Explaining Consumer Responses to Ethnic and Religious Minorities in Advertising: The Case of Israel and Germany

Abstract

With global geopolitical changes, marketers have increasingly employed advertisements featuring ethnic and religious minority endorsers. Researchers have examined the effects of this practice, where endorsers’ ethnicity and religious associations are interlinked. The present research disentangles the potential effects of these two factors and tests their underlying mechanism. Study 1 (N = 336) shows that the endorser’s belongingness to a religious minority group negatively affects attitudinal and behavioral consumer responses. Furthermore, the results indicate that sociomoral disgust mediates the effects of religion on consumer responses. Study 2 (N = 306) supports a moderated mediation model where religious and ethnic identity moderates the indirect effect of ads featuring a religious minority endorser. Additionally, weaker effects for consumers’ ethnic identity moderating the indirect effect of ads featuring ethnic minority endorsers were found. The results indicate a strong category dominance of religion for the evaluation of ethnic and religious minority endorsers. The findings theoretically contribute to our understanding of the diverse effects of featuring religious and ethnic minority endorsers in advertisements. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.