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Personalized charity advertising. Can personalized

prosocial messages promote empathy, attitude
change, and helping intentions toward stigmatized
social groups?

Anne Bartsch & Andrea Kloß

To cite this article: Anne Bartsch & Andrea Kloß (2019) Personalized charity advertising. Can
personalized prosocial messages promote empathy, attitude change, and helping intentions
toward stigmatized social groups?, International Journal of Advertising, 38:3, 345-363, DOI:
10.1080/02650487.2018.1482098

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/02650487.2018.1482098

Published online: 01 Nov 2018.

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING
2019, VOL. 38, NO. 3, 345–363
https://doi.org/10.1080/02650487.2018.1482098

Personalized charity advertising. Can personalized

prosocial messages promote empathy, attitude change,
and helping intentions toward stigmatized social groups?
Anne Bartsch and Andrea Kloß
Department of Communication Studies and Media Research, LMU Munich, Munich, Germany

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

This study examines the role of personalized charity advertising in Received 17 June 2015
promoting empathy, attitude change, and helping intentions Accepted 25 May 2018
toward stigmatized social groups. Based on theories of message
involvement, empathy, and reactance, we predicted that higher KEYWORDS
levels of involvement elicited by a personalized charity advertise- Destigmatization; empathy;
personalization; prosocial
ment would reinforce empathy and prosocial outcomes. An online messages; reactance
experiment was conducted using a personalized and a nonper-
sonalized version of a charity advertisement for a campaign solic-
iting donations of winter coats for homeless people. As expected,
structural equation modeling revealed a positive indirect effect of
personalization on prosocial outcomes (attitudes and behavioural
intentions toward homeless people, and willingness to donate to
the campaign) that was mediated by involvement and empathy.
However, in addition to promoting involvement and empathy,
personalization also led to heightened reactance, which detracted
from the positive effects. Theoretical as well as practical implica-
tions of the findings for personalized charity advertising
are discussed.

Introduction
Prosocial media messages such as charity appeals, public awareness campaigns, or
messages to combat prejudice and discrimination of stigmatized social groups provide
an important avenue for promoting altruism and social cohesion in today's mass soci-
eties. For example, charity advertising can help raise donations to alleviate the suffer-
ing of those affected by illness, war, or poverty (Bennett 2015; Chang and Lee 2010;
Griffin et al. 1993; Kim 2014). Prosocial messages can also raise public awareness about
social, environmental, and health issues (Bagozzi and Moore 1994; Mares and
Woodard 2005; Shen 2011), or they can help transform individuals’ attitudes and
behaviour toward members of stigmatized groups such as ethnic minorities, persons
with illnesses or disabilities, and poor, elderly or homeless people (Batson et al. 2002;
Oliver et al. 2012).

CONTACT Anne Bartsch anne.bartsch@ifkw.lmu.de Department of Communication Studies and Media

Research, LMU Munich, 80538 Munich, Germany
ß 2018 Advertising Association
346 A. BARTSCH AND A. KLOß

With the proliferation of media channels and available content, however, prosocial
messages are competing for an increasingly scarce resource, that is, individuals' atten-
tion and willingness to seriously consider the message. Before a prosocial message
can have its intended effect, it first needs to get the audience involved; in addition,
the message needs to persuade recipients, which is not an automatic byproduct of
message exposure (Petty and Cacioppo 1986). Several lines of research have identified
characteristics of prosocial messages that are helpful in promoting this dual goal of
message involvement and persuasion. For example, research on charity advertising
has examined the effects of message factors such as emotional appeals (Basil, Ridgway,
and Basil 2006; Bennett 2015; Chang 2011; Small and Verrochi 2009), message framing
in terms of negative consequences of not helping vs. positive consequences of help-
ing (Chang and Lee 2010; Das, Kerkhof, and Kuiper 2008), altruistic vs. egoistic appeals
(Chang 2014; Chang and Lee 2011; Kim 2014), and vividness of case stories vs. statistical
evidence (Chang and Lee 2010; Das, Kerkhof, and Kuiper 2008). Similar factors have
also been studied with regard to other types of prosocial messages, for example in
the context of public service announcements, health communication, journalism, and
political communication (Oliver et al. 2012; Shen 2011).
The present study aims to extend research on charity advertising with a special
focus on message personalization as an additional content feature that might foster
both audience involvement, and persuasive effects. Digital media technologies have
made it easier to personalize messages. For example, the recipient can be addressed
by name, or the message can be customized to the recipient's preferences based on
information contained in user profiles (Kalyanaraman and Sundar 2006). In addition,
the viral dissemination of messages through social networks allows for a personalized
distribution of messages where the sender is personally known to the recipient
(Petrescu and Korgaonkar 2011).
Personalized features are increasingly being used by charity campaigns and advo-
cacy groups for prosocial purposes but their effects are not sufficiently understood.
The available research on personalized messages has mainly focused on product
advertising so far, whereas research on personalized features in charity advertising has
remained scarce (Masthoff, Langrial, and van Deemter 2013). It further remains unclear
whether personalized prosocial messages can have a downside too. Research on per-
sonalized advertisements has found that ‘getting too personal’ (White et al. 2008) can
backfire in that it produces reactance – that is a sense of threatened freedom of opin-
ion and actions that can lead to anger, counterarguing, and message rejection (Dillard
and Shen 2005; Rains 2013; Shen 2011). Hence, in addition to exploring prosocial
effects of personalization, it also seems important to consider the possibility that recip-
ients of personalized charity advertising might feel pressurized and might respond
with reactance. To better understand the effects of personalized charity advertising,
the research literature on personalized media messages in other domains such as
product advertising and political communication is reviewed and linked to research on
prosocial media messages in general and to research on charity advertising
in particular.
Based on this combined theoretical framework, we developed a set of hypotheses
that are tested in an online experiment using a personalized and a nonpersonalized
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING 347

