How to make guilt-trip communications work

This article looks at how guilt-eliciting communications, so extensively used by charities asking for donations and governments attempting to demarket certain harmful behaviours, can be used by more conventional marketers and offers a number of guidelines.

Best practice in guilt-trip communications

Paolo Antonetti and Paul BainesQueen Mary University of London and Cranfield University

Guilt-eliciting communications are used extensively by charities when advertising for donations, and by governments when attempting to demarket behaviours such as smoking in front of children or drink-driving, but how useful are guilt-eliciting communications for conventional marketers?

Marketing messages that seek to elicit guilt are very common. Healthier food alternatives or ecological products are frequently promoted as 'guilt-free' choices. Marketing aimed at parents is another context where companies feed on the target audience's insecurities to trigger guilty feelings to motivate the purchase...

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