Interplay of Direct Anti-Smoking Public Service Advertisements and Anti-Smoking Messages Placement Disclosures in Movies with Attitude to Quit Smoking

Abstract

Recently, the Ministry of Health Pakistan decreed that disclosures of anti- smoking messages placement in the movies should be used whereby fear based cognitive anti-smoking message is shown. Consistent with the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) assumption that persuasion messages likely influence the attitude of the relatively unmotivated individuals. This study is the first which tests and compare the ability of anti-smoking persuasion messages presented in the Direct Anti-smoking public service Advertisements (DAA) and Anti-smoking messages Placement Disclosures in movies (APD) in determining viewer’s Attitude to Quit Smoking (AQS). Hence, this attempt overcomes deficient understanding about the effects of disclosing anti-smoking advertisement placement. In a between-subject experiment (N = 120), we measure the smokers’ attitudes in the result of the direct anti-smoking advertisements along with the APDs in movies. Results of the experiment show that attitude to quit smoking becomes stronger when a direct anti-smoking advertisement and anti-smoking disclosure is shown. However, analyses based on Partial Least Squares Path Modeling (PLS-PM) on Advanced Analysis for Composites (ADANCO) 2.0.1 (a new software for variance-based SEM) attitude to quit smoking is significantly higher when the anti-smoking message disclosure is shown during the movie scenes. These results have significant implications for persuasion theories and public policy about anti-smoking campaigns.