Advocacy advertising for biotechnology: the effect of public accountability on corporate trust...

Once only a small part of an advertising budget, corporate advertising is a growing, yet controversial, strategy (Belch and Belch 2004; Wilcox, Ault, and Agee 1998). Advocacy ads are a particularly controversial form of corporate advertising, because they aim to influence audiences on topics

beyond the conventional consumer realm of products and services (Culter and Muehling 1989; Nelson 1994). In addition, advocacy ads are commonly used by organizations that sell risk-related products such as oil and gas, alcohol, tobacco, and pharmaceuticals. Advocacy campaigns such as Shell Oil's ads on driver safety or Budweiser's effort to promote "responsible drinking and driving" differ from public service campaigns in that they not only promote a common good, but also focus on protecting the company's market. Marketplace advocacy ads, the focus of this study, can be defined as messages that emphasize building acceptance for a particular product or service by addressing consumer concerns. Changes in laws governing commercial speech and development of more sophisticated marketing techniques have resulted in an increasingly blurred line between PSAs (public service announcements), paid advocacy ads, and editorial content (Cutler and Meuhling 1989; Sandler and Secunda 1993). A variety of companies, as well as government and nonprofit political and social organizations, now use advocacy advertising in attempts to influence public opinion and deflect criticism (Haley 1996; Rice and Atkin 2000). Despite the growing importance of advocacy advertising, relatively little research has examined these strategies and how audiences respond to them (Burgoon, Pfau, and Birk 1995; Haley 1996).

CORPORATE ADVERTISING

While general brand advertising primarily encourages consumers to buy a particular product or service, the goal of corporate advertising is to generate awareness of an organization and enhance its image. There are several types of corporate advertising, including identity, cause-related, and advocacy advertising (Belch and Belch 2004; O'Guinn, Allen, and Semenik 2003). Corporate identity ads focus on awareness, often by emphasizing logos and names, and they may seek to establish or change the organization's image. Cause-related ads build a pro-social image for an organization. Ads that connect an organization with a charity or nonprofit group, identifying the advertiser as a sponsor of the charity, are one example of cause-related advertising (Belch and Belch 2004). Finally, advocacy ads are designed to present a certain point of view (Arens 2004; Belch and Belch 2004; O'Guinn, Allen, and Semenik 2003; Schuman, Hathcote, and West 1991; Wells, Burnett, and Moriarty 2003). While also addressing the general corporate advertising goal of enhancing organizational image, advocacy ads primarily deflect criticism of the organization, its policies, products, or services (Bostdorff and Vibbert 1994).

TYPES OF ADVOCACY ADS

Depending on the nature of the threat the organization faces, different deflection strategies may be employed, and these can be broadly classified into marketplace, political, and value advocacy ads (Arens 2004). Marketplace advocacy ads seek to establish acceptance for a product or service, and they address potential or existing consumer concerns about the product itself or the business practices or manufacturing processes used to create it. Similarly, political advocacy ads seek support for a particular public policy or candidate by presenting favorable arguments to counter public concerns. The third category, value advocacy ads, represents a less overt strategy. Instead of supporting the organization's political or marketplace agenda, these ads deflect criticism by associating the organization with accepted societal values. Value advocacy ads may directly praise certain values, such as honesty or hard work, or they may feature individuals who represent those values (Bostdorff and Vibbert 1994). It is important to note that the three categories of advocacy ads are not mutually exclusive, and in practice, they may appear in combination more often than in pure form. For example, an ad could combine marketplace and values advocacy by associating the organization's products, services, or way of doing business with important values in society. Many political ads invoke values, and some are almost exclusively value advocacy messages, such as the "Morning in America" campaign for Ronald Reagan or "A Man from Hope" for Bill Clinton, both of which associated values with the candidates instead of discussing public policy (Bostdorff and Vibbert 1994). A corporation might also advocate a product or service and related legislation in a single ad. In fact, all three strategies can be combined: The National Rifle Association's advertising campaign has sought acceptance for guns, lobbied against gun control legislation, and associated the NRA with values such as "safety, freedom, conservation, tradition, discipline, and family togetherness" (Bostdorff and Vibbert 1994, p. 148).

MARKETPLACE ADVOCACY ADS

This study focuses on marketplace advocacy ads, which seek acceptance for a product or service by communicating its benefits while addressing concerns about risks. This goal contrasts with general brand advertising, when consumers' perceptions of risks are likely limited to the risk of wasting money on a brand that does not serve their needs. In marketplace advocacy advertising, perceptions of potential risk of the product category for one's health, society, or the environment are particularly salient, and are part of the reason for the ad campaign. Many marketplace advocacy advertising efforts appear to target public concern about risks associated with increasingly sophisticated production processes. The potentially unknown impacts of products, goods, and services that use complex technologies, such as pharmaceutical development, energy production, and genetic modification of foods may give rise to consumer concerns about risk. Public reaction to new technologies themselves may provide incentive for organizations to engage in marketplace advocacy advertising. As Miller (1998) argues, "people are afraid of technology, no doubt about it" (p. 1); he contends there is an "emotional dimension" to the public's concern about technology's potential risks that can be attributed to feelings of uncertainty, ambiguity, and "information overload." As a result, some advertisers may perceive they need to use marketplace advocacy advertising to persuade audiences of the merits of their products and to counter negative perceptions of technology risks. Recent campaigns using the marketplace advocacy approach include the American Plastics Council ("plastics make it possible"); the Natural Gas Supply Association ("clean, safe, affordable"); and the Council for Biotechnology Information ("good things are growing"). In all likelihood, future technological advances will bring with them potential applications to many new industry segments, and this may make marketplace advocacy advertising an increasingly important strategy.

