Attitude Toward the Ad: Its Influence in a Social Marketing Context

The testing of the MacKenzie, Lutz, and Belch models (1986) of the relationships among Aad, brand cognitions (COG(b) (or) (t)), attitudes (AFF(b) (or) (t)), and intentions (INTb (or) (t)) was extended to the nontraditional context of social advertising compared to consumer goods advertising and for low compared to highly involving topics (or products). The results indicate that A(ad) not only has a direct influence on AFF(b) (or) (t), but also had an indirect influence via COG(b) (or) (t) within both a social context and a consumer goods context, either for low or highly involving topics or products. The impact of AFF(b) (or) (t) on AFF(ad) is not significant in any of the 4 conditions. Implications for social marketing are given.