Emotional Advertising to Attenuate Compulsive Consumption: Qualitative Insights from Gamblers

“Set yourself free!” Exploring help-seeking motives in at-risk gamblers

“…Previous qualitative research suggests that communication messages seeking to generate enduring behavioural change such as help-seeking in the problem gambling context, should be linked to personally and socially positive consequences acquired after treatment (De Vos et al, 2016). As such, we extend the literature in the help-seeking and social marketing domains by exploring the influence of cognitive and affective psychological motives (preservation and growth) on the help-seeking process for at-riskgamblers.…”

“…Furthermore, we extended the help-seeking model by testing its boundaries based on response efficacy levels of the target audience, thus improving the model's predictive power in accordance with the planned behaviour approach. Previous qualitative research has emphasised the important role of response efficacy in marketing communication to stigmatised customers such as problem-gamblers (Calderwood and Wellington, 2013;De Vos et al, 2016). Similarly, empirical evidence from health psychology suggests that promoting efficacy in persuasive health messages fosters adaptive responses from the targeted population (Ort and Fahr, 2018).…”

“…To understand the factors that are influential to the relationship between perceived help-seeking benefits and behavioural intention for compulsive consumers, we suggest that the intrinsic-extrinsic framework is integrated with the concept of efficacy, often explored within the planned behaviour theoretical approach. In Motives in atrisk gamblers particular, response efficacy is insufficiently researched in the social marketing literature, despite previous qualitative research in problem gambling identifying it as one of the key components to be communicated to at-risk gamblers to assure them that professional help is accessible, reliable and efficient (Calderwood and Wellington, 2013;De Vos et al, 2016). In accordance with Bandura (2001), response efficacy is concerned with whether a prescribed remedy or course of action can produce a particular health-related goal and whether a certain action will be effective in leading to the desired result (Lewis et al, 2010).…”

“…Hence, this research contributes to social marketing theory which is still in its infancy when it comes to promoting professional services to at-risk gamblers (Calderwood and Wellington, 2013;Sato et al, 2017). As help-seeking behaviours are associated with a lack of status, control and independence (Möller-Leimkühler, 2002) and often represent a source of threat to the self because they imply inadequacy and indebtedness (Ferguson, 2018;Thomson et al, 2013), it is crucial to promote messages of attainable positive changes that at-risk gamblers can achieve through professional help (De Vos et al, 2016). Therefore, this research makes a novel contribution to the social marketing literature by exploring preservation and growth motives within McGuire's psychological motives framework (McGuire, 1999(McGuire, , 2010.…”

“…For example, Orazi et al (2015) explored the negative consequences of excessive gambling such as material or social consequences. Other research has focussed on the impact of negative emotional appeals to stimulate help-seeking intentions (De Vos et al, 2016;Munoz et al, 2010), including fear appeals depicting social and psychological consequences such as isolation, self-esteem and identity loss or significant financial debt (De Vos et al, 2017). While several studies have evaluated the success of various social marketing strategies targeting at-risk gamblers (Calderwood and Wellington, 2013;De Vos et al, 2017;Muñoz et al, 2013), debate remains regarding the effectiveness of current social marketing campaigns in promoting professional help-seeking (Thomas et al, 2015).…”