RISK PERCEPTIONS, TRUST, AND CREDIBILITY

Relatively little research has explored consumer perceptions of companies that seek to use advertising to enhance acceptance and minimize risk perceptions about their products (Chipman, Kendall, and Auld 1995; Javalgi et al. 1994). There is evidence, however, that trust may be a key factor in understanding attitudes toward topics that are associated with risk (Gaskell et al. 1999; Frewer et al. 1999; Siegrist 1999; Siegrist and Cvetkovich 2000). In marketing research, trust has been found to lower perceptions of the perceived risk of purchase (Grewal, Gotlieb, and Marmorstein 1994). David Ogilvy (1983) also pointed to the importance of trust, and criticized the quality of most advocacy advertising, stating, "corporations have been using advertising in attempts to influence public opinion on such issues as energy, nationalization, and foreign imports. The trouble is that few readers believe what corporations say" (pp. 121-122). This component of believability, or trustworthiness, may be a key factor in understanding the effectiveness of marketplace advocacy advertising.

CORPORATE CREDIBILITY

An element of advertising effectiveness that is directly related to trust is credibility. Research has shown that perceptions of corporate credibility may have a significant effect on consumer response to advertising. MacKenzie and Lutz (1989) developed a model to assess the antecedents of attitude toward the ad, and this model has been widely used in studies of advertising effectiveness. In research using the model, corporate credibility has been measured in terms of "advertiser credibility," a unidimensional construct consisting of three items: unconvincing/convincing, unbelievable/believable, and unbiased/biased. In their study, MacKenzie and Lutz (1989) found significant relations between advertiser credibility and attitude toward the advertiser, and also between advertiser credibility and ad credibility. The attitude toward the ad model's measurement of advertiser credibility has been critiqued, however, for its use of "simple, non-validated scales" (Newell and Goldsmith 2001, p. 236).

While the scale used by MacKenzie and Lutz (1989) does seem to capture the concept of plausibility, a somewhat limited definition of credibility, it may not be particularly useful for capturing the underlying dimensions of corporate credibility. Newell and Goldsmith (2001) defined corporate credibility as the "extent to which consumers feel that the firm has the knowledge or ability to fulfill its claims and whether the firm can be trusted to tell the truth" (p. 235), and they developed a scale consisting of two factors: expertise and trustworthiness. Research has examined the influence of the new corporate credibility scale on consumer attitude toward the ad ([A.sub.ad]), attitude toward the brand ([A.sub.b]), and purchase intent (PI), the principal outcome variables in the [A.sub.ad] model (Goldsmith, Lafferty, and Newell 2000; Lafferty and Goldsmith 1999). The findings of this research indicated that corporate credibility was positively correlated with, and had a direct effect on, [A.sub.ad], [A.sub.b], and PI. Consistent with previous research, [A.sub.ad] predicted [A.sub.b], which in turn predicted PI.

CORPORATE CREDIBILITY AND ADVOCACY ADVERTISING

Corporate, or organizational, credibility has also been examined specifically within the context of advocacy advertising. In a qualitative study, Haley (1996) identified consumer perceptions of the organization, the advocated issue, and self as the underlying dimensions of credibility, with specific attitudes defining the links between these components. The link between the organization and issue included perceptions of the logical association between the organization and the issue it is advocating, the organization's expertise on the issue, and the organization's intent. The link between the issue and self included perceptions that the advocated issue is important to society, important to the consumer, and that it is possible to make a difference regarding the issue. The link between self and organization includes consumer perceptions of liking, knowing, and being similar to the organization. This model provides a framework for defining credibility in terms of the perceived relations among key components.

PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY

The purpose of this study was to build on Haley's model (1996) to define the attitudes that underlie corporate credibility for a specific type of advocacy advertising, marketplace advocacy ads. Adapting the model for specific kinds of messages has precedence. Stafford and Hartman (2000) added perceptions of an environmental nongovernmental organization (NGO) to the model, with corresponding additional linkages, to describe the perceived credibility of partnerships between a marketer and an NGO. Here an additional element, rules, is added to the model, which is described in terms of public accountability.

One way consumers may be motivated to perceive an advertiser as credible and trustworthy is through the construct of public accountability. Accountability, a framework that has been well researched in interpersonal contexts, has been defined in terms of being answerable to audiences for fulfilling obligations, duties, and expectations (Schlenker et al. 1994; Schlenker and Weigold 1989; Schlenker, Weigold, and Doherty 1991). According to this perspective, when individuals in a society are held accountable for their actions, citizens can trust that those individuals will follow society's rules, and if the rules are broken, the offenders will be appropriately sanctioned. Accountability fosters trust because, as Schlenker and his colleagues state, "social control rests on a society's ability to hold people responsible for their conduct and to sanction violations of important prescriptions" (1994, p. 632). In other words, people can trust a system in which actors are bound by society's rules. Studies indicate that accountability can be applied with respect to audiences (Pennington and Schlenker 1999) and to public contexts (Irani, Sinclair, and O'Malley 2002). The concept of public accountability proposed here is based on interpersonal research, as well as research on the credibility of corporate advertising, and specifically, advocacy advertising.

Elements of Public Accountability

Public accountability is defined as an audience's perceptions of the relations between three key elements: the organization, the issue, and rules (see Figure 1). Two of the elements, organization and issue, also appear in Haley's model (1996). There is also support for these two items, as well as the third item, rules, in the literature on interpersonal accountability (Schlenker et al. 1994; Schlenker and Weigold 1989; Schlenker, Weigold, and Doherty 1991). Interpersonal accountability has been defined in terms of identity, events, and prescriptions. Identity refers to perceptions of an individual, including his or her roles, qualities, and commitments. While social psychologists generally consider accountability in terms of the consequences for an individual person's identity, in the context of advocacy advertising, it seems logical to focus on the identity of an entire organization rather than an individual. An organization's identity has been defined as its core values and demographic traits (Bhattacharya and Sen 2003). Core values encompass the organization's mission, operating principles, and leadership, whereas demographic traits include characteristics such as industry category, country of origin, location, size, and age. The third element of interpersonal accountability, events, has been defined as a given action and its consequences. The key event in the case of marketplace advocacy advertising is the production and distribution of a certain class of products, which also corresponds to the advocated issue as defined in Haley's model. In the interpersonal accountability literature, prescriptions refers to the rules and regulations that govern conduct. Perceptions of prescriptions, or rules, also seem relevant to public accountability and marketplace advocacy advertising, a context in which the potential risks of a product category are likely to be particularly salient. The literature also provides support for defining the links between the elements of organization, issue, and rules.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

