Purpose

This paper aims to investigate the effect of matching social distance and the concrete/abstract visual presentation of the threats of distracted driving in campaign design.

Design/methodology/approach

This study conducts a series of 2 (social distance frame: close vs distant) × 2 (visual rhetoric style: literal vs metaphorical) online experiments on the perspective of the construal level theory.

Findings

This study identified that a fit between social distance and visual rhetoric style of the threat enhances the effect of a social marketing campaign targeting young adults. A message framed in terms of socially proximal entities shows a favorable impact on young drivers’ threat perception and behavioral intention when the visual rhetoric depicts the threats of texting while driving more concrete. On the other hand, more distant social entities in the message show a better impact when the threats are visualized in metaphor.

Originality/value

This paper enhances the understanding of a threat appeal message design by adding empirical evidence of matching visual rhetoric style and social distance. The findings provide theoretical and practical implications for social marketing campaigns, regarding the strategic tailoring of messages, particularly in public service announcements that discourage texting while driving on young adults.

中文翻译：

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解释拟合在说服年轻司机不要在开车时发短信的威胁诉求中的作用

目的

本文旨在研究匹配社交距离的效果以及在活动设计中分心驾驶威胁的具体/抽象视觉呈现。

设计/方法/方法

本研究从解释水平理论的角度进行了一系列2（社会距离框架：近与远）×2（视觉修辞风格：字面与隐喻）的在线实验。

发现

这项研究发现，社交距离和威胁的视觉修辞风格之间的契合增强了针对年轻人的社交营销活动的效果。当视觉修辞更具体地描述在驾驶时发短信的威胁时，以社会近端实体为框架的消息显示出对年轻驾驶员的威胁感知和行为意图的有利影响。另一方面，当威胁在隐喻中被可视化时，消息中距离较远的社会实体显示出更好的影响。

原创性/价值

本文通过添加匹配视觉修辞风格和社交距离的经验证据，增强了对威胁诉求消息设计的理解。研究结果为社会营销活动提供了理论和实践意义，涉及信息的战略定制，特别是在鼓励年轻人开车时发短信的公共服务公告中。