Figure 1. Hypothesized structural equation model.

version of a charity advertisement for the Big Boston Warm-Up campaign that solicits
donations of winter coats for homeless people and aims to promote public awareness
and attitude change about this stigmatized group. Specifically, we expected that, in
the context of charity advertising, message personalization could have positive as well
as negative effects on prosocial outcomes such as changes in attitudes and behav-
ioural intentions toward the stigmatized group, and willingness to support a donation
campaign. On the one hand, we assumed that personalization can reinforce prosocial
outcomes (H1), and that this positive effect is mediated by involvement (H2), and by
empathy (H3). On the other hand, we considered the possibility that personalization
may elicit reactance which could act as a negative mediator that runs counter to these
positive effects (H4). Finally, we examined whether involvement can mitigate reactance
and its negative effects (H5). The combined effects assumed in this set of hypotheses
are represented in the form of a path model in Figure 1. The following section
explains the theoretical rationale behind each of the hypotheses and reviews research
findings from other domains such as product advertising, public service announce-
ments and political communication that informed our predictions. We, then, report
the methods and results of an experiment to test these assumptions and discuss the-
oretical and practical implications of our findings.

Theoretical background
Can personalized messages be harnessed for prosocial purposes such as transforming
audiences' attitudes and behaviour toward stigmatized social groups, or raising charit-
able donations? To answer this question, it first needs to be clarified what personaliza-
tion means. According to Vesanen’s (2007) analysis, personalization is a multifaceted
concept including different forms of customization of products and services as well as
personalized communication with the customer. Our focus is on the latter aspect, per-
sonalized communication, which is described by White et al. (2008, 40) as ‘specialized
flow of communication that sends different recipients distinct messages tailored to
their individual preferences or characteristics’ (see also Kalyanaraman and Sundar
2006). For example, messages can be personalized by addressing the message recipi-
ent by name, or by including other information assumed to be relevant to the recipi-
ent based on his or her user preferences, interests, or purchase history.
Generally, there is reason to believe that the personalization of messages is condu-
cive to positive, message consistent effects. For example, research has found that
348 A. BARTSCH AND A. KLOß

personalized health messages were more effective than nonpersonalized messages

(Kreuter et al. 1999). Personalized content of web portals resulted in more positive atti-
tudes toward the portal (Kalyanaraman and Sundar 2006). And personalized postcards
pledging to vote had a more positive influence on voting behaviour than nonperson-
alized cards (Burgess et al. 2000). Based on this general line of evidence indicating
that personalization enhanced message consistent effects, it can be assumed that per-
sonalization of charity advertising will result in higher levels of prosocial out-
comes (H1).
This general hypothesis is purely evidence-based, however, and does not speak to
the explanatory mechanisms that account for the influence of personalization on mes-
sage-consistent outcomes. As Kalyanaraman and Sundar (2006) have argued, the use-
fulness of findings on positive effects of personalized messages is rather limited in the
absence of a theoretical framework that explains why and under what conditions the
effects occur. To unpack the ‘black box’ (Kreuter et al. 1999) of personalization effects,
mediating variables that explain the influence of personalization on attitudes and
behaviour need to be identified and empirically examined.

Personalization and involvement

One of the mediating variables assumed to explain the effect of personalized mes-
sages is involvement, defined as a message’s ‘degree of personal relevance to the
recipient’ (Petty and Cacioppo 1986, 20). According to Petty, Barden, and Wheeler
(2002), the core idea of message personalization is to match the message to some
aspect of the self. Research has shown that individuals prefer objects or experiences
that are linked to their self (Petty, Barden, and Wheeler 2002; Petty, Wheeler, and Bizer
2000). For example, individuals showed a preference for letters in their own name as
opposed to other letters of the alphabet (Nuttin 1985) and were more easily per-
suaded when the message matched their values, social identity, or gender (Petty,
Barden, and Wheeler 2002). In a recent study on attributes of victims that participants
preferred to support in a human rights campaign, Masthoff, Langrial, and van Deemter
(2013) found that participants tended to select victim attributes such as gender, reli-
gion, and ethnicity that were similar to their own. Personalized content can foster
such ‘bridging experiences’ (Zaichkowsky 1986) that increase individuals’ involvement
with the message, and covey a sense of ‘me-ness’ that fosters persuasive effects
(Petty, Wheeler, and Bizer 2000). Involved recipients perceive the message to be more
relevant, interesting and important, and are, therefore, motivated to invest cognitive
effort to consider the benefits of the arguments and actions suggested by the mes-
sage (Petty, Cacioppo, and Schumann 1983). In the presence of strong arguments,
high levels of involvement led to a greater likelihood of persuasion, hence greater
probability of changes in attitudes and behaviour (Burnkrant and Unnava 1989;
Fleming, Petty, and White 2005; Petty, Barden, and Wheeler 2002).
The growing complexity of research on involvement has drawn attention to the
multidimensional nature of this concept. For example, research on persuasion has
examined different forms of involvement including individuals’ general involvement
with issues as well as value-relevant, impression-relevant, and outcome-relevant
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING 349