Intent: The Rules-Organization Link

The link between rules and organization corresponds with perceptions that an organization is dedicated to following rules, both in terms of complying with government regulations and complying with social norms for protecting the public good. When intent is perceived to be strong, organizations are seen as being clearly committed to following these rules; when intent is perceived as weak, their commitment is in question. In the interpersonal accountability literature (Schlenker et al. 1994; Schlenker and Weigold 1989; Schlenker, Weigold, and Doherty 1991), intent is an aspect of the prescription-identity link, which assesses perceptions that rules, or prescriptions, apply to an individual because of his or her characteristics, roles, and convictions. Schlenker and his colleagues state, "a weak [prescription-identity] link is typified by goals and rules that, given the actor's identity, are ambiguous, conflicting, subject to alternative interpretation, difficult to prioritize, obscure, or of questionable relevance to the actor" (1994, p. 638). When the prescription--identity link is strong, on the other hand, the actor's behavior is perceived to be governed by a clear set of guidelines.

Additional work from social psychology and speech communication also supports the role of intent in building trust. Hovland and his colleagues (1953) identified intentions as a component of credibility, and in speech communication, "goodwill" has similarly been identified as being part of credibility and has been defined as perceived caring of the source (McCroskey and Teven 1999). Kramer included intent in defining trust as "a state of perceived vulnerability or risk that is derived from individuals' uncertainty regarding the motives, intentions, and prospective actions of others on whom they depend" (1999, p. 571). In an organizational setting, Peters, Covello, and McCallum (1997) similarly found that perceptions of trust in industry were influenced by perceptions of concern and care.

The link between rules and organization also corresponds with research on corporate credibility in the context of advocacy advertising. Intent is one aspect of the organization--issue link in Haley's model (1996). In Haley's study, consumers believed that trust was based, in part, on organizations having a "personal investment and involvement with the advocated issue" (1996, p. 32). In the case of marketplace advocacy advertising, investment and involvement with the issue (producing and distributing a product) is probably clear. Intent may be in question, however, when it comes to following rules, both in terms of complying with government regulation and complying with social norms for protecting the public good. Intent has been defined as perceptions of whose interest will be served: only the good of the organization, or also the good of consumers and society (Haley 1996; Javalgi et al. 1994; Stafford and Hartman 2000).

In their study of marketer--NGO alliances, Stafford and Hartman (2000) defined intent in terms of assessment of the "genuineness of the organization's commitment and devotion to its environmental mission" (p. 180), and stated that intent is especially likely to be called into question when an organization stands to gain from the advocated position, which is the case in marketplace advocacy advertising. In their discussion of corporate social responsibility (CSR), Sen and Bhattacharya (2001) similarly cited the importance of communicating the organization's "character" and responsiveness to perceived societal obligations, and they stated that consumers' trust in the organization depends on "attributions they make about the company's intentions and actions from available data" (Bhattacharya and Sen 2003, p. 81).

Rule-Based Trust: The Rules-Issue Link

The link between rules and issue can be described as rule-based trust, or perceptions that rules clearly apply to the activities in question. In the case of marketplace advocacy ads, the issue is production and distribution of a product, so rule-based trust is the degree to which regulation is thought to apply to those activities and their consequences. When rule-based trust is strong, consumers perceive that government regulations directly apply to production and distribution of the product, but when rule-based trust is weak, regulation is seen as ambiguous for the company's activities. Rule-based trust corresponds with the prescription--event link in the interpersonal accountability framework. The prescription--event link is "the extent to which a clear and salient set of prescriptions is perceived to exist that should be applied to an event and should govern conduct" (Schlenker et al. 1994, p. 638). Prescriptions can take the form of clear laws, moral codes, or traditions. Society may not have moral codes or traditions that apply to companies as clearly as they do to individuals in given roles (for example, teachers, parents, or religious leaders). Laws or regulations, however, may be particularly relevant. Within groups, rule-based trust is expected to be most significant for new members, who do not yet personally know the individuals in the group (Fine and Holyfield 1996). In the context of advertising, most consumers will never have personal knowledge of an organization's decision makers; therefore, they may be particularly likely to base their trust on perceptions of the adequacy of existing regulations.

Haley's model (1996) of consumer perceptions of advocacy messages does not address rule-based trust, but other research has examined this construct in the context of organizations. Kramer (1999) discussed rule-based trust and stated that understanding with respect to transaction norms, interactional routines, and exchange practices could be a basis for perceptions of the trustworthiness of an organization. According to this perspective, rule-based trust is founded on shared understanding regarding the system of rules for appropriate behavior in a given context.

Transparency: The Organization--Issue Link

The link between organization and issue refers to perceptions that an organization can be connected to and held responsible for its activities and their consequences. In the context of marketplace advocacy advertising, production and distribution of a certain category of products is the key issue. Transparency implies that the organization's activities are open to scrutiny and that the organization could not claim it was not linked to the issue or that its actions were not deliberate. When transparency is strong, consumers perceive that the organization can be held responsible for its activities, whereas when transparency is weak, it is perceived that responsibility could be avoided.

The interpersonal accountability framework supports the role of transparency in building trust. In the interpersonal model, the identity-event link refers to the extent to which an individual is perceived to be connected to an event and in control of the consequences. The identity--event link is strong when individuals are clearly associated with an event and their actions are perceived to be purposeful. When the identity-event link is strong, responsibility is also strong, and appropriate sanctions can be applied (Schlenker et al. 1994). When the identity--event link is weak, responsibility is weak because it is unclear whether the actor can be associated with the event.

