Exploring the Role of Regulatory Focus and Processing Fluency in the Effectiveness of Narrative versus Non-narrative Advertising: A Study about Sugar Intake in the USA.

Given that many health problems in the United States are closely related to high sugar consumption, this research examined the effectiveness of ad forms (narrative vs. non-narrative) on persuading people to limit sugar intake through an online experiment completed by 1,104 participants. It was found that individual difference of regulatory focus moderated the effect of narrative vs. non-narrative advertising. Moreover, this study revealed an underlying mechanism of how audiences processed narrative vs. non-narrative advertising differently via the mediator of processing fluency, and further resulted in different advertising effectiveness. The findings contributed in providing implications for policy makers and ad professionals to help them with the improvement of public's health in the USA.