involvement (Johnson and Eagly 1989). Research on the effects of audiences’ involve-
ment with narrative entertainment has distinguished between perceived similarity, per-
spective-taking, parasocial interaction, and transportation (Tukachinsky and Stokunaga
2013). In the context of advertising, involvement has been conceptualized in terms of
attention/processing strategies, personal/situational involvement, audience/process
involvement, and enduring/product involvement (Andrews, Durvasula, and
Akhter 1990).
The dimension of involvement most pertinent to our research on personalized char-
ity advertising is self-referencing, ‘the processing of information by relating it to the
self-structure or aspects of it’ (Burnkrant and Unnava 1995, 17). This form of involve-
ment is characterized by cognitions that link the message to recipients’ self-concept in
a direct way, whereas other forms of involvement relate to the self indirectly (e.g.
through personal relevance of issues, goals, values, products, and so forth, or through
identification with characters in a story). Despite its specific focus, self-referencing is
similar to other forms of involvement in that it shares the common conceptual core of
personal relevance (Petty and Cacioppo 1986), and a similar pattern of persuasive
effects (Burnkrant and Unnava 1989, 1995).
The focus of our research on self-referencing is not meant to imply that the effects
of message personalization are limited to this particular form of involvement. For
example, charity advertising can be personalized with regard to other dimensions of
involvement such as perceived similarity with victims (Masthoff, Langrial, and van
Deemter 2013), or personal world-views and values (Brunel and Nelson 2000; Chang
and Lee 2011). However, given the lack of research on direct forms of personalization
in charity advertising (such as addressing recipients by name), we focused on self-
referencing as the corresponding dimension of involvement that should serve as a crit-
ical mediator of persuasive effects in the case of personalized messages that directly
address the recipient’s self. Specifically, we expected that the effect of personalized
charity advertising on prosocial outcomes assumed in H1 is mediated by self-referenc-
ing (H2).

Personalization, empathy, and altruistic motivation

A second explanatory variable of particular relevance in the case of charity advertising
is empathy, ‘an other-oriented emotional response congruent with another's perceived
welfare’ (Batson et al. 1997, 105), which is conceptually identical with sympathy as
defined by Eisenberg, Wentzel, and Harris (1998). Empathy (or sympathy) has been
identified as a primary source of prosocial behaviour (Batson 1987; Batson and Powell
2003). According to the empathy-altruism hypothesis (Batson and Powell 2003), altruis-
tic motivation (i.e. the motivation to increase another person’s welfare) results from
the experience of empathy with a person in need, and from the desire to increase this
person's welfare. Moreover, the empathy-attitude model of Batson et al. (1997)
explains how empathy felt for a specific individual can be generalized to stigmatized
social groups to which the individual belongs, thus promoting prosocial attitude
change and altruistic motivation toward the group as a whole. The empathy-altruism
hypothesis is well-supported by empirical evidence including a number of studies
350 A. BARTSCH AND A. KLOß

addressing possible counter-explanations in terms of egoistic motivations such as

approval-seeking or reduction of aversive arousal (Batson and Powell 2003; Batson
et al. 1991).
In line with the general assumptions of the empathy-attitude model (Batson et al.
1997), research on charity advertising has shown that empathy and sympathy felt for spe-
cific individuals portrayed in a message were generalized to others suffering from the
same circumstances, and increased recipients’ general motivation to help those affected
by illness, war, or poverty (Bennett 1997, 2015; Griffin et al. 1993; Lee, Winterich, and Ross
2014; Small and Verrochi 2009). In a similar vein, research on destigmatization has found
that empathy induced by media portrayals improved attitudes toward stigmatized groups
including homeless people, people with HIV, prisoners, immigrants, and elderly people
(Batson and Powell 2003; Batson et al. 1997; Oliver et al. 2012).
Moreover, research on narrative persuasion has linked empathy and concern for others’
well-being to audiences’ involvement with media characters and stories (Busselle and
Bilandzic 2009; Green and Brock 2000; Zillmann and Cantor 1977). Emotional involvement
with media characters in turn has been found to translate into heightened involvement
with real-world social and political issues addressed in empathy-inducing stories (Bartsch
and Schneider 2014; Oliver et al. 2012). Taken together, research on charity advertising,
destigmatization, and narrative persuasion suggests that empathy is linked to both
involvement (character, story, and issue involvement), and prosocial responses (attitude
change toward social groups, and helping intentions).
With this general link between empathy, involvement, and prosocial responses in
mind, the question remains how empathy is related to the specific dimension of
involvement considered in our study. As noted above, self-referencing is the type of
involvement most likely elicited by direct forms of personalization (e.g. addressing the
recipient by name). Our rationale for assuming that self-referencing can reinforce
empathy and altruistic motivation is because it reduces the bystander effect (Garcia
et al. 2002; Latan
e and Nida 1981). The bystander effect occurs when individuals
observe someone in need but do not help because other bystanders are present who
could help instead. The bystander effect can even occur in the absence of others
when individuals are reminded that they are part of a larger group (Garcia et al. 2002).
Thus, in the case of charity advertising, individuals' awareness that they are part of a
mass audience might present an important impediment to empathic and prosocial
responding. Personalized messages may not be able to completely offset the
bystander effect. Nevertheless, it seems reasonable to assume that addressing mes-
sage recipients as individuals rather than as part of a mass audience can reinforce
their empathic and prosocial response tendencies. Hence, a plausible but previously
untested assumption is that, in the case of charity advertising, the effects of personal-
ization and self-referencing on prosocial outcomes predicted in H1 and H2 are medi-
ated by increased empathy (H3).

