Facebook recruitment of smokers: comparing gain- and loss-framed ads for the purposes of an Internet-based smoking cessation intervention

Abstract

Gain- and loss-framed messages about smoking behavior have commonly been used to promote cessation. However, there are still no clear conclusions as to what kind of message is more effective for motivating smokers to quit. This study compared the effectiveness of loss- and gain-framed messages in the online recruitment of smokers via Facebook Advertising. Loss- and gain-framed messages about smoking were created and released as Facebook ads. Users who clicked on the ads were automatically redirected to the “Live Without Tobacco” intervention (http://www.vivasemtabaco.com.br). The amount spent on the ads was BRL 647.64. Data were collected from the Facebook Ads platform and from a relational database. Analyses were performed on the 6,350 users who clicked on one of the ads and 1,731 who were successfully redirected to the intervention. Gain-framed ads reached 174,029 people and loss-framed ads reached 180,527. The former received 2,688 clicks, while the latter received 3,662. The cost of the click was BRL 0.12 per gain-framed ad and BRL 0.09 per loss-framed ad. Loss-framed ads reached more users, got more clicks (and website accesses), and led to more accounts and quit plans being created. Loss-framed messages about smoking appear to be more cost-effective for both initial recruitment and intervention engagement. Facebook has proven to be a good outreach and recruitment tool and can be a solution for the difficulty in reaching smokers for cessation interventions.

Exploring features of social support in a Chinese online smoking cessation community: A multidimensional content analysis of user interaction data

“…28 In recent years, Internet-based smoking cessation programs have been widely conducted. [29][30][31] Smoking interventions implemented by the professional have been used to increase the cessation rate and the quality of information about smoking cessation. 32,33 Also, smokers spontaneously blogged to share their experiences to provide social support and help other smokers.…”

Message framing and self-efficacy. An analysis in social health campaigns in young Spaniards

“…Existing evidence suggests that positively gain-framed messages were more persuasive than loss-framed messages for promoting prevention behaviors (Gallagher & Updegraff, 2012), whereas loss-framed messages should be more persuasive for disease detection behaviors (Brusse et al, 2017). However, other authors (Machado et al, 2019;O'Keefe & Jensen, 2007;Strachan et al, 2020) find no significant differences in persuasiveness between gain-and loss-framed messages in relation to preventive actions.…”

Advertising Online Surveys on Social Media: How Your Advertisements Affect Your Samples

“…How do these choices affect sample composition and cost? While there is a large literature in medical sciences demonstrating that advertisement content affects who are recruited into medical studies (see, for example, Choi et al, 2017;Grow et al, 2020;Machado et al, 2019;Ryan et al, 2019), we are not aware of any political science research exploring these effects in a systematic manner. The primary concern, among political scientists, has so far been evaluating whether recruitment through social media is a viable alternative to other recruitment methods (Boas et al, 2020;Jäger, 2017;L.…”