Depictions of Self-Inflicted Versus Blameless Victims for Nonprofits Employing Print Advertisements

Extant literature over the last couple of years has examined factors affecting donor proclivity to contribute to nonprofits. These studies focused on factors such as negative emotional response to the ad and perceived social responsibility of the sponsor on intent to donate to the sponsor, the use o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of advertising Vol. 41; no. 3; pp. 55 - 74
Main Authors Shanahan, Kevin J., Hopkins, Christopher D., Carlson, Les, Raymond, Mary Anne
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Abingdon Routledge 01.10.2012
M. E. Sharpe, Inc
Taylor & Francis Group LLC
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
Advertising
Advertising campaigns
Analysis
Anti smoking movements
Charitable giving
Donations
Drunk driving
Emotional expression
Empathy
Finance
Forecasts and trends
Impact analysis
Nonprofit organizations
Print advertising
Public service advertising
Public service announcements
Social perception
Social responsibility
Studies
Truth in advertising
United States
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Summary:Extant literature over the last couple of years has examined factors affecting donor proclivity to contribute to nonprofits. These studies focused on factors such as negative emotional response to the ad and perceived social responsibility of the sponsor on intent to donate to the sponsor, the use of implicature, and truth in advertising. Our research adds to this growing body of literature by investigating the effect of self-inflicted harm versus blameless victimization in nonprofit advertising (locus of control of the harm to the victim). We find that blameless victim portrayal results in higher negative emotional response to the public service announcement (PSA), perceived social responsibility of the sponsor, and willingness to donate to the sponsor of a PSA. Specifically, the use of blameless victims seems to have the added benefit of generating more positive perceptions of the sponsor, which, in turn, also leads to higher intentions to donate.
ISSN:0091-3367
1557-7805
DOI:10.2753/JOA0091-3367410304