Effective public service advertisements for Special Olympics organizations to attract prospective volunteers: An elaboration likelihood perspective

The purpose of this study was to expand and test a theory of persuasion for public service announcements (PSAs) designed to lead people to help others in need. More specifically, the present research was designed to broaden the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) by incorporating a newly added personality variable, empathic tendency, into the general framework, and by showing how empathic tendency can play a moderating role in the PSAs. The second purpose, based on the results, was to recommend different and effective PSAs for different target markets. The setting for testing the theory is PSAs that are aimed at potential volunteers for Special Olympics, which provides athletes with mental retardation the opportunity to participate in recreational sports. Disability issues are one of the more important social problems in which appeals are made to the public.; In order test the ELM, a three way 2 (empathy: high versus low) x 2 (argument quality: strong versus weak) x 2 (peripheral cue: celebrity versus non-celebrity status) factorial design was selected for this study. A total of 102 male and 119 female students participated in the study Groups (n = 221). Empathic tendency was used as a moderator in the experiment, while involvement was used a covariate in each experiment.; The results indicated that both high empathy (HE) subjects and low empathy (LE) subjects had the motivation to process the persuasive messages presented, suggesting both groups followed the central route; however, the primary causes that motivated them to evaluate the information were different. As predicted, HE subjects had the motivation to evaluate the messages contained in the PSAs, because of their empathic tendency. LE subjects were motivated to process the arguments (the strong arguments), because of the persuasive messages contained in the ad that focused on empathy-appeal. More importantly, involvement was found to have a significant influence on the argument processing of LE subjects.; In addition, the results revealed that celebrity status was not served as a peripheral cue for this study. HE subjects had significantly stronger intentions to volunteer for the Special Olympics than LE subjects, and that females are more empathic than males.; This study contributed to the body of knowledge on advertisement in the context of sport marketing by providing insights into how to develop effective PSAs for non-profit charitable sport organizations, a segment which has largely been ignored in our field. In addition, the current study can help practitioners involved with Special Olympics understand the decision-making processes involved in donation and helping behavior. It can also help them develop effective advertising commercials (e.g., empathy evoked ads) to enhance individuals' volunteer intentions.