Implications for Marketers
The preceding section suggests that under conditions in which consumers have strong hope for an outcome, marketers can enhance brand attitude favorability by including cues and message factors that support the possibility that consumers can achieve the goal-congruent outcome with product use, as is suggested in the tactics we described previously (see Table 1). The efficacy of the tactics is further enhanced when an advertisement contains cues that increase yearning (and thus intensity of hope) for the outcome. The preceding section also suggests that when hope is strong, brand attitudes are more favorable when advertisements focus on outcomes from product use than on the product and its attributes, because the former speaks more clearly to the goal-congruent outcome and its possible achievement through product use. Finally, the preceding section suggests that when hope is strong, disclaimers and product warnings are relatively ineffective as input to attitude formation or change because they are unlikely to be processed in light of perceptual defense and search termination. Even if encoded, disclaimers may have less impact because they may be counterargued or subjected to stronger acceptance criteria. Although prior research has identified a set of advertising and cognitive factors that impact disclaimer/product warning effectiveness (e.g., Johar and Simmons 2000), no previous research has considered the impact of emotional factors such as hope on their efficacy.