Boris Bartikowski
email: boris.bartikowski@kedgebs.com

Michel Laroche
email: michel.laroche@concordia.ca

Marie-Odile Richard
email: richarm3@sunyit.edu

A Content Analysis of Fear Appeal Advertising in Canada, China, and France

Keywords: Content analysis, Cross-cultural comparison, Fear advertising, Print magazines, Types of fear appeal

We content analyzed 4,155 Chinese, French, and Canadian print ads to examine how fear advertising differs across countries or cultures. Findings show that advertisers use fear appeals more frequently in Canada and China than in France. Moreover, fear appeals appear in all three countries more frequently for convenience than for shopping-type products, and more frequently for shopping than for search-type products. Beauty and personal care products, as well as drugs and medical products are more prone to fear appeals than all other product categories. However, the frequency of fear appeals in relation to the product category varies across countries. We also find variations in relation to types of fear appeals. Social and self-esteem fear appeals appear most frequently in China, while physical fear appeals are most dominant in France and Canada, and economic fear appeals most frequent in France.

products and product categories, as well as different types of fear appeals.

Based on Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory [START_REF] Hofstede | Culture's consequences: Comparing values, behaviors, institutions, and organization across nations[END_REF], Hovland et al.'s (1953) curvilinear model of fear appeals, and the economics of advertising information literature [START_REF] Franke | Information content and consumer readership of print ads: A comparison of search and experience products[END_REF][START_REF] Nelson | Advertising as information[END_REF], we address the following three research questions. First, does the frequency of occurrence of fear appeals appearing in magazine advertising differ according to the cultural context, more specifically with the cultural value of uncertainty avoidance? Second, for what product types (convenience-, shopping-, and search-type products) and categories do advertisers use fear appeals most frequently and what are the potential differences existing among countries? Third, what types of fear appeal (physical-, social-, economic-, and self-esteem) do advertisers most frequently use and what are the differences existing among them according to the cultural context? The answers to these related questions could offer guidance on advertising strategy and effective execution of advertising with fear appeals [START_REF] Albers-Miller | Business advertising appeals as a mirror of cultural dimensions: A study of eleven countries[END_REF][START_REF] Laroche | A cross-cultural study of the persuasive effect of fear appeal messages in cigarette advertising: China and Canada[END_REF]2011). This paper reports the results from a large-scale content analysis of 4,155 print ads published in Canadian, Chinese, and French magazines. Our findings show significant differences in the use of fear appeals in these three countries. Advertisers use fear appeals significantly more often in Canada and China than in France. This suggests that fear advertising is more effective to generate attention and increase persuasion in countries that score low on uncertainty avoidance (here, China and Canada) than in countries scoring high on uncertainty avoidance (France). We also find consistently for the three countries that advertisers use fear appeals more frequently for convenience-than for shopping-type products, and more frequently related to shopping-than to search-type products, inferring that convenience products are generally the most prone to use fear appeals. However, there are significant differences based on the product category. As an example, fear appeals appear in Canada and France more frequently with beauty and personal care products, and in China with drugs and medical products. Finally, our results show significant differences in the use of fear appeal types depending on the cultural context. Social-and foremost self-esteem fear appeals are the most dominant types of fear appeal in China, while physical fear appeals are the most dominant type of fear appeal in France and Canada. Also, economic fear appeals appear more frequently in France than in the other countries. We discuss the implications of these findings for international advertising theory and practice.

Conceptual background

Fear is one of the most basic emotions humans can experience. Conceptually, feelings of fear should be distinguished from anxiety, which is an individual's chronic tendency of being afraid or worrying excessively. In contrast, fear may be felt after the conscious appraisal of a dangerous situation (e.g., the fear of death when standing eye to eye with a lion), or after cognitive reflections of a threatening situation (e.g., the fear of losing a job after having committed a serious mistake) [START_REF] Poels | How to capture the heart? Reviewing 20 years of emotion measurement in advertising[END_REF]. Researchers have not reached any consensus on the classification of an advertisement as a fear ad, or on a unique definition of what a fear appeal is. Generally, fear appeals activate a person's sense of risk and vulnerability. They also provide a solution as a means to fear reduction. As such, fear appeals posit the idea that "if you don't do this (buy, vote, believe, support, learn, etc.), some particular dire consequence will occur" (Glascoff, 2000, p. 35). Fear appeals encourage consumers to cognitively deal with a depicted threat, and the outcome of this processing effort may bias their decisions in favor of the advertised recommendation. Thus, fear depicted in advertising serves as a source of motivation to adopt the message's recommendations in order to reduce fear-related unpleasant tensions [START_REF] Tannenbaum | Appealing to fear: A meta-analysis of fear appeal effectiveness and theories[END_REF].

