismoking ads from alternate sources), which may have also contributed to the ads’ perceived effectiveness. Thus, it is difficult to determine the effectiveness of specific components of these campaigns and tease out sponsorship effects.

²Laboratory pretesting with 12 undergraduate researchers led to the identification of the American Cancer Society as equally recognizable as Philip Morris.

Note. Range: 1–100.

Note. Range: 1–7.

³Using this statistical method is advantageous because (a) it allows for testing of multiple mediators, (b) it does not rely on a normal sampling distribution (MacKinnon, Lockwood, & Williams, 2004; Preacher & Hayes, 2004; Shrout et al., 2002), and (c) it reduces the likelihood of Type 1 error.

⁴When smokers and nonsmokers were combined, the overall significant effect of ad sponsorship on perceived effectiveness (t = 2.70, p < .01) became nonsignificant with credibility included as a mediator variable (t = .82, p < .41). Further, the path analysis from ad sponsorship to credibility revealed a significant effect (t = 4.79, p < .001), as did the path analysis from credibility to perceived effectiveness (t = 4.99, p < .001), indicating full mediation. However, as our test of Hypothesis 5 shows, this effect was driven by nonsmokers.