Personalization and reactance

Despite the assumed positive effects of personalization on self-referencing and
empathy, it is important to keep in mind that the persuasive intent of messages can
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING 351

always backfire in that it creates reactance (Dillard and Shen 2005; Maslowska 2011;
White et al. 2008). Reactance is defined as a ‘motivational state directed toward the
reestablishment of threatened or eliminated freedom’ (Brehm 1966, 15). In the case of
persuasive messages, recipients are often aware of the persuasive intent of the mes-
sage and may feel that the message threatens their freedom of opinion and action.
The motivational state of reactance aimed at the reestablishment of their threatened
freedom can lead recipients to react with anger, counterarguments, and with attitudes
and behaviour that run counter to the message intent (Dillard and Shen 2005; Rains
2013). Generally, the inclusion of personalized content may heighten individuals'
awareness of persuasive message intent and may thereby elicit reactance. For
example, in a study of personalized advertising, White et al. (2008) found that highly
personalized e-mails produced reactance and lowered recipients' willingness to con-
sider the offer when the perceived utility of the offer was low. Likewise, research of
Maslowska (2011) suggests that personalization can be counterproductive if recipients
have low trust in the company, or high privacy concerns.
Prosocial messages such as charity advertisements that aim to elicit altruistic
thoughts, feelings, and behaviours are particularly vulnerable to reactance effects. As
Weinstein and Ryan (2010) have argued, a sense of external pressure and reactance
can be detrimental to individuals' altruistic motivation. Based on self-determination
theory (Ryan and Deci 2000), these authors predicted and found that the psycho-
logical benefits of helping were contingent on individuals’ autonomous choice to per-
form the helping behaviour. Under conditions of external control or moral pressure,
the helping experience was less than gratifying. In the context of charity advertising,
personalization might therefore be a double-edged sword because it can raise recipi-
ents’ perception of persuasive intent and normative pressure to a degree that hurts
their sense of autonomy, which in turn elicits reactance and undermines their altruistic
motivation. Thus, it can be assumed that personalization of charity advertising
increases reactance, thereby reducing prosocial outcomes (H4).
Conversely, the self-reference effect of personalization might (partly) offset react-
ance. If a personalized message successfully invites recipients to get involved through
self-referencing, then their tendency to feel pressured and to develop reactance
should be diminished. Indirect evidence for this assumption comes from research on
narrative persuasion (Green and Brock 2000; Slater and Rouner 2002). This line of
research has found that the more individuals are involved and absorbed in a story the
less likely they are to report critical counterarguments against the persuasive message
of the narrative. Several authors have argued that self-referencing plays an important
role in narrative involvement (Cupchik 1995; Wirth, Hofer, and Schramm 2012). In add-
ition to character empathy and perceived realism, audiences’ ability to relate the story
to their own life and experiences constitutes a critical involvement factor. Hence, in
the case of narrative messages, personalization may reinforce the self-referencing facet
of narrative involvement by encouraging recipients to relate the story to their self-con-
cept and personal experiences, which in turn should reduce reactance. The role of nar-
rative involvement in mitigating reactance has only been tested with regard to the
broader concept so far. Nevertheless, it seems reasonable to assume that the specific
dimension of involvement considered in our study (self-referencing) would show the
352 A. BARTSCH AND A. KLOß

same mitigation effect. Therefore, we assumed that (in addition to the mediating role
of empathy) the effect of self-referencing on prosocial outcomes predicted in H2 is
mediated by reduced reactance (H5).
Figure 1 summarizes the hypotheses and research question in the form of a path
model where the effect of personalization on prosocial outcomes (H1) is mediated by
self-referencing (H2), and the effect of self-referencing on prosocial outcomes is medi-
ated by increased empathy (H3), and reduced reactance (H5). In addition, the model
includes a negative direct effect of personalization on reactance (H4). In this model,
prosocial outcomes are treated as a latent variable that is estimated from individuals'
reported attitudes and behavioural intentions toward the stigmatized group, and from
their reported willingness to give to a charity campaign to help the stigma-
tized group.

Method
Overview
To examine our hypotheses, we conducted an online experiment with message per-
sonalization as the experimental factor. Personalization was operationalized using a
personalized and a nonpersonalized version of a charity advertisement for the Big
Boston Warm-Up campaign that solicits donations of winter coats for homeless people
and aims to promote public awareness and attitude change about this stigmatized
group. One version of the spot was personalized by including the recipient's name,
whereas the other version was nonpersonalized. Participants were randomly assigned
to see either the personalized or the nonpersonalized version of the spot and were
asked to rate their experience of self-referencing, their empathic and reactant
responses, as well as their attitudes and behavioural intentions toward homeless peo-
ple, and their willingness to support the campaign.

