Buying a Chance at Love: The Influence of Attachment Anxiety on Consumer Preference for Romantic Advertising
研究发现，依恋焦虑水平高的消费者对强调浪漫关系的广告反应更积极，这一效应在特质和状态依恋焦虑以及不同产品类型中均一致。
Much research has been conducted to understand the impact of sexual appeals in advertising on consumer attitudes and behaviors. Yet, romantic advertising, advertising that focuses on romantic relationships, has received less scholarly attention. To counter this imbalance, the present research investigates the influence of attachment anxiety, an individual difference variable, on consumer reactions to advertising featuring romantic relationships. As hypothesized, our findings suggest that consumers high in attachment anxiety respond more favorably to advertising that highlights romantic relationships. This effect is consistent across trait- and state-level attachment anxiety and consistent across product type (i.e., goods vs. services). Specifically, the results of four experiments demonstrate that compared to securely attached consumers, those who chronically experience high attachment anxiety (experiments 1A and 1B) as well as those who are primed to experience attachment anxiety (experiment 2) respond more favorably to advertisements that focus on the potential romantic rewards associated with an advertised product’s use. Consistent results were obtained using a different advertisement for an experience versus a material good (experiment 3). Implications of the findings for advertisers, marketers, brand managers, and scholars are discussed, and several opportunities for future research are identified.