Cultivating healthy skepticism towards help-seeking advertisements: Dispelling the illusion of unique invulnerability

Abstract

Background: Consumers are, possibly, unaware of the distinction between an industry-sponsored and a government-sponsored help-seeking ad. In order for consumers to make an informed assessment of a help-seeking ad, they need to be educated about this distinction. Methods: We report on two experiments (n Experiment 1 = 113, n Experiment 2 = 111) that investigated the impact of an educational intervention that was delivered online. Results: Intervention group participants had better odds of correctly identifying the sponsor and had greater skepticism towards pharmaceutical advertising compared to the control group. Intervention group participants were less likely to regard the ad as valuable and were more likely to view the ad as advertising, only when it was industry-sponsored. Conclusion: Our research has demonstrated that consumers do not differentiate between an industry-sponsored and a government-sponsored help-seeking ad. The use of a simple educational intervention can increase a person’s motivation to examine these ads more critically and help mitigate this problem.