Stimuli
The original campaign was run by The Big Boston Warm-Up, an initiative to collect a
winter coat for every homeless person in Boston (for more informations about the
campaign see: http://lands-end-big-boston-warmup.archive.firstborn.com/). The spots
were produced in 2009 for both TV broadcast and viral distribution through social
media. The story told in both spots was identical: A young man unpacks a red coat
which he received as a Christmas present from his parents. The years are passing as
the young man goes to college, meets his wife, hugs his daughter, always wearing the
red coat. Finally, the coat ends up unused hanging on the hat stand. Then it is
donated for The Big Boston Warm-Up campaign and is handed to a homeless man
who smiles and strokes the coat. This part of the spot was identical in both versions.
The personalized version of the spot for viral distribution includes an additional short
scene that shows a homeless woman who receives a coat and looks at the label
inside. The name of the message recipient was displayed on the label, based on infor-
mation entered by the person who forwarded the spot in the viral campaign. Finally, a
text message was shown requesting the recipient to donate a winter coat at Land’s
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING 353

End Shop. In Return, a discount of 20% on a new Land’s End coat was offered. Again,
the text message addressed the recipient by name. In the nonpersonalized version
broadcast on TV, a voice-over message informed the viewer about the campaign after
the scene with the homeless man receiving the red coat. The spoken text was identi-
cal to the written text of the viral spot, except that the recipient was not addressed
by name. The two versions differed slightly in length. The nonpersonalized TV spot
was 1:00 min long, and the personalized viral spot was 1:20 min long.

Participants and procedure

A convenience sample of 150 participants (106 female, 44 male) was recruited via
Facebook in Germany. The mean age of the sample was about 25 years (M ¼ 25.83, SD
¼6.38). Most of the participants had at least completed high school (49%) or had
been admitted to college or university (45%). Data were collected using an online sur-
vey that started with an informed consent page explaining that the study was about
viewers' perceptions of advertising messages. Participants were then asked to provide
demographic information, and to enter their full names for a (nonexistent) second
part of the study about personalized advertising messages. This procedure was used
in order not to compromise the surprise effect of the original viral campaign, and to
keep expectations about the personalized nature of the message constant across
experimental conditions. All participants received the (personalized or nonpersonal-
ized) spot from the research team embedded in the online survey to keep the distri-
bution method constant across experimental conditions, and to avoid social selection
effects of viral distribution that might have created a biased, nonrandomized distribu-
tion of personal factors between participants in the personalized and the nonpersonal-
ized condition. After entering their names participants were randomly assigned by the
survey software to view either the personalized or the nonpersonalized version of the
spot. A randomization check revealed no significant differences in the distribution of
age, gender, and education between the experimental groups. After they had seen
the spot, participants rated their perceptions of the spot, their attitudes, and behav-
ioural intentions toward homeless people, and their willingness to donate to the cam-
paign. At the end of the questionnaire participants were thanked and debriefed.

Measures
Demographics
The first section of the questionnaire asked participants to provide basic demographic
information (age, gender, and education).

Self-referencing
Self-referencing was assessed with three items adapted from Burnkrant and Unnava
(1989): ‘the message seemed to be written with me in mind’, ‘the message seemed to
relate to me personally’, ‘the message had nothing to do with me’ (reverse scored;
a ¼ .70). A fourth item, ‘the message made me think about my personal experiences
354 A. BARTSCH AND A. KLOß

with donations’ lowered the reliability of the scale and was therefore excluded.
Ratings were recorded on a 7-point scale (1 ¼ do not agree at all, 7 ¼ fully agree).

Empathy
In line with Batson et al.’s (1997) definition, empathy was assessed as a state variable
(rather than a personality trait). We used four items from Batson (1987): ‘moved’,
‘tender’, ‘softhearted’, and ‘compassionate’ (a ¼ .90). Similar items have been used as
measures of sympathy (Eisenberg et al. 1991), warm feelings (Escalas, Moore, and
Britton 2004), and being moved (Bartsch and Schneider 2014). Ratings were recorded
on a 7-point scale (1 ¼ do not agree at all, 7 ¼ totally agree).

Attitudes toward homeless persons and the issue of homelessness

The ‘Attitudes towards the homeless questionnaire’ (Lester and Pattison 2000) was
developed to measure medical student’s attitudes toward homeless persons. The ori-
ginal scale consists of 20 items. Eight items cover specific medical issues and were
therefore excluded for the purposes of this study. The remaining scale consisted of
twelve items including both attitudes toward homeless people, for example ‘Homeless
people do not choose to be homeless’, and attitudes toward the issue of homeless-
ness, for example ‘Homelessness is a major problem in our society’ (with a response
scale ranging from 1 ¼ do not agree at all to 7 ¼ totally agree). Like the original meas-
ure, these items formed an internally consistent scale (a ¼ .74) despite their relatively
broad focus on both attitudes toward homeless persons, and attitudes about the
social issue of homelessness in general.

