Religious Responses to “Selling Happiness”: Consequences for Attitude toward the Ad and the Advertised Brand

International audienceMany brands sell their products with the promise that the consumer will experience happiness. Intuitively, appealing to people's desire to be happy should be universally well received. In two studies, we show that it is not necessarily the case by examining the moderating role of consumer religiosity. We further show that the moderating role of religiosity on how people respond to these kinds of ads depends (1) on the motivational foundations of religious activity (intrinsic vs. extrinsic), and (2) on the salience of one’s religiousness at the time of ad exposure