Relax Your Fear—The role of autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) in green advertising

Afred Suci, Hui-Chih Wang and Her-Sen Doong

Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 2023, vol. 75, issue C

Abstract: As a novel approach in green advertising, the autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR), which induces relaxation and pleasure, is expected to relieve the excessive negativity caused by a negative environmental message. Drawing from the fear-relief theory, mating attraction strategy, and rational choice theory, this experimental study investigated the effectiveness of embedding ASMR within a negative green ad in controlling viewers' fear. It also explored the effects of ASMR on buying intention between two different perceived-difficulty eco-friendly products. The study involved 240 young adults. The findings reveal that, compared to non-ASMR exposures, interplaying negative appeal with ASMR could significantly decrease young adults' fear. Young male adults experienced lower fear than females when seeing a female ASMR-tist. In contrast, male and female adults' fears were relatively equal when seeing male ASMR-tist in a negative green message. Yet, no direct and indirect effects of lower fear on green buying intention mediated by attitude toward the ad were observed. Findings are discussed in terms of theoretical and practical contributions.

Keywords: Green advertising; ASMR; Fear; Attitude toward the ad; Green buying intention; Perceived difficulty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joreco:v:75:y:2023:i:c:s0969698923002266

DOI: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2023.103479

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