ADVOCACY ADVERTISING FOR BIOTECHNOLOGY: The Effect of Public Accountability on Corporate Trust and Attitude Toward the Ad

Abstract

Organizations whose position in the marketplace depends on increasingly sophisticated technologies are using marketplace advocacy ads to promote acceptance of their products and the processes used to create them. It was hypothesized that for this type of advocacy advertising, (1) public accountability, a construct developed from previous research on advertising credibility and social-psychological theory, would predict corporate trustworthiness, and (2) corporate trustworthiness and attitude toward the advertiser would predict attitude toward the ad. Two components of public accountability were significant predictors of corporate trustworthiness, and trustworthiness and attitude toward the advertiser predicted attitude toward the ad, attitude toward plant biotechnology, and purchase intention.