Researchers have developed various theories to explain why and how fear message characteristics affect advertising effectiveness. These theories broadly deal with the level of depicted fear within messages, the use or the omission of efficacy statements (i.e., statements that ensure message recipients can successfully avoid the threat), and the level of depicted susceptibility and/or severity of threats [START_REF] Tannenbaum | Appealing to fear: A meta-analysis of fear appeal effectiveness and theories[END_REF]. The curvilinear model of fear appeal [START_REF] Hovland | Communication and persuasion[END_REF] is among the most prominent theories to make predictions about the impact of the amount of depicted fear within messages on persuasion and behavior. This model suggests that the relationship between fear arousal and persuasion is nonmonotonic with an "optimal" arousal level at which an individual's maximum level of stress tolerance is reached [START_REF] Hovland | Communication and persuasion[END_REF]. Beyond the "optimal" level, additional fear arousal has either no additional impact on persuasion, or consumers engage in avoidance or defensive reactions, meaning that the persuasiveness of fear arousal declines if "too much" fear is depicted [START_REF] Cockrill | Shocking people into action: Does it still work[END_REF][START_REF] Tannenbaum | Appealing to fear: A meta-analysis of fear appeal effectiveness and theories[END_REF].

Hypotheses and research questions

Culture and the use of fear appeals

Although primary emotions such as happiness, anger and fear are universally felt, they affect the consumers' behavior differently according to their cultures [START_REF] Laroche | A cross-cultural study of the persuasive effect of fear appeal messages in cigarette advertising: China and Canada[END_REF]. Building on [START_REF] Albers-Miller | Business advertising appeals as a mirror of cultural dimensions: A study of eleven countries[END_REF] metaphor of advertising as a "mirror of culture," we assume that the frequency to use fear appeals in different countries is contingent on the cultural value of uncertainty avoidance. Uncertainty avoidance is the degree to which members of a society feel uncomfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity [START_REF] Hofstede | Culture's consequences: Comparing values, behaviors, institutions, and organization across nations[END_REF].

People high on uncertainty avoidance, as compared to low, may less easily cope with fearinduced levels of stress and may, therefore, less likely appreciate and be persuaded by ads with fear appeals. In terms of the curvilinear model of fear appeal [START_REF] Hovland | Communication and persuasion[END_REF], the maximum level of stress tolerance may be reached earlier (i.e., with fewer amount of fear or with fewer fear messages) for people high on uncertainty avoidance, than for people low on uncertainty avoidance. Hence, people high on uncertainty avoidance may more likely engage in avoidance or defensive reactions when exposed to advertising with fear appeals. We accordingly expect that advertisers use fear appeals more frequently to persuade consumers in low-rather than high uncertainty avoidance cultures. Following [START_REF] Hofstede | Culture's consequences: Comparing values, behaviors, institutions, and organization across nations[END_REF], Canada and China score low on uncertainty avoidance (China: 30; Canada: 48), whereas France scores much higher (France: 86). Thus,

H1:

The frequency of magazine ads with fear appeals will be higher in low uncertainty avoidance cultures (Canada, China) than in high ones (France).

The use of fear appeals according to the types of products and product categories

Anecdotal evidence proposes that fear advertising is more suitable for some types of products. As such, fear appeals are highly noticeable in advertising that addresses health issues and personal safety, such as anti-smoking, anti-drinking, AIDS prevention, pandemics or anti-social behavior [START_REF] Andrews | How graphic visual health warnings affect young smokers' thoughts of quitting[END_REF][START_REF] Laroche | A cross-cultural study of the persuasive effect of fear appeal messages in cigarette advertising: China and Canada[END_REF][START_REF] Terblanche-Smit | Race and attitude formation in HIV/Aids fear advertising[END_REF]. This may explain why most of the existing research into the persuasiveness of fear advertising focuses on highly salient and sometimes shocking content (for example a dying AIDS patient, or a smoker's black lungs), compared to less attention-grabbing or more attenuated forms of fear appeals [START_REF] Dahl | Does it pay to shock[END_REF]. However, fear appeals also exist in more subtle forms, for example in ads for cosmetics, foods, or household products, to name a few.

For example, Wisk's laundry detergent soap's classical "ring around the collar" ad contains a fear appeal related to the embarrassing situation that may be caused by stains on shirt collars [START_REF] Lascu | Consumer guilt: Examining the potential of a new marketing construct[END_REF]. In another example, L'Oréal Paris uses "before and after images" of women not only to demonstrate the effectiveness of an anti-aging cream, but also to arouse fear in relation to signs of corporal aging. Indeed, psychological research on subjective well-being shows that women in particular suffer from aging anxiety [START_REF] Slevec | Attitudes toward cosmetic surgery in middle-aged women: Body image, aging anxiety, and the media[END_REF], which may make women particularly receptive to fear appeals related to cosmetics and beauty products.