Consumers may similarly base their trust on beliefs that an organization can be linked to its actions. While transparency was not included in Haley's (1996) study of advocacy advertising credibility, Stafford and Hartman (2000) introduced this construct in extending Haley's model to partnerships between marketers and NGOs. They defined transparency as having all activities between the two organizations open to stakeholder scrutiny and feedback. Literature focusing on the environment has identified transparency as a factor in credibility, both in terms of partnerships between corporations and NGOs (Dutton 1996; Fowler and Heap 1998), and in terms of government and NGO-led restoration efforts (Michealidou, Decker, and Lassoie 2002; Press, Doak, and Steinberg 1996). It seems that transparency may be similarly important in consumers' perceptions of credibility in marketplace advocacy ads, where the question is whether a company's actions regarding production and distribution are perceived to be deliberate, controllable, and accessible to relevant stakeholders. Transparency would be weak, for example, if consumers perceived that companies either could not control the outcomes of biotechnology, or that environmental damage caused by biotechnology could not be linked to an individual company.

Liking for the Organization

Trust in an organization may also be affected by a consumer's liking for that organization. Haley (1996) included consumer perceptions of self in modeling the perceived credibility of advocacy messages, and one aspect of the link between perceptions of self and perceptions of the organization was liking, or affective evaluation, of the organization. Bhattacharya and Sen (2003) similarly identified perceived attractiveness of an organization's identity as a factor in whether consumers enter into strong relationships with companies. The construct of attitude toward the advertiser has been examined extensively in the advertising literature as a predictor of advertising effectiveness, and it has been measured with the items bad/good, unpleasant/pleasant, and unfavorable/favorable (MacKenzie and Lutz 1989). It seems that attitude toward the advertiser may capture the dimensions of liking in the broadest sense of a positive or negative perception of the message source.

PLANT BIOTECHNOLOGY

Plant biotechnology is a business segment in which marketplace advocacy advertising may be particularly relevant. Acceptance of biotech crops has become a major issue of public concern for European audiences, and to a lesser extent, in the United States (Priest 2000). Biotech crops in the United States have passed intensive scrutiny from scientific review boards, have received regulatory approval, and have been grown commercially for the past several years. Biotech ingredients are present in many products on supermarket shelves, including food made with canola, corn, or soybeans. Nevertheless, challenges to their use and perceptions of safety risks have continued (Beachy 1999), and many consumers in the general public continue to be concerned about potential risk factors.

Governmental agencies, scientific research institutions, and biotech companies themselves have all responded to these concerns by attempting to provide information to the public with the goal of enhancing acceptance and influencing risk perceptions as to the safety of biotech crops. This is in keeping with the goal of risk communications, which, according to Sandman, is to create "rational alertness" with the goal of "alerting people when they ought to be alerted and reassuring them when they ought to be reassured" (1986, p. 1). Biotech companies have also gone a step further, however, moving beyond factual information transmittal of risk communication messages to utilization of advocacy advertising. The Council for Biotechnology Information (CBI), founded in 2000, is an organization comprised of the leading companies involved in development of biotechnology-derived crops. Soon after its formation, the CBI began to use advocacy advertising to promote the need for and the value of genetic modification of food (Council for Biotechnology Information 2004). The campaign involved television ads, a series of consumer magazine and bus shelter transit ads, a Web site, and a 1-800 number where visitors could order publications designed for both students and adults. The television and print ads directed consumers to the Web site to obtain further information. The target audience for the CBI's Web site includes consumers, farmers, journalists, teachers, and students (Council for Biotechnology Information 2004).

The print ads from the CBI's campaign were selected as the stimulus for this study. The Council for Biotechnology Information ads can be classified primarily as marketplace advocacy, because the main emphasis is alleviating concerns about plant biotechnology and generating acceptance for these crops. There is also a secondary element of values advocacy, because the ads associate the biotech crops with various valued societal outcomes.

Target Audience

Past research has explored the role of life experience and consumer reactions to advocacy advertising. Haley and Wilkinson (1994) found that relative to participants under 23, many of whom are in school or just beginning their professional work experience, those over 23 were more critical of advocacy messages from organizations with a vested interest in the issue. The authors reasoned that cynicism toward advocacy messages may grow as experience with the organization increases. In the case of the Council for Biotechnology Information, however, the organization is quite new, so neither older nor younger consumers would have a long history with it, or with plant biotechnology, a relatively new technology. Regardless of their experience with a particular organization, consumers beyond traditional college age may generally be more critical of organizations' intentions (Haley 1996). Woolward (1982a, 1982b) states that advocacy advertising should target people who have not yet accepted the company's message, but could be encouraged to accept it and possibly act on it. In a pretest for this study, college student participants were found to have slightly positive attitudes toward plant biotechnology, with a mean of 5.04 on a seven-point scale.

College Students and Plant Biotech Advocacy Advertising

In the case of marketplace advocacy advertising, another key issue is identifying users or potential users for the advocated product category. Crop biotechnology is potentially relevant to most consumer segments because of its widespread occurrence in food products in the U.S. market. Young adults, and specifically college students, are one segment of consumers for food products. Currently, there are over 15 million college students in the United States, representing a $9.2 billion market that is viewed by packaged goods marketers as "a meaningful segment" on its own, with distinct characteristics, brand loyalties, and preferences for consumable goods, including food (Ness, Gorton, and Kuznesof 2002, p. 506). As a segment, traditional 18- to 24-year-old college students have been shown to differ from their similar aged nonstudent peers, in that they are much more likely to live away from home, and thus are able to establish an independent lifestyle, including the need to develop life skills such as food shopping and meal preparation (Mintel 1999). Students may even spend more on food as a percentage of their total living expenses compared with other consumers (Ness, Gorton, and Kuznesof 2002), and they are also more likely to be aware of diet and health issues as compared with the population as a whole (Ness, Gorton, and Kuznesof 2002), which makes them a relevant target for marketing new food products and technologies.

