The Impact of Social Advertising Campaigns in Shaping Egyptian Youth’s Behavioral Intentions

Abstract

The study examines the effectiveness of selected social advertising campaigns that target the youth in influencing behavioral change in the Egyptian youth, with the moderating role of advertising skepticism towards social ads using the Advertising Response Model (ARM) to measure social advertising effectiveness. The ARM measure social advertising effectiveness through two paths: Central route and Peripheral route. Face to face interviews were conducted with 400 Egyptian youth, using a structured questionnaire. The results showed that the Egyptian youth were less likely to be influenced through the central route of persuasion than the peripheral route of persuasion. Moreover, it was observed that the Egyptian youth are skeptic towards social advertising, which in turn, makes them less likely to adopt the social behavior advertised for. These findings highlight the need for marketers and public policy makers to tailor social marketing campaigns and programs that is specially directed at Egyptian youth because they are more persuaded by social ads that are well executed than the presence of issue-related information. Keywords: social marketing, advertising campaigns, behavioral intentions.