We use the economics of advertising information literature [START_REF] Franke | Information content and consumer readership of print ads: A comparison of search and experience products[END_REF][START_REF] Nelson | Information and consumer behavior[END_REF][START_REF] Nelson | Advertising as information[END_REF] to clarify why some types of products are more or less suitable for advertising with fear appeals. Accordingly, consumers use advertising as a source of information about products, but the utility of this information varies depending on the types of product [START_REF] Nelson | Advertising as information[END_REF]. Search products, such as clothing and accessories, are goods or services whose most relevant attributes (e.g., color, size, warranty) can be easily evaluated prior to purchase or use; in contrast, most relevant attributes of experience products (e.g., taste, softness, performance) are difficult to evaluate in advance, but can only be evaluated with certainty after purchase or consumption. [START_REF] Franke | Information content and consumer readership of print ads: A comparison of search and experience products[END_REF] propose that experience products may further be distinguished into convenience and shopping products. Accordingly, convenience products (such as foods, beverages, or over-the-counter and prescription drugs) are frequently purchased, inexpensive, widely available, purchased with little effort and consumed in a short time, whereas shopping products (such as computers or health care services) tend to be more expensive, more durable, more selectively distributed, and more deeply evaluated before purchase. Franke et al.'s (2004) analysis of magazine advertising demonstrates that the effects of advertising information on readers' attention as well as the extent of information processing are highest in ads for search products, intermediate in ads for shopping products, and lowest in ads for convenience products. Greater attention and deeper processing lead to a better comprehension of message content and enable consumers to verify the claims made by advertisers more consciously [START_REF] Curlo | Ad processing and persuasion: The role of brand identification[END_REF].

Research also illustrates that under conditions of deeper processing (as compared to shallow or light), consumers are less likely scared about the consequences of making a wrong decision, given their more accurate opinions and increased confidence in their own judgements [START_REF] Tsai | Effects of amount of information on judgment accuracy and confidence[END_REF]. This suggests that fear appeals reinforce risk perceptions and behavior particularly in situations where consumers engage in shallow processing, and have inaccurate opinions or little confidence about their judgments (i.e., foremost convenience products). Consequently, we expect that advertisers use fear appeals more frequently in ads for convenience products than for shopping products (H2a), and more frequently in ads for shopping products than in ads for search products (H2b).

H2a: Fear appeals appear more frequently in ads for convenience products than for shopping products.

H2b: Fear appeals appear more frequently in ads for shopping products than for search products.

Franke et al. (2004) derived their product classification scheme from an advertising content analysis of print magazines published in North America. However, consumers' risk perceptions in relation to certain products may vary with the cultural-, social-or economic contexts. For example, in developed countries, a printer cartridge may be considered a typical search product consumers can easily evaluate [START_REF] Girard | Validating the search, experience, and credence product classification framework[END_REF]. On the other side, consumers in developing or emerging countries may perceive higher financial, or even physical risks in relation to the same product. Indeed, many products such as milk powder, batteries, or liquors can be easily and safely evaluated in developed countries given that high quality standards are strictly controlled. Still, in developing countries, such products may even be dangerous, as suggested by the numerous press articles reporting on low-quality materials, illegal, or noxious ingredients being used in these countries. The corollary is that the frequency with which advertisers use fear appeals in relation to specific types of products may vary across countries or cultures. Advertising practitioners may want to learn not only how differently fear appeals are used according to the product type, but also for what specific product categories fear appeals are used. In our study, we therefore also explore how the frequencies of fear appeals vary across product categories.

RQ1: How do the frequencies of fear appeals in ads for different product types (search, shopping, and convenience products) vary across countries or cultures?

RQ2: How do the frequencies of fear appeals for different product categories vary across countries or cultures?

The use of different types of fear appeals

Most of the existing research about fear appeals has focused on either the content of fear messages (e.g., the amount of depicted fear), the nature of the behavior recommended (e.g., one-time versus repeated behaviors), or the characteristics of the audience receiving the message (e.g., gender, culture) [START_REF] Tannenbaum | Appealing to fear: A meta-analysis of fear appeal effectiveness and theories[END_REF]. Surprisingly little research has focused on the different types of fear appeals that advertisers use. [START_REF] Quinn | Fear appeals: Segmentation is the way to go[END_REF], in the context of antismoking ads, found that young adults were less affected by fear appeals that address health problems than adolescents. Similarly, [START_REF] Laroche | A cross-cultural study of the persuasive effect of fear appeal messages in cigarette advertising: China and Canada[END_REF] found that physical and social fear appeals in antismoking ads were more persuasive for the Anglo-Canadians than for the Chinese. This suggests that advertisers should consider targeting different groups of consumers with different types of fear appeals to enhance advertising effectiveness [START_REF] Laroche | A cross-cultural study of the persuasive effect of fear appeal messages in cigarette advertising: China and Canada[END_REF][START_REF] Quinn | Fear appeals: Segmentation is the way to go[END_REF].