Past research has indicated extremely low U.S. public awareness of plant biotechnology (IFIC 2000; Priest 2000). Students, by virtue of the fact that they are more likely to have been more recently exposed to scientific information about this new technology through a college class or portion of a class, might, as a result, be slightly more aware of new food technologies than the public as a whole. Kardes also contends that more knowledgeable participants are more motivated to process information contained in a message source, thus reducing error associated with overlooking information, called the "feature-positive effect" (1993, p. 177), while enhancing the ability to draw inferences. Most researchers who use college student samples do so because of cost and convenience factors, and the practice must therefore be viewed as a limitation of the study. In the present study, however, college students were also used because they represent a group of consumer prospects whose attitudes have long been tracked by industry due to their ability to influence and predict mainstream consumer trends (Nakoneczny 2001), and this predictive value is particularly significant for attitudes toward a new and developing technology.

Hypotheses

H1: The three elements of accountability--intent, rule-based trust, and transparency will predict corporate trustworthiness, and each factor will have a positive correlation with corporate trustworthiness.

Based on research that indicates there are two components of corporate credibility--trustworthiness and expertise--it was expected that public accountability would impact perceptions of credibility through the component of trustworthiness. If people perceive that an advertiser will be held answerable for fulfilling obligations, duties, and expectations, then they should have greater trust in that advertiser.

H2: Corporate trustworthiness (Newell and Goldsmith 2001) and attitude toward the advertiser will predict attitude toward the ad and will have a stronger positive relation with attitude toward the ad than corporate expertise (as defined by Newell and Goldsmith 2001) or plausibility (advertiser credibility as measured by MacKenzie and Lutz 1989).

Trustworthiness and attitude toward the advertiser, or liking, were expected to have the greatest impact on attitude toward the ad. Plausibility, or advertiser credibility as constructed in the [A.sub.ad] model (convincing/unconvincing; believable/unbelievable; biased/unbiased), was hypothesized to be more focused on adequacy of the positioning and statements of the advertiser, and thus less directly related to attitude toward the ad. Trustworthiness was expected to be important for marketplace advocacy ads because when people trust an advertiser, their perceptions of potential risks from that source should be minimized. Likability, or attitude toward the advertiser, was expected to be an important factor because previous research has shown it to influence attitude toward the ad for many types of ads, and liking has been specifically identified as a factor in the credibility of advocacy ads (Haley 1996).

Expertise was not expected to be as important a factor with respect to marketplace advocacy advertising. Participants' evaluations were expected to be more closely related to trust in a system than the skills and knowledge that would constitute the expertise of, for example, scientists who work for the companies that comprise the Council for Biotechnology Information. Generally, expertise has been found to have a significant effect on persuasion, and meta-analysis has even found expertise to have a larger effect than trustworthiness (Wilson and Sherrell 1993). In most cases of marketplace advocacy advertising, however, it seems that consumers are less likely to be concerned with corporate expertise than the degree to which the company can be trusted and positively evaluated. Past research has identified expertise as relevant for advocacy advertising when the organization's expertise with the advocated issue is questionable (Haley 1996; Stafford and Hartman 2000). For marketplace advocacy advertising, however, the organization's expertise with the issue--a certain category of products--is most likely clear. In examining corporate social responsibility, Sen and Bhattacharya (2001) similarly argued that while perceptions of a company's expertise in producing and delivering its products or services can affect its reputation, perceptions of the company's "value system," "soul," or "character" may be particularly important.

Attitude toward the ad was selected as a dependent measure based on previous research identifying it as a key outcome variable in studies of advertising effectiveness (Kalwani and Silk 1982; MacKenzie and Lutz 1989). Previous studies have found that corporate credibility impacts attitude toward the ad, which in turn impacts attitude toward the brand and purchase intention (Goldsmith, Lafferty, and Newell 2000; Lutz, MacKenzie, and Belch 1983; MacKenzie and Lutz 1989). While attitude toward the ad may not be an appropriate measure for some advocacy ads, such as those based on fear appeals, marketplace advocacy ads tend to invoke positive messages to counter public concerns; hence, attitude toward the ad may be a relevant measure for most of these types of ads. There is also precedence for using attitude toward the ad in studies of issue advertising, such as PSAs (Schoenbachler and Whittler 1996).

The second hypothesis was also expected for two additional measures of advertising effectiveness: attitude toward plant biotechnology and purchase intention. Specifically, corporate trustworthiness and attitude toward the advertiser were expected to predict both attitude toward plant biotechnology and purchase intention. Attitude toward the issue is arguably the key measure of effectiveness for advocacy advertising, and in the Council for Biotechnology Information campaign, the objective was most likely to increase acceptance for this new technology. Purchase intention was also assessed, because the long-term goal of a marketplace advocacy campaign is to protect the market for a certain type of product or service. Biotech crops, the focus of this study, are contained in food products and other items the general-market consumer normally buys. There is also precedence for examining purchase intention as an outcome for corporate-level marketing activities, such as corporate social responsibility (Sen and Bhattacharya 2001), and as a construct that is affected by perceptions of the advertiser's credibility (Goldsmith, Lafferty, and Newell 2000; MacKenzie and Lutz 1989).

Method

A survey was conducted in which participants completed a questionnaire after reading a stimulus ad. The stimuli consisted of the four ads from an actual print campaign begun in 2002 by the Council for Biotechnology Information. All four ads were included in the study for generalizability; it was not expected that the ads would produce different effects, and the hypotheses were the same across all the ads. These full-page magazine ads each depicted a different genetically modified crop on the market: cotton, corn, soybean, and papaya. The headline of each ad began with "Would it surprise you to know ...?" and then listed a benefit of the biotech crop. These benefits were less pesticide spraying, growing biofuels, reducing soil erosion, and protecting crops from viruses. The text of each ad further described the benefit and ended with "If you want to learn more, we invite you to call or visit our web site." The Web address and 800 telephone number were provided, and "Council for Biotechnology Information" appeared at the bottom of the page.

