Advertising skepticism among adolescents : an extension into the social marketing arena

The youth market is of considerable importance to those selling commercial products as well as to those seeking to discourage unhealthy or risky behaviours ('social marketers'). One of the key challenges for social marketing is the development of effective messages. Advertising skepticism, an individual characteristic, has been shown to mediate the effectiveness of commercial ad appeals. However, similar research in the social marketing arena is lacking, although sorely needed. This study seeks to fill a gap by conceptualizing the construct of skepticism toward social advertising. We develop a measure for this construct in relation to ads seeking to discourage adolescents from risky behaviours such as smoking and drinking and driving, and in a cross-cultural context. Based on an extensive literature review, and input from adolescents and expert judges, this measure was pre-tested using over 210 junior college (Cegep) and undergraduate students, and its reliability and validity investigated. Subsequently, a refined version of this measure was used in a study where 232 responses were obtained from high school students in two different schools--one French and one English. Results obtained indicate that the scale possesses many desirable psychometric properties, and provide further evidence of its validity. Results also indicate that commercial ad skepticism and social ad skepticism are clearly distinct constructs. For instance, while the former is significantly correlated with parental communication style, the latter is not, although both are affected by a particular type of peer influence. In other findings, adolescents' skeptical attitudes toward social ads were significantly correlated with various risky behaviour perceptions. Finally, additional exploratory tests showed that age and language influence an adolescent's skeptical attitudes toward ads