When Visceral Cues in Advertising Cause Withdrawal: Identifying a Boomerang Effect Under Conditions of High Involvement: An Abstract

Abstract

“Visceral factors cause people to behave contrary to their own long-term self-interest, often with full awareness that they are doing so,” (Loewenstein 1996, pp. 272–273). Marketing is replete with visceral cues (Loewenstein 2000). However, in some instances, visceral cues can backfire. Attempts to persuade result in negative attitude transfer, due to unalleviated emotional arousal (Hovland et al. 1953; Yakobovitch and Grinstein 2016; Yoon et al. 2011). The advertiser’s goal to stimulate purchases immediately conflicts with rational decision-making. As a result, consumers may not focus on the imagined experience of owning the item but on the conflict between emotions and logic. Thus, the lack of mental imagery formation can explain consumer reactions to the ad. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to evaluate how promotional ads using visceral cues can attenuate consumer attitudes.