The sampling frame chosen for this analysis was college undergraduates majoring in agricultural, health (pre-health majors including pre-med, pre-dent, and pre-vet), science, or communications areas. Participants (N = 258) were college undergraduates; 35% were female and 65% were male. Most were 22 years of age or younger (77%), while the remaining 23% were 23 years or older. Most students were majors in the agricultural and life sciences, including pre-professional majors (34%) and mass communication majors (31%), although a wide variety of majors participated. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four stimulus conditions and were asked to carefully read one of the ads for one minute and then proceed to the questionnaire, which included items assessing perceptions of the advertiser in terms of public accountability, trustworthiness, expertise, plausibility, and attitude toward the advertiser. In addition, questions measured attitude toward the ad, attitude toward plant biotechnology, and purchase intention. All scale items were assessed with five-point response scales.

Perceptions of Accountability

Perceptions of accountability were measured in terms of the three accountability links: rules--organization (intent), rules--issue (rule--based trust), and organization--issue (transparency). Three Likert scale items assessed perceptions of each element, with the "issue" defined as production of biotech crops, "organization" defined in terms of the companies that produce biotech crops and make up the Council for Biotech Information, and "rules" defined as U.S. government regulations concerning biotech crops. In this campaign, since the advertiser was an industry association, the items assessing perceptions of accountability referred specifically to "companies that produce biotech crops"; it is the companies that make up the CBI that actually engage in production and distribution of the product. The items were developed based on a conceptual review of the literature, and similar items have been used in previous research (Irani, Sinclair, and O'Malley 2002). Factor analysis of the accountability items indicated a three-factor solution, and the rotated factors reflected each of the accountability elements. Table 1 presents the rotated factor loadings for the accountability items. The items for each factor were averaged, and the mean for rule-based trust was 3.44 (SD = .83), the mean for intent was 3.43 (SD = .74), and the mean for transparency was 3.67 (SD = .75). Perceptions of transparency were significantly greater than the other two factors, p < .0001.

Perceptions of the Advertiser

Advertiser credibility was measured with the corporate credibility scale (Newell and Goldsmith 2001), which consists of two subscales, trustworthiness and expertise, with four Likert-scale items for each subscale. The mean for the trustworthiness scale was 3.09 (SD = .66, a = .80), and the mean for the expertise scale was 3.31 (SD = .70, a = .85). Advertiser plausibility was assessed with three semantic differential items: unconvincing/convincing, unbelievable/believable, and unbiased/biased (reverse scored) (MacKenzie and Lutz 1989). Scale reliability analysis, however, indicated that the third item (unbiased/biased) did not correlate with the scale; therefore, the first two items were averaged to create the plausibility measure (M = 3.50, SD = .83, r = .69). Attitude toward the advertiser was used as a measure of liking for the advertiser, with three items measuring this factor: bad/good, unpleasant/pleasant, and unfavorable/favorable (MacKenzie and Lutz 1989) (M = 3.64, SD = .73, [alpha] = .84). Participants were also asked the degree to which they thought the Council for Biotechnology Information was made up of U.S. government agencies, companies that produce biotech crops, and scientists working in the area of biotech crops.

Measures of Impact

Attitude toward the ad was measured with three semantic-differential items: bad/good, unpleasant/pleasant, and unfavorable/favorable (MacKenzie and Lutz 1989); the mean was 3.57 (SD = .79, [alpha] = .84). Attitude toward plant biotechnology was measured with the items that are traditionally used to measure attitude toward the brand (MacKenzie and Lutz 1989). Participants were asked whether they thought crops developed through biotechnology were bad/good, unpleasant/pleasant, unfavorable/favorable (M = 3.53, SD = .89, [alpha] = .90). Purchase intention was measured by asking participants how likely it was they would buy a product produced through plant biotech techniques, with response scales anchored by not at all likely/ very likely, impossible/possible, and improbable/probable (M = 3.45, SD = 1.01, [alpha] = .94).

Results

Participants correctly perceived the Council for Biotechnology Information to be composed of companies that produce biotech crops (M = 3.47, SD = .89) and scientists working in the area of biotech crop development (M = 3.57, SD = .88), and they were less likely to think that the Council was made up of U.S. government agencies, M = 3.02, SD = .91; t(256) = 5.23, p < .001 and t(256) = 8.10, p < .0001. Initial analyses were performed to determine whether the differences among the four ads had an impact on any of the variables examined. Separate ANOVA models were run with the ad as the independent variable and each of the three accountability links, corporate trustworthiness, corporate expertise, advertiser credibility, attitude toward the advertiser, and attitude toward the ad as dependent variables. As expected, there were no significant differences for any of the variables based on which stimulus ad was read (all p values were greater than .10); therefore, this factor was collapsed as planned for tests of the hypotheses. Analysis also indicated that participants 22 years old and younger did not differ significantly from participants 23 years old and older in their perceptions of advertiser trustworthiness or attitude toward the ad (p values greater than. 10).

To test H1, which postulated that each of the accountability elements would be positively correlated with corporate trustworthiness and that accountability would predict corporate trustworthiness, regression analysis was used with trustworthiness as the dependent measure and each of the accountability elements as independent measures. Accountability predicted 30% of the variance in trustworthiness, F(3,246) = 36.88, p < .0001. As expected, intent and rule-based trust each had a positive, significant correlation with trustworthiness. Transparency, however, was not significant (see Table 2 for the regression model). The correlation between intent and rule-based trust was .28, the correlation between intent and transparency was .28, and the correlation between transparency and rule-based trust was .20.

