The Impacts of Animated Transport Safety Advertising Cross Two Cultures

Abstract

ABSTRACT Transport safety campaigns are valuable for public health, as they prevent traffic fatalities and collisions. Authorities and nonprofit organizations attempt to promote transport safety by advertising via social media. Understanding the factors that make online transport safety campaigns successful is also important. However, studies exploring the impact of animated videos on transportation safety are scarce. We adopted the stimuli-organism-response (S-O-R) framework to examine the impact of music and graphics on transport users’ emotional states and behaviors. We also considered how the reactions varied across cultures. The respondents were shown animated transport safety advertisements produced by Metro Trains in Melbourne, Australia. A total of 217 valid questionnaires were collected from transportation users in Taiwan and Vietnam. In contrast, we explored the spillover effects of an animated transport safety promotion campaign across cultures. The findings show that music significantly impacts people’s emotions, which, in turn, are associated with positive behavioral intentions. Self-efficacy had the greatest effect on behavioral responses. We also found that transport users in Taiwan were more influenced by graphics, whereas those in Vietnam were more affected by music in the S-O path. Fear arousal affects the behavioral intentions of Vietnamese transportation users in the O-R path. Self-efficacy is the dominant factor affecting the ability of Taiwan’s transport users to obey traffic rules. Transport safety advertising should be designed to evoke emotions, and specific stimulus elements should be adjusted according to cultural preferences.