Scared Stiff? The Effectiveness of Threat Appeals in Counseling Services Advertising to High-Anxiety Students Jayne Krisjanous Victoria University of Wellington Nicholas J. Ashill American University of Sharjah Katrin Eccarius Victoria University of Wellington Janet Carruthers University of Western England ABSTRACT This exploratory study proposes and tests a theoretical model that analyzes threat appeals in regard to their effectiveness for high-anxiety students, one of the major target groups for counseling services. In particular, affective and cognitive responses to a threat appeal advertisement and their effects on attitude toward the advertisement and behavior are examined. The results suggest that a strong threat appeal is not effective for counseling services but that positive emotions toward the advertisement and cognitive involvement have a positive impact on advertising outcomes. The study contributes further to knowledge of threat appeal effectiveness, targeting “anxious” audiences. C  2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. The incidence of anxiety disorders is widespread across the Western World, with lifetime prevalence rates rang- ing between 13.6% and 28.8% (Michael, Zetsche, & Margraf, 2007). These disorders make up four of the 10 leading causes of mental health diagnoses in devel- oped countries and cause significant functional impair- ment to activities of daily living for those experienc- ing them (World Health Organization, 2004). Anxiety is defined as “an unpleasant feeling of generalized fear and apprehension, often of unknown origin, accompa- nied by physiological symptoms” (Doctor & Kahn, 1989, p. 43). With generalized anxiety often regarded as a predisposing factor in the development of clinical de- pression (Campbell & Brown, 2002), not surprisingly, lowering levels of anxiety before the onset of depres- sion is highly desirable. Individuals between the ages of 10 and 25 years are reportedly at highest risk for de- veloping an anxiety disorder (Michael, Zetsche, & Mar- graf, 2007) and one group identified as particularly at risk for anxiety-related illness are students (Dunne & Somerset, 2004; Kakhnovets, 2011; Leahy et al., 2010). One possible intervention to help treat anxiety is coun- seling, a professional process whereby personal and in- terpersonal conflicts are discussed with a third party, to alleviate anxiety and identify strategies to deal specifi- cally with concerns. One means of persuading high-anxiety individuals to seek counseling assistance is through effective adver- tising. Review of the extant literature on advertising ef- fectiveness in general and advertising in health-related areas in particular highlights a number of observa- tions. First, studies of advertising in health behavior contexts have typically examined the efficacy of threat appeals to determine whether threat appeals create positive attitudes toward the advertisement (ad) and have a positive impact on behavior (see, e.g., Mowen, Harris, & Bone, 2004; Shahab, Hall, & Marteau, 2007; Witte & Green, 2006). However, findings reported in the literature are conflicting, ranging from negative ef- fects to very positive effects on advertising outcomes (Brown, Homer, & Inman, 1998; Jones & Owen, 2006; Keller & Block, 1996). Given these findings, there is a need to investigate advertising effectiveness in differ- ent contexts (Brown, Homer, & Inman, 1998; Holbrook & Batra, 1987; Mowen, Harris, & Bone, 2004). The tar- get audience for counseling services communications is Psychology and Marketing, Vol. 30(10): 874–890 (October 2013) View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/mar C  2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. DOI: 10.1002/mar.20652 874