This thesis includes several studies on the use of fear appeals in social marketing advertising. The first study uses a content analysis to examine the use of fear appeals in a sample of 589 social marketing television ads. The social marketing ads represented five health-related behaviors (smoking, drinking, driving while impaired, drug abuse, unsafe sex) in five countries (Canada, United States, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand), covering the period from 1980 through to 1994. The sample was content analyzed to examine the incidence of fear appeals, the adherence to the prescriptions of the Ordered Protection Motivation (OPM) model (Tanner, Hunt, and Eppright 1991), and whether fear appeals vary by country-of-origin, the types of behavior being targeted by social marketing advertising (smoking, drinking, driving while impaired, drug abuse, unsafe sex), and the choice of an intended target group (by age and/or sex). Findings suggest that ads generally adhere to the major tenets of the OPM model. In terms of incidence, the use of fear appeals is less common when the sponsor is a for-profit corporation, when the ads are targeted at a youthful target group, and when the behaviors being targeted are perceived to be less serious. Fear appeals appear to be more common in ads from Australia, as compared to the United States or Canada. To examine the idea that different target groups may respond differently to fear appeal ads, two experiments and a focus group were conducted. First, an exploratory experiment used drinking and driving (DUI) ads as a stimulus to examine the differential effectiveness of two different types of ads against different behavioral risk groups. This study compared an "OPM" social marketing print ad (i.e., one using fear appeals of the format prescribed by the OPM model), to a "MALADAPT" social marketing print ad (i.e., one which simply presents counter-arguments against maladaptive responses, beliefs, and behaviors). Individuals who differed in the extent to which they engaged in the targeted risky behavior (i.e., those who do engage in DUI versus those who do not engage in DUI) were exposed to either the "OPM" or "MALADAPT" social marketing ads, or to a control condition. It was expected that the non-DUI group would experience the greatest change in attitudes and behavioral intentions when exposed to the traditional "OPM" social marketing ad, while the DUI group would experience the greatest attitudinal/behavioral change when exposed to the "MALADAPT" social marketing ad. However, the results of the initial exploratory experiment were inconclusive, and further study of the DUI target group was warranted. Therefore, a focus group was conducted which examined the attitudes and beliefs of the DUI group. A key finding from this qualitative research was that DUI individuals are unconcerned about getting into an accident, but are instead primarily concerned with getting caught by the police. This suggests that some of the traditional high-fear appeals which feature bloody accidents may not be effective with this high-risk target group, and reinforces the idea that the MALADAPT ad which tries to attack maladaptive beliefs may be the most effective means of influencing this DUI target group. Insights from the focus group provided the means for improving the ad stimuli and questionnaire for a replication of the experiment. Pretests for the ad stimuli helped in developing ads which were compelling and interesting for all experimental conditions. Based on these inputs, the experiment was refined and replicated. Findings indicated that the "MALADAPT" ad (which attacked maladaptive coping responses) was actually more effective with the high risk DUI group than the traditional OPM fear-appeal type of ad.