The most common types of fear appeals are physical and social [START_REF] Sternthal | Fear appeals: Revisited and revised[END_REF]. Physical fear appeals arouse fear and highlight vulnerability in relation to one's physical body, health and life, whereas social fear appeals stimulate fear in relation to violations of social norms, regulations or the law. For example, anti-smoking ads may not only emphasize the physical threats that come with smoking, but also warn of social disadvantages, such as the threat of social exclusion [START_REF] Dewall | Loneliness and smoking: The costs of the desire to reconnect[END_REF]. In addition to physical and social threats, fear appeals may also address anxiety related to economic conditions (loss of income, job, social security) [START_REF] Calantone | Negating the effects of fear appeals in election campaigns[END_REF][START_REF] Latour | Fear appeals as advertising strategy: Should they be used?[END_REF]. Economic fear appeals are typically found in insurance advertising, for example in ads that emphasize the financial risks related to expensive health treatments or risks related to insufficient invalidity pensions. Finally, self-esteem fear appeals address the fear of damaging one's social image of the self (loss of pride and self-respect) and related psychological well-being [START_REF] Menasco | Threats and promises in advertising appeals[END_REF][START_REF] Stuteville | Psychic defenses against high fear appeals: A key marketing variable[END_REF] • Fear is a primitive instinct that can occasionally guide and activate human behavior. It creates anxiety and tension, causing people to seek ways to reduce these feelings [START_REF] Latour | Fear appeals as advertising strategy: Should they be used?[END_REF]. • An advertising fear appeal posits the risks of using or not using a specific product or service, or the idea such that if you do not buy, some particular dire consequences will occur [START_REF] Glascoff | Articles of interest: Fear appeals, quality perceptions, and "e-health" marketing[END_REF]. • Advertisements using fear appeals are designed to stimulate anxiety in an audience with the expectation that the audience will attempt to reduce this anxiety by adopting, continuing, discontinuing, or avoiding a specified course of thought or action [START_REF] Chung | The effects of fear appeal: A moderating role of culture and message type[END_REF].

We first discussed these definitions with the coders along with examples of print magazine ads from different product categories. Second, to train the coders for the task of identifying ads with fear appeals, we instructed them to indicate whether each of 30 preselected magazine ads contained a fear appeal or not. The coders were not supposed to determine whether an ad evoked their subjective feelings of fear, but rather if the advertiser intended to evoke fear among consumers [START_REF] Laroche | What's so funny?[END_REF]. The training results were largely consistent with our initial classification of the ads. We additionally discussed the results with the coders to avoid misunderstandings and reach consensus. Following procedures proposed by [START_REF] Laroche | What's so funny?[END_REF], the ad collection started in each country with the most recent magazine issue available and went back in time. The ads under examination were published between 2013 and late 2015. Considering publishing periods that extend over one year allows us to avoid seasonal biases, such as products that advertisers promote more likely in the summer than in the winter (e.g., suntan lotion). To minimize duplicated ads, we selected magazines every other month. We removed duplicated ads, as well as ads with price-promotions, and ads for shows, movies, books, or local events [START_REF] Laroche | What's so funny?[END_REF]. We also removed ads printed by the same brand that showed minor differences in the headline, the message or the image displayed. We then asked the coders to indicate whether each ad in the sample contained a fear appeal using the same instructions as during the coder training. We provided the coders with new sample of ads until at least 200 fear ads were identified in each country. In line with previous cross-cultural advertising content analyses [START_REF] Albers-Miller | Business advertising appeals as a mirror of cultural dimensions: A study of eleven countries[END_REF][START_REF] Laroche | What's so funny?[END_REF], we considered a target of 200 fear ads per country to be sufficient for deriving meaningful conclusions. The coders analyzed in total 4,155 ads (Canada: 714; China: 683; France: 2,104), and identified in total 654 ads with fear appeals (Canada: 220; China: 205; France: 229) (Table 1).

