When Imagining Oneself As the Victim Is Not Always Beneficial: the Impact of Differences in Perspectives on Effectiveness of Charitable Advertisements

Effectiveness of charitable appeals that describe situation confronting beneficiaries (e.g. victims of plight) might depend on the ease with which ad audiences process information of these appeals. This paper investigates the interactive impact of perspectives that people take to process charitable appeals, and vividness of information described on effectiveness of these appeals. We show that increasing vividness of information about beneficiaries increased their likelihood to help and actual monetary donation when participants took a beneficiary-perspective; but decreased these effects when participants took a donor-perspective to process the appeal. Evidence suggests that these effects are mediated by ease of processing.

Citation:

Iris W. Hung and Robert S. Wyer (2011) ,"When Imagining Oneself As the Victim Is Not Always Beneficial: the Impact of Differences in Perspectives on Effectiveness of Charitable Advertisements ", in E - European Advances in Consumer Research Volume 9, eds. Alan Bradshaw, Chris Hackley, and Pauline Maclaran, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 514.