This thesis includes several studies on the use of fear appeals in social marketing advertising. The first study uses a content analysis to examine the use of fear appeals in a sample of 589 social marketing television ads. The social marketing ads represented five health-related behaviors (smoking, drinking, driving while impaired, drug abuse, unsafe sex) in five countries (Canada, United States, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand), covering the period from 1980 through to 1994. The sample was content analyzed to examine the incidence of fear appeals, the adherence to the prescriptions of the Ordered Protection Motivation (OPM) model (Tanner, Hunt, and Eppright 1991), and whether fear appeals vary by country-of-origin, the types of behavior being targeted by social marketing advertising (smoking, drinking, driving while impaired, drug abuse, unsafe sex), and the choice of an intended target group (by age and/or sex). Findings suggest that ads generally adhere to the major tenets of the OPM model. In terms of incidence, the use of fear appeals is less common when the sponsor is a for-profit corporation, when the ads are targeted at a youthful target group, and when the behaviors being targeted are perceived to be less serious. Fear appeals appear to be more common in ads from Australia, as compared to the United States or Canada. To examine the idea that different target groups may respond differently to fear appeal ads, two experiments and a focus group were conducted. First, an exploratory experiment used drinking and driving (DUI) ads as a stimulus to examine the differential effectiveness of two different types of ads against different behavioral risk groups. This study compared an "OPM" social marketing print ad (i.e., one using fear appeals of the format prescribed by the OPM model), to a "MALADAPT" social marketing print ad (i.e., one which simply presents counter-arguments against maladaptive responses, beliefs, and behaviors). Individuals who differed in the extent to which they engaged in the targeted risky behavior (i.e., those who do engage in DUI versus those who do not engage in DUI) were exposed to either the "OPM" or "MALADAPT" social marketing ads, or to a control condition. It was expected that the non-DUI group would experience the greatest change in attitudes and behavioral intentions when exposed to the traditional "OPM" social marketing ad, while the DUI group would experience the greatest attitudinal/behavioral change when exposed to the "MALADAPT" social marketing ad. However, the results of the initial exploratory experiment were inconclusive, and further study of the DUI target group was warranted. Therefore, a focus group was conducted which examined the attitudes and beliefs of the DUI group. A key finding from this qualitative research was that DUI individuals are unconcerned about getting into an accident, but are instead primarily concerned with getting caught by the police. This suggests that some of the traditional high-fear appeals which feature bloody accidents may not be effective with this high-risk target group, and reinforces the idea that the MALADAPT ad which tries to attack maladaptive beliefs may be the most effective means of influencing this DUI target group. Insights from the focus group provided the means for improving the ad stimuli and questionnaire for a replication of the experiment. Pretests for the ad stimuli helped in developing ads which were compelling and interesting for all experimental conditions. Based on these inputs, the experiment was refined and replicated. Findings indicated that the "MALADAPT" ad (which attacked maladaptive coping responses) was actually more effective with the high risk DUI group than the traditional OPM fear-appeal type of ad. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

This thesis aims to investigate whether shopping is still a gendered activity in the 21st century. Past research in a number of social science disciplines with a focus on consumer affairs indicated that traditionally shopping was part of the woman’s domain and therefore it was seen as an activity only women engaged in. More current research has however suggested that shopping is no longer just a female activity, and asked for more research to be conducted into both male and female consumer behaviour. The present thesis focuses on recreational shopping and attempts to address the issue of male and female consumer behaviour by means of a multi-method approach. Chapter 1 summarises the background literature and provides the rationale for the research conducted in this thesis. Chapter 2 focuses on the methodological issues relating to the present studies provides a justification of each methodological approach used. Chapters 3 to 6 present the empirical work carried out for this thesis and Chapter 7 presents the conclusions drawn from the research carried out. In Chapter 3 we present an investigation of participants’ (27 men and 71 women) written accounts of past (good and bad) and ideal shopping experiences using thematic analysis. The findings show that women report higher overall shopping enjoyment than men, which is in agreement with previous research results. However, men and women describe similar obstacles and negative experiences that deter them from participating or wanting to participate in shopping activities, and they exhibit similar motivations when thinking about shopping. In contrast, all descriptions of ideal shopping experiences were highly idiosyncratic. The study presented in Chapter 4 explores the relationship between product involvement and shopping enjoyment. One hundred and seventy-four participants (69 men and 102 women) responded to an online questionnaire, which measured attitudes towards shopping in general and shopping in a high involvement situation. As in the previous study, the results showed that overall women reported much higher general shopping enjoyment than men. But when product involvement was high men reported a more positive attitude toward shopping than when just rating shopping in general. This suggests that the issue of gender differences in shopping enjoyment needed to be investigated further and that a more fine-grained approach to research in this area was required to explore the differences and similarities in the way that men and women approach this activity. In Chapter 5 we investigate potential differences and similarities in men and women’s conceptions of shopping. The first study in this chapter asked participants to list types of shopping or shopping activities as they came to mind and the second study utilised a free-sort task. Surprisingly, the results from the Chi-Square analysis of Study 3 and EXTREE and INDSCAL analysis of Study 4 showed that there are very few significant differences in how men and women view shopping. Thus, it seems both sexes appear to think about shopping in very similar (if not the same) ways. In order to address this question in more depth, the study presented in Chapter 6 took a different methodological approach. Here, a focus group study was carried out to explore what lies behind men and women’s conceptions of shopping. Three groups (N=19) of first year undergraduate students participated in focus groups and discussed what they thought and felt about shopping. Results showed that perceptions of what shopping is are very strong even amongst this group of young consumers. Finally, the results are reviewed in Chapter 7 together with their implications, limitations of the present research and possible future directions.