Behavioural intentions concerning the issue of homelessness in general

Behavioural intentions were assessed using a version of Peng, Lee, and Heeter’s (2010)
measure that was adapted for the specific target group (homeless persons).
Participants rated their willingness to engage in the following actions: ‘Donate money
to help fund awareness and advocacy programs to assist homeless people’; ‘Sign a
petition to build the political pressure needed to assist homeless people’; ‘Discuss the
situation of homeless people with friends or family’; and ‘Forward the link of a news
story to their friends to disseminate the message about homeless people’ (a ¼ .77).
The response scale ranged from 1 ¼ ‘not at all’ to 7 ¼ ‘very much’.

Willingness to support the campaign

In addition to prosocial intentions concerning the general issue of homelessness, we
included a measure of specific intentions to support the campaign advertised in the
spot. Participants were asked how likely they would be to ‘donate a coat for the
campaign’, ‘tell others about the campaign, and recommend donating a coat’, ‘donate
money for the campaign’, and ‘volunteer to support the campaign’ if the campaign
was running in their hometown on a 7-point scale (1 ¼ very unlikely, 7 ¼ very likely,
a ¼ .65). The content of items was relatively similar to general behavioural intentions.
Both measures were correlated (r ¼ .56, p < .01) but sufficiently distinct to be treated
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING 355

Figure 2. Structural equation model including standardized estimates of direct effects and variance
explained, direct paths that were nonsignificant are toned down.

as separate variables. Therefore, although both variables deal with behavioural inten-
tions, we analyzed them as separate variables to conserve the conceptual distinction
between behavioural intentions directly related to the campaign advertised in the
message, and behavioural intentions concerning the general issue of homelessness
beyond the specific content of the campaign.

Reactance
Reactance was assessed using Hastall and Sukalla's (2012) 5-item measure (e.g. ‘After
viewing the ad I would rather do the opposite of what was recommended in the ad’,
‘It frustrates me that the ad dictates me what to do’). Ratings were recorded on a 7-
point scale (1 ¼ do not agree at all, 7 ¼ totally agree, a ¼ .83). One item, ‘I consider rec-
ommendations in advertisements as an intrusion into my privacy’, lowered the reliabil-
ity of the scale, and was therefore excluded.

Results
To test our hypotheses, a structural equation model was calculated using AMOS.
Significance tests for direct, indirect, and total effects were estimated using bootstrap-
ping procedures employing 2000 bootstrap samples with a 95% bias-corrected confi-
dence interval. The analysis of the initial structural equation model revealed a good fit
to the data (v2 ¼ 13.04, df ¼ 9, p ¼ .16, CFI ¼ .98, RMSEA ¼ .055, 90% CI [.00–.12]). For
estimates of direct effects and variance explained, see Figure 2.
Hypothesis 1 assumed that the personalized stimulus spot would elicit a higher
level of prosocial outcomes including more positive attitudes and behavioural inten-
tions toward homeless people, and greater willingness to donate to the campaign.
The total effect of personalization on prosocial outcomes (b ¼ –.09, p > .05) was not
significant, and the direct path was marginally significant in the opposite direction
(b ¼ –.19, p ¼ .05). Thus, Hypothesis 1, the general assumption that personalization
would produce positive, message consistent effects, was not supported.
Hypothesis 2 made a more specific prediction by assuming that personalization
would have a positive effect on prosocial outcomes to the extent that it prompted
self-referencing. The personalized ad had a significant total effect on self-referencing
(b ¼ .32, p < .001), and self-referencing had a significant total effect on prosocial
356 A. BARTSCH AND A. KLOß

outcomes (b ¼ .23, p < .05). The indirect effect of personalization on prosocial out-
comes via self-referencing was significant as well (b ¼ .07, p < .01). Thus, despite the
missing direct link between personalization and prosocial outcomes, the mediation
hypothesis for self-referencing (H2) was supported. According to Hayes (2009), signifi-
cant indirect effects can be valid even in the absence of a significant direct or total
effect. This is because nonsignificant total effects can involve a confound of positive
and negative indirect effects that are mediated by different mediator variables. Such a
combination of positive and negative mediation effects can result in a nonsignificant
total effect even though individually the mediation effects are significant. As reported
below, a negative mediation effect of reactance (H4) was responsible for the nonsigni-
ficant total effect of personalization on prosocial outcomes in the case of our study.
Hypothesis 3 assumed that the effect of self-referencing on prosocial outcomes
would be mediated by increased empathy. Self-referencing had a significant direct
effect on empathy (b ¼ .44, p < .001), and empathy had a significant direct effect on
prosocial outcomes (b ¼ .20, p < .05). The indirect effect of self-referencing on prosocial
outcomes via empathy was significant as well (b ¼ .09, p < .05). Thus, the mediation
hypothesis for empathy (H3) was supported. A follow-up analysis revealed that person-
alization had a significant total effect on empathy (b ¼ .22, p < .01), and that this effect
was fully mediated by an indirect effect via self-referencing (b ¼ .14, p < .001), such
that the direct effect was reduced to nonsignificance (b ¼ .08, p > .05). This follow-up
analysis indicates a ‘clean’ manipulation of self-reference that was not confounded by
other factors that might have influenced empathy directly. Taken together, the medi-
ation analyses for self-referencing and empathy suggest the following causal sequence
of effects: (1) message personalization had a direct effect on self-referencing; (2) the
effect of personalization on empathy occurred indirectly, because self-referencing rein-
forced empathy; (3) self-referencing and empathy jointly contributed to prosocial
changes in attitudes, general behavioural intentions, and willingness to support
the campaign.
Hypothesis 4 assumed that personalization of prosocial messages increases react-
ance, thereby reducing prosocial outcomes. Personalization had a significant direct
effect on reactance (b ¼ .18, p < .05), and reactance had a significant negative effect
on prosocial outcomes (b ¼ –.20, p < .05). The indirect effect of personalization on pro-
social outcomes via reactance was negative and significant (b ¼ –.04, p < .05). Thus,
the negative mediation hypothesis for reactance (H4) was supported.
Hypothesis 5 assumed that the negative effect of reactance would be partly offset,
because self-referencing would lower reactance. As expected, self-referencing had a
significant negative effect on reactance (b ¼ –.25, p < .01), and reactance had a signifi-
cant negative effect on prosocial outcomes (b ¼ –.20, p < .05). The indirect effect of
self-referencing on prosocial outcomes via reactance was positive and significant
(b ¼ .05, p < .05). Thus, the hypothesis that reduced reactance would mediate the
effect of self-referencing on prosocial outcomes (H5) was supported.
In sum, although our hypotheses concerning the positive mediation effects of self-
referencing and empathy were supported, the negative mediation effect of reactance
suppressed these positive effects and led to a nonsignificant total effect of personal-
ization on prosocial outcomes.
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING 357

