The Impact of Ad Characteristics on Adolescents’ Attitudes Towards Antismoking Ads

Smoking exerts a considerable burden not only on those who smoke but just as well on society at large. In response, governments and institutions often resort to advertising which aims to discourage smoking. Unfortunately, our knowledge of the workings of antismoking advertising is detrimentally limited. In particular, the literature delving into the impact of antismoking ad characteristics (e. g., ad content, valence, intensity) on the overall effectiveness of antismoking advertising is scarce and contradictory. This empirical study aims to enhance the knowledge of antismoking advertising by presenting results of the survey involving Slovene adolescents. The adolescents were first exposed to advertisements of different antismoking ad contents (for the purpose of this study the term ‘ad content’ refers to types of appeals used in antismoking advertising), ad valence and intensity, and later invited to respond to a number of questions measuring their attitudes toward the ads, their attitudes toward smoking, their intentions to smoke, etc. The results indicate that while the different intensity and valence of ads produce varying attitudes toward the ads, we could not confirm these differences based on ad content. Also, we found that adolescent smokers respond to antismoking ads differently than do their nonsmoking peers. Our findings offer several important implications for antismoking advertisers and the research community interested in the workings of antismoking advertising.