Impact of Unethical Advertising on Consumer Intention- Behavior Gap

Abstract

Marketing and ethics is popular topic due to their controversial nature. Advertising Ethics have been diluted by practitioners over the past years. Preceding studies have claimed that advertising directly influences consumer behavior and has a negative relationship with Behavioral Intention in an unethical advertising context. Conversely, the study was developed based on the Theory of Planned Behavior and has been extended by the support of Trust and Commitment theory. The study examines the uncertainty in the Behavioral Intention and Behavior gap in unethical advertising. The Behavioral Intention – Behavior gap has been intervened or moderated by Brand Trust and Brand Commitment. The sample size of 386 was collected via an online survey. The data was analyzed using SPSS 21 package by incorporating the Regression analysis model and Process V4.0 by Andrew F. Hayes model to test the hypothesis. The findings established that there is a positive, significant relationship between Behavioral Intention and Behavior. It further explicated that Brand Trust and Brand Commitment have a significant moderator relationship between Behavioral Intention and Behavior after viewing unethical advertisements. The findings would contribute to marketing practitioners and policymakers understanding how unethical advertising and implementing strategic directions to bridge the intention-behavior gap.