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Mortgage lenders often combine a variety of framing strategies when developing mortgage advertisements. To date, these frames have mostly been studied separately. This paper, however, studies the combined framing effects of message valence, specificity, and temporality on consumers' mortgage decision-making.

A mixed methods design was used. First, 13 unique print ads collected from a Canadian newspaper were analyzed for content. Second, a 2 × 2 × 2 scenario-based experiment with 400 undergraduate participants examined the framing effects of valence, specificity and temporality on attitudes toward the mortgage advertising message, the product advertised, and the brand, as well as on consumers' behavioral intentions toward the advertised mortgage product.

The content analysis suggests that combined framing does exist in print ads. A positive message with a fixed term and a specific interest rate were the most commonly used frames. The experiment revealed that, for behavioral intentions, the main effect of the message temporality was significant. The effects of advertising a long-term mortgage on behavioral intentions were more favorable than those of advertising a short-term mortgage.

This research provides a combined framing model for designing advertising strategies for the financial services industry to market complex financial products, such as mortgage loans to consumers. This is relevant to lenders when designing a persuasive package or ads for potential customers.

This study is the first of its kind to investigate the effects of combinations of message frames on consumers' mortgage decision-making, while also advancing the understanding of message framing theory for the financial services industry.

Service failures are common and companies must decide how best to respond to these incidents. The purpose of this study is to examine service recovery efforts that incorporate a donation component, in addition to financial compensation. More specifically, the relative effectiveness of these recovery efforts was explored according to the regulatory focus framing (i.e. prevention- or promotion-focused) of the donation message.

Three experiments are conducted to test the hypotheses.

Drawing from regulatory focus theory (Higgins, 1997), the authors determined that prevention framing (e.g. highlighting the negative outcomes avoided by a donation) leads to better service recovery outcomes compared to promotion framing (e.g. highlighting the positive outcomes of a donation) the donation message. Furthermore, warmth (e.g. perceptions of caring and helpfulness) and competence (e.g. perceptions of capability and usefulness) underlie this effect and message trust moderates the effect of regulatory framing on warmth.

This study offers several theoretical and managerial implications. First, a novel recovery approach that benefits multiple stakeholders was illustrated, particularly when the donation message is prevention (vs promotion) framed. The authors focused on donations in particular, but future researchers should explore other corporate social responsibility activities such as those pertaining to sustainability, ethical labor practices or educational training.

Companies should consider incorporating donations into service recovery efforts. Moreover, companies should use prevention as opposed to promotion frames in their donation messages. Using a prevention frame enhances perceptions of company warmth and competence.

Very little research has explored the effectiveness of donations following service failures despite evidence that companies use donations in this context. This research highlights the importance of regulatory focus framing and demonstrates how a donation, paired with financial compensation, is more/less effective according to the framing of the communication. Thus, this research demonstrates a novel effect, identifies its underlying mechanism through warmth and competence and establishes an important boundary condition according to message trust.

Price deals are typically presented in “save” terms. However, prospect theory predicts that people will be more willing to waive a monetary gain than to lose the same amount of money. This study seeks to examine whether consumers would show more purchase intentions of a product offered in a price deal framed negatively (“lose if you don't purchase”) relative to the conventional positive frame (“save if you purchase”).

The purchase intentions of 189 participants, randomly assigned to either a positively or a negatively framed message, were examined. The participants' perceived monetary gain in the deal and their involvement in the issue were also measured.

Presented with a negative relative to positive frame, participants showed more purchase intentions of a product offered in a price deal, and perceived their monetary gain as higher. Highly involved and lowly involved participants exhibited similar framing effects.

The findings regarding lowly involved participants are inconsistent with previous findings. Future research is needed to clarify whether the message framing effect interacts with involvement in predicting purchase intentions of a product offered in a price deal.

The theoretical explanation of the phenomenon presented in this study predicts that negative framing of messages will also be more effective in other consumer behaviour contexts.

This study is the first empirical demonstration of the effect of message framing on the effectiveness of price deal offers, suggesting that retailers should re‐examine their conventional presentation of price deal offers in terms of gains, and consider rephrasing them in terms of loss.

The purpose of this paper is to test how framing of CSR messages, based on a value-theoretical framework, impacts consumer perception of the CSR message.

Quantitative study in the form of an online survey strongly inspired by classical experimental design.

Findings demonstrate that explicit communication of CSR framed as a corporate competence, and to some extent also as something personally relevant to the receivers, positively impacts evaluations of CSR messages and the companies behind them.

Findings indicate that CSR messages could increasingly emphasize corporate competence with a lesser focus on moral ideas and commitments, and that framing strategies can be effective in creating CSR messages that will be positively evaluated by young consumers.

This study contributes by providing new insights into how value-based framing of CSR messages can increase credibility and relevance and thus help facilitate the complicated task of communicating CSR by way of suggesting a new CSR communication strategy framework.

Consumers frequently have to choose between products that differ in price and quality. This study aims to hypothesize that involvement would moderate the effect of message framing on consumers' perceived monetary gain when considering cheaper products, as well as on product choice.

A total of 238 participants were randomly assigned to either a positively or a negatively framed message, and either a high or low involvement condition.

The study finds that presented with a negative relative to positive frame, highly involved participants perceived a higher monetary gain when purchasing the cheaper product; no corresponding differences were found for low‐involved participants. Message framing did not affect either highly or low‐involved participants' product choice.

Explanations for the results are offered and future research is suggested in order to determine whether the effect of message framing on the perceived monetary gain of highly involved consumers choosing cheaper products does affect their product choice.

