Unmasking the pivotal role of ad–target ethnic congruence in driving consumers' response to fear appeals

Abstract

Fear appeals are persuasive messages that scare consumers into compliance with the appeals' recommendation by highlighting a personally relevant threat. Several factors, including personality traits and message features, can influence the effectiveness of fear appeals. This article proposes an additional element that contributes to the persuasiveness of fear appeals: ethnic congruence between the fear appeal and the target audience. Specifically, this research examines the interplay of high fear arousal appeals and ad–target congruence on message persuasiveness. We operationalize congruence by ethnicity match (vs. mismatch). A series of three experiments and a follow‐up study reveal that while high fear arousal appeals are more persuasive than low‐arousal appeals in general, their effectiveness is accentuated when the target audience feels congruent with the elements of the appeal. We argue that when encountering fear appeals, consumers' perceived ethnic congruence with the elements of the advertisement (e.g., ad character–target ethnic similarity) affects whether they identify with the ad and thus influences their perceived vulnerability to the publicized threat. This, in turn, influences the level of the induced emotion (i.e., fear), which subsequently drives persuasiveness. We document this effect using both self‐reported and behavioral measures. We also rule out an alternative account based on appraisal‐tendency theory, which predicts that the uncertainty dimension characterizing the emotions—for example, fear (anger) is associated with high (low) uncertainty—explains the results. The findings highlight the importance of representing diverse characters in marketing and public policy campaigns relying on fear appeals.