The second hypothesis was that corporate trustworthiness and attitude toward the advertiser would have a significant effect on attitude toward the ad and would be stronger predictors than corporate expertise and advertiser plausibility. It was also expected that trustworthiness and attitude toward the ad would explain a significant proportion of the variance in attitude toward the ad. Regression analysis was used to test this hypothesis, with attitude toward the ad as the dependent variable and corporate trustworthiness, attitude toward the advertiser, corporate expertise, and advertiser plausibility as dependent variables. As expected, trustworthiness and attitude toward the advertiser had a significant impact on attitude toward the ad, while expertise and plausibility were nonsignificant, F(4, 248) = 28.22, p < .0001 (see Table 3). A second regression with trustworthiness and attitude toward the advertiser as the only independent variables predicted 30% of the variance in attitude toward the ad, F(2, 251) = 55.46, p < .0001. These variables predicted 44% of the variance in attitude toward plant biotechnology, F(2,251) = 44.41, p < .0001, and 26% of the variance in purchase intention, F(2, 251) = 44.21, p < .0001.

As a follow-up analysis, structural equation modeling was used to fit a model with intent and rule-based trust predicting corporate trustworthiness, and corporate trustworthiness and attitude toward the advertiser predicting attitude toward the ad. AMOS 4.0 was used to estimate parameters (Arbuckle and Wothke 1999). Assessment of model fit was based on the comparative fit index (CFI; Hu and Bentler 1995). The CFI ranges from 0 to 1, with greater values indicating a better fit of the model to the data; generally, the CFI should be greater than .90 (Hu and Bentler 1995). The model yielded a good fit to the data (CFI = .99). Figure 2 presents the model.

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

DISCUSSION

A key implication of this study is that public accountability describes the types of information consumers use to form attitudes about the trustworthiness of an advertiser. In this study, accountability and trustworthiness were the dimensions that mattered most in terms of consumer response to advertising. This was supported by the findings that accountability predicted a fairly large portion of the variance in trustworthiness, and that trustworthiness and attitude toward the advertiser predicted a similar portion of the variance in attitude toward the ad. From a theoretical standpoint, these findings suggest that public accountability and its relationship to perceptions of corporate trustworthiness may hold promise in terms of further dimensionalizing aspects of consumer response to forms of corporate advertising.

In applied terms, the construct might also be utilized to help identify, shape, and test the effectiveness of advertising messages aimed at positioning advertisers as being worthy of trust, based on the degree to which consumers find them to be publicly accountable. The findings of this study suggest that marketplace advocacy ads, such as those used by the Council for Biotechnology Information, may be most effective when they communicate information about public accountability. Specifically, the results indicate that messages may have the greatest impact when they emphasize (1) that there are clear, stringent government regulations that apply to the product and the processes involved in its development, and (2) that companies are concerned about complying with these regulations and protecting the public interest. Ads might achieve these goals by describing the regulatory process and how company employees work hand-in-hand with regulators. A company's intent could be communicated by highlighting any measures taken, beyond what is required, to ensure public safety. Future research could focus on how consumers interpret messages specifically designed to address various elements of accountability.

Public accountability consists of the links between three elements--rules, issue, and organization. This study extended a previous model of advocacy advertising's credibility (Haley 1996) by adding the element of rules. Rules may be a particularly relevant dimension in the case of marketplace advocacy advertising, or in other advertising situations when consumer perception of risk is salient. It was hypothesized that the three elements of accountability would predict corporate trustworthiness, and this was supported for two of the elements. The findings supported the importance of the rules-organization link, or corporate intent, in predicting advertiser trustworthiness, which past research has also indicated (Bhattacharya and Sen 2003; Haley 1996; Javalgi et al. 1994; Sen and Bhattacharya 2001; Stafford and Hartman 2000). This study built on past research by defining intent specifically in terms of perceptions of an organization's dedication to complying with government regulations and norms for protecting the public good. Consumer perceptions of intent had the strongest impact on corporate trustworthiness, which is consistent with previous work on public accountability in the context of biotechnology (Irani, Sinclair, and O'Malley 2002). The findings also lend support to extending rule-based trust (Fine and Holyfield 1996; Kramer 1999; Schlenker et al. 1994) to a model of advertiser trustworthiness. The rules-issue link, or rule-based trust, assessed perceptions that government rules apply to the production of a product and had a significant impact on trustworthiness. Past research has also posited the importance of transparency, particularly in the interactions between multiple organizations (Dutton 1996; Fowler and Heap 1998; Michealidou, Decker, and Lassoie 2002; Press, Doak, and Steinberg 1996; Stafford and Hartman 2000). Contrary to expectations, however, the organization-issue link, which measured transparency, or perceptions that a company could be connected to the production of a product and in control of its consequences, was not predictive of corporate trustworthiness.

The mean for the transparency link was relatively high (3.7 on a five-point scale), and was significantly greater than the other two accountability links, which is consistent with past findings (Irani, Sinclair, and O'Malley 2002). Other research has also found that consumers perceive a company's actions to be controllable and internal to the company (Sen and Bhattacharya 2001). When participants perceive companies as in control of production and clearly linked to these activities, it seems logical that they would base judgments of trustworthiness on perceptions of the organization's intent and the adequacy of regulation. If the transparency link does have a small effect in this context, ceiling effects may have limited the ability to examine its impact. In the context of most marketplace advocacy ads, consumers may assume that the U.S. regulatory system will be able to link a particular organization with the production and distribution of a product. An alternative explanation is that the identity--event link may work, in part, to erode trustworthiness of organizations when those organizations are perceived to be closely associated with potential risk events, such as those associated with biotech crops. Furthermore, the more the organizational advertiser is identified as standing to benefit from acceptance of its perceived-to-be-risky product, the more trust may actually be eroded. Additional research is needed to examine the role of transparency in the context of advocacy advertising. The items used to assess perceptions of transparency focused on whether an organization could be linked to production and its consequences because its actions were known and purposeful. Other aspects of transparency, such as the ability of stakeholders to monitor a company's activities, including its interactions with other groups such as government regulatory agencies, should also be considered in future studies.