Marketing is about numbers but not necessarily just a number. From a big crowd to a half empty arena, adjectives carry numerical associations. The research within this dissertation builds on that idea while focusing on markedness, a linguistics theory, which has been called the evaluative superstructure of language. For example, asking "How tall is the person?" is not an indication that the person is tall but merely a neutral way to ask about a person's height. Tall, in this case, is considered an unmarked term given its neutral meaning. Asking "How short is the person?" however, implies the person is actually short in addition to asking for their height. Linguistics literature has touched on the power of language in numerical estimations but has not fully explored it, nor has linguistics literature transitioned to the marketing literature. Study 1 begins to explore markedness in a consumer setting by using Google Trends to show that unmarked terms, such as tall, are searched more frequently than marked terms, such as short. Study 2 shows that using an unmarked term results in significantly higher estimates of crowd size than using a marked term but is not significantly different than using a neutral term. Study 3 incorporates numerical anchors, which reduce the markedness effects. Study 4 illustrates how an unmarked term results in a wider range of crowd size estimates than a marked term. Study 5 shows how markedness effects are largely eliminated based on the source of the message (team) and capacity constraint of the arena. Study 6 incorporates time to show that markedness effects are stronger in a judgment framed as per day than per year. Studies 7, 8 and 10 show how a marked term, such as half empty, results in significantly different numerical estimates over time. This effect is eliminated when reference to a point in time, such as "at halftime", is removed (study 9). These findings highlight the role of markedness in consumer judgment and have important implications for a variety of marketing theories.

abstract: Future autonomous vehicle systems will be diverse in design and functionality since they will be produced by different brands. In the automotive industry, trustworthiness of a vehicle is closely tied to its perceived safety. Trust involves dependence on another agent in an uncertain situation. Perceptions of system safety, trustworthiness, and performance are important because they guide people’s behavior towards automation. Specifically, these perceptions impact how reliant people believe they can be on the system to do a certain task. Over or under reliance can be a concern for safety because they involve the person allocating tasks between themselves and the system in inappropriate ways. If a person trusts a brand they may also believe the brand’s technology will keep them safe. The present study measured brand trust associations and performance expectations for safety between twelve different automobile brands using an online survey. The literature and results of the present study suggest perceived trustworthiness for safety of the automation and the brand of the automation, could together impact trust. Results revelated that brands closely related to the trust-based attributes, Confidence, Secure, Integrity, and Trustworthiness were expected to produce autonomous vehicle technology that performs in a safer way. While, brands more related to the trust-based attributes Harmful, Deceptive, Underhanded, Suspicious, Beware, and Familiar were expected to produce autonomous vehicle technology that performs in a less safe way. These findings contribute to both the fields of Human-Automation Interaction and Consumer Psychology. Typically, brands and automation are discussed separately however, this work suggests an important relationship may exist. A deeper understanding of brand trust as it relates to autonomous vehicles can help producers understand potential for over or under reliance and create safer systems that help users calibrate trust appropriately. Considering the impact on safety, more research should be conducted to explore brand trust and expectations for performance between various brands. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Human Systems Engineering 2018

The financial tsunami struck the entire world in 2008, leading to global economic downturn and unprecedented loss in the global financial markets. In an already weakened economic environment, investors continued to lose confidence, unemployment soared to an all time high and consumer spending continued to shrink. Thus economic growth continued to spiral downward. After careful consideration of all economic indicators and approaches taken by other countries, the Taiwan government launched the Consumption Voucher Policy in a short period of time. The government launched a variety of economic stimulus packages to revive the economy and restore economic growth as quickly as possible. To make distribution of consumption vouchers in the amount of NTD 3,600 dollars to each person, for which was to be spent within a short period of time, and it was estimated to add 0.66 percent on the economic growth of 2009. The issuance of the consumption voucher which helped to stop the economic free fall by encouraging consumer spending, also demonstrated government efficiency and exhibited cooperation among government authorities and people. The scope of this study is focusing on the causes and effectiveness of the program, and summarizing the data collected to record the first issuance of consumption vouchers.

