When Tension Leads to Action: Different Paths of Fear Arousal in Commercial and Social Ads

In this paper, we present the results of an empirical study aimed at assessing the effectiveness of using fear appeals in affecting individuals’ attitudes and behavioral intentions (namely willingness-to-pay and word-of-mouth) across two different advertising contexts (commercial vs. social advertising). We also address the issue of the ad portfolio by introducing psychographic and behavioral measures aimed at capturing individuals’ habits and personality traits as possible mediators of the relationships between the arousal following the fear stimulus and the behavioral intentions. Our results offer insights both for academics and practitioners.