A cross-cultural study on the effects of envy-evoking ads

Ads often feature celebrities or others similar to the target viewer and thereby evoke envy. Envy occurs when people make an upward social comparison, and evoked envy can be either benign or malicious.

Introduction

Ads often promote products by showing celebrities or people similar to the target customers. These strategies, respectively, named celebrity endorsement and "keeping up with the Joneses," have long been used in advertising to persuade target customers. The current study considers those strategies to be envy evoking and studies consumer response to them in a cross-cultural setting.

Envy is a social emotion that arises when people make upward social comparisons (Smith & Kim, 2007). People feel envious when others have something valuable or desirable which they themselves do not have. By featuring a celebrity or similar others (e.g., their friends)...

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