It was hypothesized that corporate trustworthiness would be a key predictor of consumer responses to marketplace advocacy ads, and the results supported this hypothesis. Previous research that examined a corporate identity ad (Newell and Goldsmith 2001) found that both corporate trustworthiness and corporate expertise predicted consumer response. For marketplace advocacy ads, corporate expertise was not expected to be as strong a predictor as corporate trustworthiness, because trust was expected to impact attitudes by reducing concerns about the advertiser's product, acceptance of which is the main focus of this type of advertising. Such concerns may not be salient when corporate identity advertising is employed. Since marketplace advocacy ads seek to address potential or existing concerns about the product and the technological and business practices associated with its development and use, trust in a system was thought to be more relevant than the skills and knowledge of the scientists who work for the company. If an advertiser's technical expertise was extremely questionable, then corporate expertise might be expected to impact attitudes toward marketplace advocacy ads. In that case, consumers might perceive that the risk of the product category stems in part from a lack of scientific skills and knowledge in the industry.

In addition to examining the antecedents to and importance of corporate trustworthiness, this study also examined liking for the advertiser. It was hypothesized that corporate likability, in addition to corporate trustworthiness, would predict consumer attitudes, and the findings supported this hypothesis. Haley (1996) identified liking for the advertiser as a dimension of the consumer's understanding of advocacy messages, and he further defined the relationship between self and organization in terms of perceptions of congruency between the organization and one's own values. The relationship between perceptions of self and perceptions of the issue, including attitudes toward the issue, was also included in Haley's model. A more thorough examination of the dynamics between consumers' perceptions of self, the organization, and the issue could potentially aid in developing models with enhanced predictive value.

Consistent with past research (Newell and Goldsmith 2001), this study found the unidimensional scale of advertiser credibility traditionally used in advertising research (MacKenzie and Lutz 1989) was not predictive of advertising effectiveness. The unidimensional measure may be more closely related to advertiser plausibility than the three elements of source credibility. Newell and Goldsmith (2001) addressed the reliability of this three-item scale, and in this study, it was necessary to delete an item to achieve satisfactory reliability. The item deleted--unbiased/biased--supports the notion that the scale measures source plausibility. It seems that a message source could be plausible (convincing and believable), but at the same time, the audience could acknowledge that it is biased. The purpose of an advocacy ad, after all, is to persuade the audience to a certain point of view. In the present study, the advertiser was judged to be fairly plausible (3.5 on a five-point scale). It is possible, however, that plausibility could be a relevant factor for attitude toward the ad if the plausibility of the advertiser's statement and position were clearly questionable.

This study focused on marketplace advocacy ads, which are designed to counter public concerns about a particular product or service and establish consumer acceptance. These ads are one type of advocacy advertising, which can be classified under the broader heading of corporate advertising. While marketplace advocacy advertising may represent a very specialized segment of all consumer advertising, it may become increasingly important for scholars and practitioners to understand how consumers process these messages. Many marketplace advocacy campaigns concern products and services based on new technologies. As technology continues to develop and these advances are applied to more areas of production, consumer concerns about technological risks may increasingly necessitate marketplace advocacy campaigns to counter these risk perceptions.

Study participants were college students because they comprise an important target for the marketplace advocacy campaign examined here. A limitation of this study, however, is the generalizability of the findings to other target audiences. A pretest found that the study population had a relatively favorable attitude toward plant biotechnology, and the results might differ with an audience that has a preexisting negative attitude. Young people have also been found to be less critical of companies' intentions; therefore, older participants might respond differently. Future research could examine the attitudes of other segments of the population and groups that are likely to be more hostile and critical of the marketplace advocacy message.

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Janas Sinclair (Ph.D., University of Florida) is an assistant professor, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Tracy Irani (Ph.D., University of Florida) is an associate professor, Department of Agricultural Education and Communication, University of Florida.

TABLE 1
Factor Loading Estimates for the Variables
Measuring Accountability Perceptions

Factor/variable                                   Factor loading

I. Rule-based trust
   1. U.S. government agencies have regulations
      that specifically apply to the production
      of biotech crops.                                .83
   2. U.S. government agencies have clear rules
      for the production of biotech crops.             .84
   3. U.S. government agencies do not have
      policies related to the production of
      biotech crops. (Reverse coded.)                  .81

II. Intent
    1. Companies that produce
       biotech crops are concerned about
       following U.S. government regulations.          .75
    2. Companies that produce biotech crops
       are committed to protecting the public
       from possible risks of biotech crops.           .77
    3. Companies that produce biotech crops
       do not care about complying with U.S.
       government regulations. (Reverse coded.)        .73

III. Transparency
     1. Companies that produce biotech crops
        have control over whether or not a
        biotech crop is introduced that has
        a negative impact on public safety.            .82
     2. If a biotech crop had a negative
        impact on public safety, a specific
        company would be at fault.                     .61
     3. A company that produces biotech
        crops could avoid introducing a
        biotech crop that has a negative
        impact on public safety.                       .75

TABLE 2
Regression Model for Variables Predicting Corporate Trustworthiness

Variable            B    SE B

Rule-based trust   .16   .04    .20, p < .0001
Intent             .40   .05    .45, p < .0001
Transparency       .04   .05    .05, n.s.

TABLE 3
Regression Model for Variables Predicting Attitude Toward the Ad

Variable                          B     SE B

Corporate trustworthiness         .20    .08    .17, p < .02
Corporate expertise              -.04    .08   -.03, n.s.
Attitude toward the advertiser    .46    .08    .42, p < .0001
Advertiser plausibility           .07    .07    .07, n.s.