The percent of agreement between the coders (initial agreement on which ad contains a fear appeal or not) was high in each country (Canada: 92.3%; China: 86.7%; France 91.3%). The meaningfulness of this measure depends on the number of coders and coding categories. Following [START_REF] Rust | Reliability measures for qualitative data: Theory and implications[END_REF] recommendations, we additionally calculated the proportional reduction of loss (PRL). PRL is a direct extension and generalization of Cronbach's alpha coefficient to qualitative data, and researchers can apply the same benchmarks as commonly used for alpha to interpret PRL as a reliability measure. By using the tables provided by [START_REF] Rust | Reliability measures for qualitative data: Theory and implications[END_REF], we concluded that the PRL' s value was in this study very appropriate (Canada: 92; China: 86; France: 91) (Table 1). Ads for which the coders initially disagreed on whether the ad was a fear ad or not were submitted to discussions with the two initial coders and a third coder and all disagreements were resolved.

[Insert Table 1 here]

Content analysis of fear ads

This step consisted of asking the coders to evaluate the previously identified fear ads along a pre-established coding scheme. Prior to this coding task, coders were trained with a small set of fear ads that were not part of the main study sample. Inconsistencies between the coders and unclear instructions were resolved through discussions. The coding scheme contained written procedures and definitions of the four types of fear appeals as follows:

• Physical fear appeals stimulate fear in relation to physical danger, threat or harm. industrial products; other) [START_REF] Laroche | What's so funny?[END_REF]. This enabled us to classify each ad in terms of search-, shopping-, and convenience-type products using Franke et al.'s (2004) product classification scheme. The coders next rated each ad in terms of the depicted type of fear appeal (physical, social, economic, self-esteem, other). Since the same ad may contain several types of fear appeals, we instructed the coders to indicate for each fear ad the dominant type of fear appeal conveyed. In each country, we recruited and trained a judge to resolve inconsistencies between both coders. After discussions with the judges, a few ads for which the coders could not reach consensus on the dominant type of fear appeal were removed.

Findings

The results show that the percentage of ads with fear appeals is significantly higher in Canada (30.1%) and China (30.0%) than in France (10.9%) (Canada vs. France: z = 12.57, p < .01; China vs. France: z = 11.98, p < .01) (Table 2). This finding clearly supports H1 stating that the frequency of ads with fear appeals is higher in low-than in high-uncertainty cultures.

Insert Table 2 here

Following Franke et al.'s (2004, p. 24) product categorization scheme, we used the collected data about product categories to re-classify the fear ads into ads for search, convenience, and shopping type products (Table 4). For all three countries, the results (Table 3) demonstrate that fear appeals appear significantly more frequently in ads for convenience products than for shopping products (Canada: z = 13.37, p < .01; China: z = 8.60, p < .01;

France: z = 11.45, p < .01). Moreover, fear appeals appear significantly more frequently in ads for shopping products than for search products (Canada: z = 2.28, p < .05; China: z = 3.13, p < .01; France: z = 5.52, p < .01). Both, H2a and H2b are therefore supported by the data.

Next, we analyzed the frequencies of fear appeals in ads for search, shopping, and convenience products, and found they vary across countries (RQ1). The results (Table 3)

show that the use of fear appeals related to the three types of products is contingent on the country, as confirmed by a significant Chi-square test (χ 2 (4, N = 618) = 15.14, p < .01). In particular, fear appeals in ads for search products appear significantly more frequently in China (10.9%) than in France (3.6%). Moreover, fear appeals in ads for shopping products appear significantly more frequently in China (22.8%) and in France (20.9%) than in Canada (13.7%), while fear appeals in ads for convenience products appear significantly more frequently in Canada (79.5%) and France (75.5) than in China (66.3%).

Insert Table 3 here

We also explored the frequencies of fear appeals across the different product categories, and how they vary across the three countries (RQ2). The results (Table 4) point out that advertisers use fear appeals most frequently either in ads for beauty and personal care products (Canada: 41.8%; France: 56.1%), or in ads for medical products (China: 45.9%).

Interestingly, fear appeals appear in China as the second most frequent in ads for beauty and personal care products (15.6%), and in Canada and France for drugs and medical products (Canada: 32.3%; France: 12.6%). We illustrate these results in Figure 1.

Insert Figure 1 here Advertisers use fear appeals in China quite frequently in relation to telecom services (8.3%), IT software (7.8%), and office supplies (7.3%), but the same categories are not prone to the use of fear appeals in Canada (telecom services: 0.9%; IT software: 0%; office supplies: 1.8%) or in France (telecom services: 0.4%; IT software: 0%; office supplies: 0.4%). In contrast, for insurance and financial services the results show a significant number of ads with fear appeals in Canada (7.7%) and France (14.8%), but not in China (1.5%).

