Recently, a television commercial by the Japanese tire manufacturer Autoway went viral on the Internet and received more than 3 million hits on YouTube. The advertisement, which depicts a car driver’s encounter with a grisly figure during a snowstorm, is preceded by a health warning: "Not for the faint of heart. We shall not be liable for any injuries, illness, and damages claimed to be caused by watching the contents." The popularity of this commercial, which explicitly points to its fear-inducing message, attests to the fact that fear appeals in advertising can draw attention. An area where fear appeals are particularly prevalent is social marketing. According to Kotler, Roberto, and Lee (2002), social marketing can be used to improve health, prevent injuries, protect the environment, and promote community involvement. Many of these issues, e.g., cancer screening, seat belt use, environmental pollution, or organ donations, are linked to negative consequences based on the action or inaction of consumers, which consequently lend themselves to fear appeals in advertising. Fear has been used in social marketing campaigns for various issues, such as road safety (Transport Accident Commission, 2002) or smoking (DeJong & Hoffman, 2000), as it can enhance the effectiveness of advertising but also lead to unintended side effects (Hastings, Steed, & Webb, 2004). While the literature has focused on the effectiveness of fear appeals, the effect of scary advertisements or public service announcements on consumers’ perceptions of other commercials surrounding them has been often overlooked. Social marketers might successfully use fear appeals in public service announcements, but the same advertisements could have an adverse effect on the effectiveness of the commercials surrounding them. In this study, we will investigate the carryover effects of public service announcements using fear appeals. Specifically, the goal of this research is to study the effects of fear appeals on the evaluation of commercials that follow.The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. First, we will give an overview of the influence advertisers have on the scheduling of commercials. In the following section, the literature on advertising context effects is reviewed and a hypothesis regarding the effects of fear-inducing public service announcements on the evaluation of subsequent commercials is developed. After the methodology section, the results of a laboratory experiment testing the hypothesis are presented and discussed.

• Claus Ebster(University of Vienna)
• Udo Wagner(University of Vienna)
• Lisa Eberhardsteiner(University of Vienna)