Discussion
This study aimed to investigate the role of personalized charity advertising in promot-
ing self-referencing, empathy, attitude change, and helping intentions toward stigma-
tized social groups. Based on theories of message involvement, empathy, and
reactance, we predicted that the personalization of charity advertisements would have
positive as well as negative effects on prosocial outcomes such as changes in attitudes
and behavioural intentions toward homeless persons and willingness to donate to the
campaign. On the positive side, personalization can reinforce self-referencing and
empathy, and can thereby promote prosocial outcomes. On the negative side, person-
alization can also elicit reactance, with negative effects on prosocial outcomes.
These assumptions were tested in an online experiment using a personalized and a
nonpersonalized version of an advertisement for The Big Boston Warm-Up campaign
that solicits donations of winter coats for homeless people and aims to promote pub-
lic awareness and attitude change about this stigmatized group. Contrary to the gen-
eral hypothesis that personalization would lead to message consistent effects,
personalization showed no significant direct effect on prosocial outcomes (H1).
Nevertheless, the results supported our assumption that self-referencing (H2) and
empathy (H3) are important mediating factors that contribute to positive effects of
personalized charity advertisements on prosocial outcomes. These positive effects
were qualified, however, by a direct effect of personalization on reactance (H4), which
suggests that for some individuals personalized charity advertisements might raise the
perception of persuasive intent and moral pressure to a degree that might suppress
the otherwise positive effects of personalization.
Reactance to personalized advertisements is a relatively new research topic but the
available findings (Maslowska 2011; White et al. 2008) suggest that personalized com-
munication can be a double-edged sword that can lead to reactance and boomerang
effects in certain situations (low perceived utility of the offer), and for certain groups
of recipients (those with low trust in the company and high privacy concerns). As
White et al. (2008) and Maslowska (2011) have argued, negative effects associated
with reactance might account for some of the weak or inconsistent findings concern-
ing the effects of personalization on message acceptance and persuasion.
To our knowledge, reactance has not been examined in the context of personalized
charity advertising so far. Therefore, our findings need to be interpreted with caution.
It might be the case that the personalized message was perceived by some partici-
pants as an attempt to exert moral pressure – which might explain their reactance
and reduced prosocial response tendencies. As Weinstein and Ryan (2010) have
argued, a sense of external pressure can be detrimental to individuals' altruistic motiv-
ation. Therefore, it seems important to keep potential drawbacks of message personal-
ization in mind – both with regard to personalized communication in general
(Maslowska 2011; White et al. 2008), and with regard to personalized charity advertis-
ing in particular.
On a more optimistic note, the results of our study suggest that the direct effect of
personalization on reactance (H4) was counterbalanced by an indirect effect via self-
referencing, such that the personalized message elicited greater self-referencing, which
in turn reduced reactance (H5). Combined, the positive and negative effects of
358 A. BARTSCH AND A. KLOß