Insert Table 4 here Finally, we explored the frequencies of different types of fear appeals (RQ3), and how the frequencies of these types of fear appeals vary across countries (RQ4). The results (Table 4) show that all four types of fear appeals (physical, social, economic, and self-esteem) appear in all the countries, suggesting the importance of differentiating the types of fear appeals. Moreover, the frequencies of these four types of fear appeals depend on the country as confirmed by a significant Chi-square test (χ 2 (6, N = 640) = 153.28, p < .01). First, physical fear appeals predominate both in Canada (61.8%) and in France (74.7%), while selfesteem fear appeals are the dominant one in China (42.6%), the second one in Canada (23.5%), but is insignificant in France (5.0%). Second, social fear appeals appear significantly more frequently in China (18.3%) than in Canada (4.6%) or in France (2.3%). In contrast, economic fear appeals appear in France (18.1%) significantly more often than in China (11.4%) or in Canada (10.1%).

Insert Table 5 here 6 Conclusion

Given the scarcity of insights about when and how advertisers use fear appeals in different countries or cultures, we sought to investigate this issue through a large-scale content analysis of 4,155 print magazine ads published in Canada, China, and France. Even though our results do not predict directly the advertising effectiveness of these ads, they reflect the trend of use of fear appeals by advertisers in Canada, China, and France. Assuming that the ads considered in the present study have been tested and evaluated for effectiveness (for example, in terms of changes in brand awareness, attitudes, or recall after advertising exposure) before advertisers decided to publish them in major print magazines, we derive some implications about advertising effectiveness in line with well-established advertising content analyses [START_REF] Albers-Miller | Business advertising appeals as a mirror of cultural dimensions: A study of eleven countries[END_REF][START_REF] Laroche | What's so funny?[END_REF][START_REF] Tse | Becoming a consumer society: A longitudinal and cross-cultural content analysis of print ads from Hong Kong, the People's Republic of China, and Taiwan[END_REF]. Thus, advertising researchers and practitioners can take into account our findings to learn more from current practice, to benchmark with competitors, and finally, to adjust international advertising strategy and execution accordingly.

Implications for advertising theory and practice

The results establish that advertisers use fear appeals much more frequently in Canada (30.1%) and in China (30.0%) than in France (10.9%). This resonates with the cultural value of uncertainty avoidance, a characteristic more present in France than in Canada or China [START_REF] Hofstede | Culture's consequences: Comparing values, behaviors, institutions, and organization across nations[END_REF]. Advertisers should carefully evaluate the decision when comes the time to use fear appeals advertising in France. Indeed, during the previous decades French advertising has always been considered by researchers as based on "la séduction" (tempting consumers), "le spectacle" (entertaining consumers), "l'amour" (being romantic rather than functional), and "l'humour" (playful use of words and amusing associations) [START_REF] Taylor | How French advertising professionals develop creative strategy[END_REF]. It is important to note that fear does not mesh well with any of these advertising approaches, which may explain why French advertisers tend to abstain from using fear appeals. By contrast, fear advertising is very common in Canada and China and may, therefore, be a promising tactic to generate attention and increase persuasion among consumers in these countries.

As hypothesized, our results report that fear appeals are, in all the countries under study, more frequently used in ads for convenience products than for shopping products, and also more frequently in ads for shopping products than for search products. This resonates with Franke et al.'s (2004) finding that readers' attention and the extent of information processing are contingent on the types of product (higher for search products than for shopping or convenience products). In fact, advertisers seem to prefer using fear appeals in relation to product types for which information processing is weak, as in this situation, consumers do not verify advertisers' claims very deeply. This is why we strongly advise advertisers to use fear appeals foremost for convenience-and shopping-type products, both falling into the broader category of experience products according to [START_REF] Franke | Information content and consumer readership of print ads: A comparison of search and experience products[END_REF].

Our findings also put forth that product categories are more or less prone to the use of fear appeals, and this suitability varies across countries. Both, in Canada and in France, fear appeals appear most frequently in ads for beauty and personal care products (Canada: 41.8%;

France: 56.1%), but comparatively less in China (15.6%). This implies there are cultural differences between these countries in terms of individualism. Beauty and personal care products are mostly bought to take care of the self (e.g., to look younger, to appear more attractive), involving that the demand for these products is rooted in an expression of individualism, a cultural value characterizing more Canada and France than China [START_REF] Hofstede | Culture's consequences: Comparing values, behaviors, institutions, and organization across nations[END_REF]. Indeed, De Mooij (2000) conveys that the use of cosmetics and personal care products is positively correlated with individualism. Hence, the fear to not positively differentiate oneself from others may be more dominant in Canada and in France than in China, which accounts for our findings. Consequently, we recommend that Chinese advertisers carefully assess the use of fear advertising for cosmetics and personal care products as it may not be effective.

