Impact of death-related media information on the effectiveness of in-feed advertising: A compensatory consumption perspective

With the increasing availability of news related to unexpected and catastrophic events, such as public health issues, natural disasters, murder cases, and terrorist attacks, the coexistence of death-related media information and commercial advertising has become prevalent in media platforms. This study is to clarify whether, when, and why death-related media information impacts the effectiveness of in-feed advertising. We conducted a field study along with three laboratory experiments. Results indicated that users are more likely to click in-feed advertising when it was exposed to death-related information compared to information unrelated to death. Moreover, this positive effect would be amplified when the ads framing is loss (vs. gain) or the ads image brightness is high (vs. low). The findings not only enrich literature on death-related information but also contributes to practice regarding how to improve the effectiveness of in-feed advertising.