Abstract

During times of distress, people tend to seek religious or spiritual guidance as a coping mechanism. COVID-19 brought much uncertainty into the lives of people across the world, providing a unique window into the various constructs and individual preferences related to religion and spirituality. While previous findings focus on the importance of religious cues and religiosity in advertising, scholars have not paid much attention to spirituality. A growing number of Americans do not identify with any religion, and studies about the nonreligious, especially atheists and agnostics, are relatively scant. Therefore, the aim of the current study, grounded in congruity theory and cue utilization theory, was to align ad orientation (religious versus spiritual) with individual life orientation (religious versus nonreligious) to explore the impact of these relationships on advertising effectiveness. Findings show that Christians had strong and favorable attitudes toward both the religious and spiritual ads but stronger intention to learn more about the brand only after exposure to the religious ad. In contrast, nonreligious participants had significantly more favorable attitudes and higher intention after exposure to the spiritual ad (versus religious ad). These findings contribute to an initial theoretical understanding of these two groups, with important implications for advertisers.

摘要

在困难时期，人们倾向于寻求宗教或精神指导作为应对机制。COVID-19 给世界各地人们的生活带来了很多不确定性，为了解与宗教和灵性相关的各种结构和个人偏好提供了一个独特的窗口。虽然先前的研究结果侧重于宗教暗示和宗教信仰在广告中的重要性，但学者们对灵性的关注并不多。越来越多的美国人不认同任何宗教，而对非宗教人士，尤其是无神论者和不可知论者的研究相对较少。因此，本研究的目的是基于一致性理论和线索利用理论，是将广告定位（宗教与精神）与个人生活定位（宗教与非宗教）结合起来，以探索这些关系对广告效果的影响。调查结果表明，基督徒有强大和有利的对宗教和精神广告的态度，但只有在接触宗教广告后才会更深入地了解品牌。相比之下，非宗教参与者在接触精神广告（相对于宗教广告）后，态度明显更好，意愿也更高。这些发现有助于对这两个群体进行初步的理论理解，对广告商具有重要意义。