Fear appeals appear quite often in China for office supplies, IT software, and telecom services, but rarely in Canada or France (Table 3). This reflects the fact that consumer rights tend to be better protected in Canada and France than in China [START_REF] Li | The problems of China's consumer protection law in the legal practice[END_REF].

Consequently, French and Canadian consumers may neglect the risk of making wrong decisions for these products or services, which makes fear advertising somewhat irrelevant as a persuasive communication technique in these countries. The same may not hold true for China.

Ultimately, the results show that fear appeals can be effectively differentiated in terms of physical-, social-, economic-, and self-esteem appeals. This brings another meaningful contribution to the literature on fear advertising, which has mostly focused on two types of fear appeals-physical and social [START_REF] Laroche | A cross-cultural study of the persuasive effect of fear appeal messages in cigarette advertising: China and Canada[END_REF]. Considering additional types of fear appeals, such as economic and self-esteem fear appeals, also improves our understanding of when and how fear advertising affects persuasion. In China, there are significantly more selfesteem (42.6%) and social fear appeals (18.3%) than in Canada (self-esteem: 23.5%; social: 4.6%) or in France (self-esteem: 5.0%; social: 2.3%). This can be explained by the fact that collectivist cultures (China), as compared to individualist ones (Canada, France), are more strongly influenced by social pressures and how others think about them. Clearly, one of the most important differences between Western and Asian cultures resides in the concept of "face," that is to say how people cultivate their personality or self-identity in relation to other members of their groups or the society in general. The concept of face is particularly relevant when one's identity is called into question [START_REF] Gao | Communicating effectively with the Chinese[END_REF]. This may explain why social fear appeals (e.g., tensions related to violations of social norms) and self-esteem fear appeals (e.g., fear of damage to the social image of the self) appear most frequently in China. In contrast, physical fear appeals appear significantly more frequently in Canada (61.8%) and in France (74.7%) than in China (27.7%). To conclude, our findings are quite consistent with [START_REF] Albers-Miller | Business advertising appeals as a mirror of cultural dimensions: A study of eleven countries[END_REF] metaphor of advertising as a "mirror of culture." Advertisers should be aware of cultural peculiarities and adapt fear advertising design and execution accordingly.

Limitations and future research

As for every study, researchers must keep in mind its limitations when interpreting the results. First, we found that fear appeals in ads for drugs and medical products appear frequently in Canada (32.3%) and in China (45.9%), but less in France (12.6%). While we may eventually explain this finding based on cultural differences, such as uncertainty avoidance, we suggest to also consider the specific regulations of pharmaceutical advertising which tend to be more restrictive in France than in Canada or China (see the "Distribution and Marketing of Drugs Global Guide" available at us.practicallaw.com). Hence, fear appeals related to medical products and drugs may rarely appear in French ads (or only in subtle forms) because advertisers have limits on how to use them. Taken such restrictions aside, we strongly believe that fear appeals can effectively stimulate persuasion and behavioral change related to drugs and medical products in all countries.

In a similar vein, the results indicate that fear appeals in ads for insurance and financial services appear quite often in France (14.8%), less often in Canada (7.7%), but rarely in China (1.5%). This may be explained by the insurance density (insurance premiums per capita), which is still very low in China but high in Canada and France (Swiss Re

Institute, 2016). Although China's insurance and financial services market is one of the largest and fastest growing one in the world, marketers may target more Chinese insurance consumers through different media and channels than popular print magazines (as examined in this study), which may partially account for the results obtained. As the Chinese insurance and financial services market democratizes, we expect that advertisers will increasingly consider using fear appeals. Future studies should be developed to examine these issues.

We also encourage researchers to replicate the present content analysis in other countries. Studying the implications of this research to more countries can reveal additional insights about how cultural differences affect advertisers' decisions to use fear appeals.

Future studies may differentiate magazines along readership characteristics, such as education, gender, or age, or test the proposed hypotheses with other media than print magazines which can deliver additional important insights. In our study, the selected print magazines ensure some homogeneity of readership across countries; however, for other media such as the internet or international television channels, it may happen that audiences are less bound by specific cultures.

We have not collected (product-) category information about non-fear ads, but only category information for ads classified by our coders as fear ads. Consequently, we cannot say, for example, how many ads related to drugs and medical products were fear ads or not.

Knowing the number of ads in one specific appeals category, such as fear, humor (emotional appeals) or including another type of advertising appeal (sex), and comparing countrydifferences in the use of these advertising appeals within categories would offer important additional insights. This could be a fruitful avenue for future research.

