Framing in Advertising and the Moderating Impact of Education

Gerald Smith

Does framed advertising influence consumer purchase decisions? If so, with which consumer segments is it more influential? How does it influence the purchase process? In this paper the impact of positively and negatively framed advertising is diagnosed on five purchase-decision constructs for a transformational consumer product category.

Framing in Advertising and the Moderating Impact of Consumer Education

Gerald E Smith

For more than a decade, researchers have argued and have found empirically that framing message content either positively or negatively influences decision processing. Most of this research has been done in cause-related or health-related areas such as breast cancer (Meyerowitz and Chaiken, 1987), testicle cancer (Steffen et al, 1994), skin cancer, sexually transmitted disease (Block and Keller, 1995), heart disease (Maheswaran and Meyers-Levy, 1990) and others. Most of these studies consistently find that negatively framed appeals are more effective than positively framed appeals; decision makers appear to...

WARC subscribers can sign in to keep reading

Not a subscriber?

Schedule your live demo with our team today

WARC helps you to plan, create and deliver more effective marketing

  • Prove your case and back-up your idea

  • Get expert guidance on strategic challenges

  • Tackle current and emerging marketing themes

We’re long-term subscribers to WARC and it’s a tool we use extensively. We use it to source case studies and best practice for the purposes of internal training, as well as for putting persuasive cases to clients. In compiling a recent case for long-term, sustained investment in brand, we were able to support key marketing principles with numerous case studies sourced from WARC. It helped bring what could have been a relatively dry deck to life with recognisable brand successes from across a broad number of categories. It’s incredibly efficient to have such a wealth of insight in one place.

Insights Team
Bray Leino

You’re in good company

We work with 80% of Forbes' most valuable brands* and 80% of the world's top top-of-the-class agencies.

* Top 10 brands