Abstract Egyptian Queen Cleopatra was famous of her make-up skills, and using cosmetics have become a fashionable trend among women throughout the world since then. When Greek invaded Egypt, they brought the technology of cosmetics back to Greece, and cosmetics were widely spread in Europe from Rome. The technology of makeup skills began to prevail in French at the year of 1700s, while Americans started to know it during the colonization period. Nowadays, the cosmetics industry takes a great part in American consuming market that makes billion of U.S dollars each year. Make-up skills result from the instinct of humanity of beauty pursuing and it turn to be an art in peoples¡¦ life, thus, cosmetics is a potential industry on the modern earth. Prevailing comes from the industry of consuming trend, and it could possibly change the consumers¡¦ behavior. Hence, the researches observe consumers¡¦ behavior form consumption information, customer demand, appraisal, preference, action, contentment, etc. Analyzing the psychological anticipation of the consumers, consumers¡¦ behavior could be divided into three stages: the past, present and oncoming consuming behavior information. The value of marketing analysis lies on the past experience learning, and the future tendency predicting. If you can take control over the prospective consuming trend and plan a correct marketing strategy, you will be in success in the trade of management. Above all, the future of cosmetics consuming group will propose four sorts of hypothesis: 1.To analyze consumers¡¦ behavior and psychology. 2. A consumer behavior. 3. A marketing characteristic. 4. The variable of demographic statistics that will design on the research structure from the female student of college on consuming behavior in Taiwan. This researches application of respectively a school theory that include consume decision-make model, consumer psychology, consumer behavior method, ¡uMaslow¡v theory the hierarchy of needs, demography, to explain the structure relationship of four sorts of hypothesis and develop the questionnaire to draft the result of study. It majors in trend of future on consuming to compare female student of college of survey report with Path Analysis Models of Statistics. The study will be designed to anticipate at cosmetics consume trend to two dimensions of biochemical products and the digit science and technology (business of Internet).

La consommation de musique live durant les concerts peut avoir des conséquences graves pour les individus et la société dans son ensemble. Cette thèse explore les motivations des consommateurs à s’exposer à des niveaux sonores extrêmes. Nous nous concentrons plus précisément sur le cas du métal, un genre qui place la puissance sonore au coeur de son identité collective. Nous analysons comment les amateurs du genre valorisent des niveaux sonores potentiellement délétères. Nous utilisons un paradigme sémiotique afin d’interpréter les données issues d’un travail ethnographique multi-méthodes et identifions quatre registres de valorisation : épistémique et transformatif, politique, spirituel, et esthétique. Cette approche dégage le sens profond et riche de la consommation de la puissance sonore et contribue ainsi à expliquer la résistance de certains consommateurs aux politiques de santé publiques promouvant la protection de soi. Notre analyse mitige également l’absolutisme des recommandations émises par la psychologie des comportements de santé du consommateur, un courant de recherche que nous analysons dans notre section théorique. / The consumption of live music during concerts can have dire consequences for individuals and society alike. This dissertation explores consumers’ motivations to expose themselves to extreme sound levels. Focusing on metal – i.e. a genre that places loudness at the heart of its collective identity – we discuss how music enthusiasts come to valorize potentially deleterious sonic stimuli. We use a semiotic framework to interpret our multi-method ethnography and identify four areas of valorization with respect to loudness: epistemic and self-transformative, political, spiritual, and aesthetic. This approach paints loudness consumption as a deeply meaningful process. In doing so, it helps to understand consumers’ resistances to the public policies that advocate self-protection from harmful sound levels. It also casts doubt about the absolutism that shrouds the recommendations issued from consumer health psychology, a research stream we review in our theoretical section.

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