If future research confirms this hypothesis, both retailers and highly involved consumers should consider the possible effect of message framing on the perceived monetary gain and on the choice between products that differ in price and quality.

This study is the first demonstration of the moderating effect of involvement on the effect of message framing on consumers' perceived monetary gain when choosing between products that differ in price and quality.

Marketers may proactively give customers personalized notices regarding their progress toward certain rewards as a means to stimulate ongoing behaviors. This paper aims to investigate the effect on customer repatronage intention by framed messages concerning either goal-distance or consequences of an action and it also seeks to identify important variables moderating those responses.

Five between-subjects experiments examined how participants’ repatronage intentions, in response to the framing of goal-distance (Study 1a) and consequences of an action (Study 2a), varied as a function of their level of progress toward goal completion and also tested if the framing effects might be attenuated when relationship benefit was high rather than low (Studies 1b and 2b). They further adopted perceived reciprocity as an underlying mechanism for examining the interplay between these two kinds of framing in stimulating ongoing behavior (Study 3).

Although messages which emphasized what individuals need to spend more to attain a reward (versus how short they are from earning a reward) or loss following inaction (versus gain following action) were likely to erode intention, such effects were confined to individuals with a moderate level of progress. This intention-eroding effect was further attenuated by attractive reward. The persuasive advantages of short-from-the-end framing of goal-distance over more-to-the-end counterparts were found to be diminished when paired with a loss-framed message concerning consequences of an action. Furthermore, the observed effects on intention were mediated by perceived reciprocity.

The studies add to the current understanding of how the way in which information is presented might enhance loyalty or fail to do so.

The main purpose of the current research is to investigate the effectiveness of messages sent out by firms inviting customers to write online reviews. The joint effect of message framing, power and individuals’ need for status (NFS) on consumers’ intentions to write a review was examined.

This study uses a 2 (message framing: self-vs other-focused) × 2 (power state: high vs low) × 2 (NFS: high vs low) factorial design with message framing being manipulated and power and NFS being measured.

The results show that customers low in power are more likely to be persuaded by a message focused on others (vs self), and customers high in power show similar levels of behavioral intention regardless of message framing. Furthermore, this effect is significant only among those with a high (vs low) NFS.

Hospitality practitioners may consider customizing the invitation message based on target consumers’ individual traits. They may either prime consumers’ status seeking intentions and/or sense of power, or gain such insights through outside marketing research companies. Depending on the characteristics of the recipients, companies can choose either a self-focused or an other-focused message to increase its persuasiveness.

This is one of the first studies examining the joint effect of message framing, power and NFS on consumers’ willingness to write online reviews.

Based on the examination of the roles of message framing and evidence type, this study made an analysis of the promotion methods of intention and information need towards HPV vaccination.

The study conducted a 2 (gain-framed messages vs loss-framed messages) × 2 (statistical evidence vs narrative evidence) quasi-experimental design built upon theories of message framing and evidence type. This experiment recruited college students who were not vaccinated against HPV as participants. The analysis of variance (ANOVA), the analysis of covariance (ANCOVA), and the independent sample T-test were used to test the hypotheses.

The results (N = 300) indicate that (1) Loss-framed messages will lead to a more favorable intention towards HPV vaccination than gain-framed messages. (2) Statistical evidence will lead to a more explicit information need than narrative evidence. (3) Message framing and evidence type will interact and (a) for statistical evidence, loss-framed messages will lead to a more favorable intention towards HPV vaccination than gain-framed messages and (b) for narrative evidence, gain-framed messages will lead to a more favorable intention towards HPV vaccination than loss-framed messages. (4) Message framing and evidence type will interact and (a) for loss-framed messages, statistical evidence will stimulate more explicit information need of HPV vaccination than narrative evidence and (b) for gain-framed messages, narrative evidence will stimulate more explicit information need of HPV vaccination than statistical evidence.

This paper can help to further understand the important roles of message framing and evidence type in health behavior promotion. The study contributes to the literature on how health information can be well organized to serve the public health communication and further enhance the health information service.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of different label-message formats (positively vs negatively framed messages) on consumers’ purchase intentions in an organic seafood shopping setting, along with the moderating effects of two individual characteristics (purchase-decision involvement and perceived consumer effectiveness (PCE)) on the message-framing performance.

Data were gathered from 1,698 consumers of a supermarket chain in the northeast region of the USA using a web-based experiment.

Results of this study support the superiority of a positively framed message over a negatively framed message in persuading consumers to buy organic food. In addition, this effect of framing on persuasion is contingent upon different levels of consumer purchase-decision involvement as well as PCE concerning organic products.

This study offers managerial implications for marketers and retailers, messages appealing the environmental and health benefits of organic seafood consumption (positively framed arguments) would be more persuasive to increase consumer purchase intention than negatively framed ones. In addition, individual characteristics of their target market should be taken into account in communication design and implementation.

This survey research offers insights into the organic food consumption literature by validating the applicability of message framing in the organic seafood labelling setting and identifying consumers’ individual characteristics (purchase-decision involvement regarding organic seafood and PCE) moderating the message framing effectiveness.

Subjects (n = 200) received a detailed description of a product and were asked to rate their attitudes about this product. Presentation order, source credibility and message framing were manipulated in a 2× 2× 2 completely crossed factorial design. Subjects who received a positively framed message rated product attitudes significantly greater than those subjects who received a negatively framed message. Also, significant differences in message framing effects were found for those subjects who received the framed message first in the nonexpert condition (credibility) and those subjects who received the framed message last in the expert condition. Findings are then discussed.