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Cautionary stories in which misbehavior results in negative outcomes are often used in public service announcements (PSAs) to promote behavioral change. These cautionary stories can either disclose or withhold their endings and the associated negative outcomes for the characters involved. In four experiments, we show that disclosing (vs. withholding) a story’s ending increases persuasion due to greater counterfactual thinking about alternative actions that could have prevented the negative outcomes. Integrating these findings within the Transportation-Imagery Model of narrative persuasion, we also show how dispositional levels of need for cognitive closure can amplify the effect of ending disclosure in a PSA. Our findings have important implications for both marketing communicators and policy makers who seek to improve the effectiveness of PSAs.

Extraordinary experiences create narrative worlds, defined as coherent, representative situation models woven from narrative elements. While narrative worlds are transitory, the challenge of returning to the everyday world has not been systematically unpacked. This study determines three dimensions of extraordinary experience that distinguish between the ranges of closing narrative worlds: intensity, engagement, and temporality. A multi-site ethnography of live action role-play identifies the challenge of closing a narrative world as “bleed”: the influence of consumers’ feelings, thoughts, and behaviors in the narrative world on those in the everyday world. Four types of bleed are found: disembedding, dissipation, disembodiment, and romantic. Consumers can cope with bleed by enacting strategies from one of two groups: keeping the portal to the narrative world open or closing the portal, resulting in either advantageous transformation or disadvantageous trans-mutilation. The findings have theoretical implications for understanding portals, narrative transportation, and extraordinary experience as well as practical implications for managing the capitalization of—and consumer distress from—experiential consumption.

This research investigates the impact of the nature and framing of gambling consequences in responsible gambling advertisements. Two experimental studies are conducted to assess (1) the construal level of gambling consequences, and (2) the influence of the nature and framing of gambling consequences on advertising effectiveness for both recreational and problem gamblers. The results show that, compared to material consequences, social consequences are at a higher construal level and are more effective in reducing the propensity to gamble. This differential impact of social versus material consequences is stronger among problem gamblers (vs. recreational gamblers) and when the consequences are presented as losses (vs. gains). Implications for public health agencies and social marketers are discussed.

Replicating Johnston and Warkentin (2010), we demonstrate that social influence and self-efficacy are the main drivers of compliance with fear appeals. Contrary to the original study, we find that the acknowledgment of a severe threat encourages subjects to seize on the proposed recommendation, bolstering perceptions of efficacy. With this sole exception, the original results are fully replicated in a different research context employing a different population.