Shame, guilt & responses to non-profit & public sector ads

Despite their regular use and obvious importance for social marketing, guilt appeals have received scant attention from academic researchers in the marketing communications field. The handful of studies actually completed in this area tend to suggest that, although guilty feelings are easily aroused by appropriate advertising messages, the effectiveness of guilt-based advertising is extremely limited, especially for high-guilt communications. This paper challenges the latter proposition, arguing that the dichotomy between guilt and shame commonly applied in psychological (as opposed to marketing) research is equally relevant for investigations into the efficacy of advertising. It is proposed that certain communications intended to invoke guilt might in fact produce shameful responses among message recipients, with negative consequences for advertisers.