Warning Young Adults Against Tobacco Consumption Through Ad Parodies: its Effects on Cigarette Brands Attitude

This paper compares the effects of anti-tobacco ad parodies and visual cigarette package warnings on emotional and cognitive responses of young adults. The findings indicate that graphic-only ad parodies can compete with warnings in their attempt to damage consumers’ attitude toward tobacco brands through the health beliefs they lead consumers to associate to the brand. On the contrary, text-only ad parodies prove counterproductive and lead to a boomerang effect characterized by an increase in consumers’ tobacco brand attitude.