The purpose of this study is to determine how effective celebrity endorsements are in regards to the type of gift purchase one decides to make (i.e., buying for someone who has a high significant meaning to the buyer, such as a best friend, versus buying for someone who has a low significant meaning to the buyer, such as a casual friend). The study seeks to extend upon the anthropology research exploring gift-giving and marketing research exploring celebrity endorsements by applying the tenants of the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM). This study uses an experimental procedure in order to determine the effect of using celebrity endorsements on buyers' attitudes and purchase intentions for gift-giving purchases in low and high involving categories. Results indicate that celebrity endorsements have no influence on attitudes and purchase intention in different product involvement and gift giver-receiver conditions.

This study establishes a link between research on organizational source credibility and the effects of public information campaigns. Research has established that source credibility is one factor audiences evaluate when responding to messages and that credible information sources enhance message acceptance, while untrustworthy sources can interfere with desired message effects. Although source credibility studies have typically focused on the person delivering a message, recent studies indicate that audience perceptions of the organization sponsoring a message has a direct effect on message acceptance as well. Additionally, a few studies indicate that non-profit sources of health information are viewed as more credible, while such messages presented by for-profit organizations are less effective. This study uses an experimental procedure to investigate the relationship between organizational status, source credibility, and two possible effects of public service messages, information seeking and behavioral intent. Based on previous findings, the study hypothesized that the non-profit source would berated as more credible and that as the audiences' perception of source credibility increases so would their willingness to seek additional information or perform the advocated behaviors. Findings indicate, however, that organizational status does not have a significant effect on perceptions of source credibility. Nor does it significantly influence message evaluation, information seeking, or behavioral intent. As predicted, there was a positive correlation between source credibility, message credibility, problem recognition, personal relevance, information seeking, and behavioral intent. The results also indicate that information seeking positively predicts behavioral intent.

La consommation de la cigarette constitue de nos jours un problème de santé publique. L’OMS a mis plusieurs outils à la disposition des Etats, dont les avertissements sanitaires pour lutter contre le tabagisme. Au Burkina Faso, l’avertissement sanitaire actuel en vigueur est sous forme textuelle de petite taille. La littérature en marketing social s’est intéressée à l’impact des avertissements sanitaires textuels et visuels sur les réactions affectives, cognitives et conatives des fumeurs et des non-fumeurs. Des divergences existent toujours sur l’efficacité des avertissements sanitaires de façon générale et de façon particulière, ceux qui suscitent des émotions négatives. Aussi très peu de recherches ont été réalisées sur des individus non-lettrés. Partant de ces constats, la présente thèse s’est fixée pour objectif de tester l’impact sur les fumeurs et les non-fumeurs, de l’avertissement sanitaire textuel actuel en vigueur au Burkina Faso et des 72 nouveaux avertissements sanitaires visuels proposés par l’OMS pour les pays africains. Nous avons mené une étude qualitative à travers des entretiens individuels. Les résultats indiquent que l’avertissement sanitaire textuel actuel a peu d’impact sur les réactions affectives, cognitives et les intentions comportementales des fumeurs et des non-fumeurs. En revanche, les avertissements sanitaires visuels ont plus d’impact sur les fumeurs et les non-fumeurs comparativement à l’avertissement sanitaire textuel. Les avertissements sanitaires qui suscitent plus d’émotions négatives (peur) ont plus d’impact sur l’intention comportementale des fumeurs et des non-fumeurs. Une étude quantitative a ensuite été réalisée pour comparer l’avertissement sanitaire textuel actuel en vigueur au Burkina Faso à 4 nouveaux avertissements sanitaires visuels choisis parmi les 72, à l’issue de l’étude qualitative. Les résultats de l’étude quantitative vont dans le sens de ceux de l’étude qualitative. A l’exception de la variable « lecture », le niveau d’instruction des fumeurs (lettré ou non-lettré) n’exerce pas une influence sur l’impact des avertissements sanitaires. Le sexe et la tranche d’âge des individus n’ont pas aussi d’effet significatif sur l’impact des avertissements sanitaires. La présente thèse contribue à enrichir la littérature sur les avertissements sanitaires dans les pays en développement et sur des cibles non-lettrées. Sur le plan de la santé publique, nos résultats suggèrent l’apposition des avertissements sanitaires visuels sur les paquets de cigarettes au Burkina Faso pour la lutte contre le tabagisme. / Smoking cigarettes is nowadays a public health issue. The World Health Organization has made several tools available to the States, including health warnings for nicotinism. In Burkina Faso, the current health warning in force is in small size textual form. Social marketing literature has focused on the impact of textual and visual health warnings on the affective, cognitive and conative responses of smokers and non-smokers. Divergences still exist on the effectiveness of health warnings in a general way and particularly, those which arouse negative emotions. Thus, very little research has been carried out on illiterate individuals. Based on these observations, the present thesis aims to test the impact on smokers and non-smokers, of the current textual health warning in force in Burkina Faso and the 72 new visual health warnings proposed by the WHO for African countries. We conducted a qualitative study through individual interviews. The results show that the current textual health warning has little impact on the emotional, cognitive and behavioral intents of smokers and non-smokers. But, visual health warnings have a greater impact on smokers and non-smokers compared to the textual health warning. Health warnings that cause more negative emotions (fear) have more impact on the behavioral intent of smokers and non-smokers. A quantitative study has then been carried out to compare the current textual health warning in force in Burkina Faso with 4 new visual health warnings selected from the 72, following the qualitative study. The quantitative study’s results are in line with those of the qualitative study. With the exception of the « reading » variable, smokers’ level of education (literate or non-literate) does not influence the impact of health warnings. Gender and age range of individuals do not also have a significant effect on the impact of health warnings. This thesis helps to enrich the literature on health warnings in developing countries and on non-literate people. In terms of public health, our results suggest the addition of visual health warnings on cigarette packets in Burkina Faso to fight against smoking.