personalization on reactance canceled each other out. Considering that the balance
between positive and negative effects of personalization on reactance might be
shifted toward either side depending on context factors, it would be premature to
draw firm conclusions.
What seems relatively clear, however, is that personalized charity advertising can
reinforce empathy. Examining this previously untested assumption was one of the pri-
mary aims of our study. The results indicate that personalization reinforced empathy,
as indicated by a significant total effect of personalization on empathy. The structural
equation model also provided insight into the reasons why empathy was reinforced
by message personalization, given that the effect of personalization on empathy was
mediated by self-reference. A possible explanation is that self-referencing helps miti-
gate implicit bystander effects resulting from the imagined presence of others who
could help instead (Garcia et al. 2002). The concept of an implicit bystander effect
aptly describes how diffusion of responsibility may occur among recipients of charity
advertisements who are addressed as part of a mass audience. Such implicit bystander
effects may be circumvented by a more personal form of address that can reinforce
recipients' sense of personal responsibility, thus increasing empathy and altruistic
motivation. To further substantiate this theoretical explanation, more research is
needed examining the causal role of the bystander effect. For example, experimental
manipulations could address message recipients' level of awareness that thousands of
others received similar personalized messages. If mitigation of the bystander effect
does in fact play a causal role, then such an awareness manipulation should disrupt
the effect of personalization on empathy.
As already mentioned, however, personalization can also be counterproductive to
the extent that it produces reactance. In sum, the positive effects of self-referencing
and empathy, and the negative effect of reactance resulted in a nonsignificant total
effect of personalization on prosocial outcomes, indicating that statistically the positive
and negative effects tended to cancel each other out.
In terms of practical implications, this complex pattern of findings including positive
as well as negative effects of personalized prosocial messages might appear somewhat
disappointing. To those who want to know whether it is a good or bad idea to per-
sonalize charity advertisements, the answer is: well, it depends. Although this might
not be the most satisfying answer, it is important to note the difference between ‘it
depends’ and ‘it doesn't matter’. A nonsignificant total effect does not necessarily
imply that for all recipients the personalized message was just as effective as the
unpersonalized one. It seems that for those participants who responded with self-
referencing and empathy, the personalized message was more effective, whereas for
those who responded with reactance it was less effective than the unpersonalized
message. Thus, a nonsignificant total effect can mean that in fact personalization did
matter, but that it mattered in different ways for different groups of recipients.
Therefore, an important next step is to examine the personal predispositions that
make individuals more or less likely to respond with self-referencing and empathy, or
with reactance to personalized prosocial messages. For example, examining the mod-
erating influence of personality traits such as trait empathy (Mehrabian and Epstein
1972), or reactance proneness (Hong and Faedda 1996) could inform our
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING 359

understanding of individual differences in recipients' responses to personalized charity

advertising.

Limitations and outlook

There are several limitations to the present study that are important to note. First,
there were age, gender, and education biases in our sample. The sample was rather
young, predominantly female, and well educated. Further, the use of a German sample
had advantages as well as disadvantages. Given that the campaign did not run in
Germany, a confounding influence of prior knowledge of the campaign, or specific
background knowledge about the situation of homeless people in Boston could be
ruled out. Conversely, the foreign setting of the campaign, and participants' inability
to make an actual contribution to the campaign likely reduced issue involvement.
Given that the campaign was not currently running in the United States at the time
the study was conducted, however, the advantages of the German sample seemed to
outweigh the disadvantages. However, clearly more research is needed using more
diverse and representative samples as well as samples for whom contribution to the
campaign is an actual rather than just a hypothetical option.
Second, the results are limited by the focus on just one campaign and one form of
personalization (i.e. addressing the message recipient by name). Other, more indirect
forms of personalization and corresponding dimensions of involvement (e.g. perceived
similarity with victims, or value relevance) might have yielded different results.
Personalized video campaigns in the field of charity advertising such as The Big Boston
Warm-Up campaign are relatively scarce. Therefore, to extend the current results
beyond a single case study, other types of messages and personalized content need
to be examined.
Third, our distribution procedure differed from the original viral campaign.
Recipients of the original campaign received the personalized spot from a friend or
personal acquaintance who forwarded it to them. We departed from this procedure to
keep the distribution method constant across experimental conditions. It is important
to note that reactance to the personalized message might have been lower in the ori-
ginal viral campaign, because the message was received from a friend rather than
from an unknown research team, and because those who forwarded the message
likely avoided sending it to people who they thought might dislike it. Therefore, fur-
ther research is needed to examine the possible role of viral distribution and selective
forwarding in avoiding reactance to personalized charity advertising. Nevertheless, the
results of our study have practical implications for the use of personalization in clas-
sical, nonviral campaigns where the senders of charity appeals are not personally
known to recipients.
Further limitations might be associated with the different length and ending of the
personalized stimulus version where in addition to the homeless man who received
the red jacket, a homeless woman is shown looking at the label inside the jacket she
received. Despite the brevity of the added scene, the different length and gender of
the character might have influenced empathy. Fortunately, the results of the structural
equation model indicate that no confounding influence of the manipulation on
360 A. BARTSCH AND A. KLOß

empathy occurred. The empathy effect of the personalized spot was fully mediated by
self-referencing. If confounding factors of the manipulation (such as length or gender
of the added character) had produced an empathy effect, it would have been
observed in the form of a direct effect of the manipulation on empathy which was
not the case. Finally, the assessment of prosocial outcomes was limited by the reliance
on self-report measures. These self-report data need to be complemented with implicit
attitude measures and behavioural measures to substantiate the current results.
With these limitations in mind, we think that the findings provide new insights into
the ‘black box’ (Kreuter et al. 1999) of personalization by highlighting the role of medi-
ating variables such as self-referencing, empathy, and reactance that account for posi-
tive as well as negative effects of personalization on prosocial outcomes (favourable
attitude change and helping intentions toward stigmatized social groups). Particular
promise lies in the finding that self-referencing served as a gateway to empathy and
prosocial outcomes. If personalized charity advertising is successful in prompting self-
reference, it can reinforce an empathic and altruistic frame of mind that makes recipi-
ents care about the well-being of others in need. However, it seems that in order to
fully harness the potential of personalized charity advertising, issues of reactance need
to be taken into account, and careful pretesting of campaigns is recommendable to
avoid ‘getting too personal’ – as White et al. (2008) have put it.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

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