Breaking Harmful Social Norms: the Effects of Norm-Breaking Advertisements on Brand Image

Abstract: Abstract: Current paper proposes a novel marketing approach that originates from the intersection of social and commercial marketing, suggesting that social and commercial goals have the potential to be combined in advertisement by transgressing harmful social norms. The research was undertaken in order to tests the effects of advertisements breaking harmful social norms compared to advertisements following and reinforcing existing harmful social norms with regard to the beholder’s perception of the brand image. Two experiments were conducted by using the Dual mediation model as their basis, so as to examine potential effects of advertisements breaking harmful social norms concerning gender-roles and the traditional family-picture. The results suggest that affective reactions elicited and purchase intents are more positive when an advertisement includes norm-breaking elements. When integrating liberal values into the experiments, results indicate that people with higher levels of liberal values are more favourable towards advertisements breaking social harmful norms than people with lower levels of liberal values. The study has theoretical, practical, and social contributions by suggesting that commercial companies can reach commercial success by including elements breaking harmful social norms in their advertisement, in particular if the target group consists of liberal people.