Finally, another fruitful area of future research consists of exploring experimentally how differently the proposed four types of fear appeals affect persuasion. For example, [START_REF] Laroche | A cross-cultural study of the persuasive effect of fear appeal messages in cigarette advertising: China and Canada[END_REF] found that ads with physical and social fear appeals brought about changes in attitudes toward smoking for the Canadian consumers, but not for the Chinese.

Would the same hold true for self-esteem fear appeals? Moreover, how do people with consumer-resistant behaviors (avoidance of advertising, anti-consumption) react to fear ads in comparison with other advertising appeals? May one or another type of fear appeal be more effective when combined with other appeals or emotions such as humor, shock or disgust [START_REF] Morales | How disgust enhances the effectiveness of fear appeals[END_REF]? Further work needs to be conducted in order to have a better understanding of how to use efficiently the various types of ad appeals.

For

  the identification of fear advertisements, we collected additional samples of ads published in major print magazines in the three countries (e.g., Canada: Maclean's, Financial Post, Canadian National Geographic, Today's Parents, Canadian House&Home, Chatelaine, Elle, Fashion, Flare, Style at home, Canadian Living; China: Sanlian Life Week, Qingnian Wenzhai, Duzhe, Jia Ting; France: L'Express, Télé 7 Jours, Marie Claire). The selected magazines are similar in content and readership across the three countries and cover three categories (news, general interest & entertainment, and women's & family magazines).

  .s. = not significant at p < .1; all tests are 2-tailed

  . For example, a series of anti-fur ads issued by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) rights organization evoques the fear of damaging one's self-image using prominent models who support slogans such as "Who needs fur to feel beautiful? I'd rather go naked than wear fur."In conclusion, based on our literature review, at least four types of fear appeals (physical,

social, economic, and self-esteem) can be distinguished. Besides, there is no comprehensive comparison in the literature about which types of fear appeals advertisers use the most, and how advertisers use different types of fear appeals in different cultural contexts. We consider the last two following research questions: RQ3: How frequently do the four types of fear appeals

(physical, social, economic, and selfesteem)

appear in magazine advertising?

RQ4: Do the frequencies of occurrence of the four types of fear appeals in magazine advertising vary across countries or cultures?

4 Method

4.1 Identification of fear ads

We used six coders (two from Canada, two from China, and two from France) to generate a sample of print magazine fear ads that we subjected to subsequent in-depth content analyses. We provided the coders with the following literature-based definitions of what fear is and what advertising with fear appeals may consist of:

•

  Social fear appeals stimulate fear in relation to violations of social norms, regulations or the law.• Economic fear appeals stimulate fear in relation to economic conditions such as loss of income, loss of job, or loss of social security. • Self-esteem fear appeals stimulate fear in relation to the social image of the self, such as the fear of losing face in social relationships.The coding scheme first asked coders to indicate the product category to which an ad

belongs (automobiles; beauty & personal care; clothing/fashion; foods and drinks; consumer electronics; household appliances; household products; drugs & medical products; office supplies; IT software; telecom services; insurance & financial services; sports equipment;

Table 1 : Reliability Statistics

 1

	Canada	China	France

Table 2 : Cultural Values and Frequencies of Fear Ads

 2

	Cultural Values
	(Hofstede, 2001)

Table 3 : Frequencies of Fear Appeals in Ads for Different Types of Products

 3

			Country		Pairwise comparisons
	Product type	Canada n (%)	China n (%)	France n (%)	Canada/ China	Canada/ France	China/ France
	Search	14 (6.8)	21 (10.9)	8 (3.6)	n.s.	n.s.	p < .01
	Shopping	28 (13.7)	44 (22.8)	46 (20.9)	p < .05	p < .05	n.s.
	Convenience	163 (79.5)	128 (66.3)	166 (75.5)	p < .01	n.s.	p < .05
	Total a	205

(100.0) 193 (100.0) 220 (100.0) - - -

Notes: n.s. = not significant at p < .1; all tests are 2-tailed; a excluding

'other' products (cf., Table 4)

Table 4 : Frequencies of Categories and Product Types in the Sampled Fear Ads

 4

	Country	Pairwise comparisons

Table 5 : Frequencies of Different Fear Appeal Types Country Pairwise comparisons Type of fear appeal

 5

		Canada	China	France	Canada/	Canada/	China/
		n (%)	n (%)	n (%)	China	France	France
	Physical	134 (61.8)	56 (27.7)	165 (74.7)	p < .01	p < .01	p < .01
	Social	10 (4.6)	37 (18.3)	5 (2.3)	p < .01	n.s.	p < .01
	Economic	22 (10.1)	23 (11.4)	40 (18.1)	n.s.	p < .05	p < .1
	Self-esteem	51 (23.5)	86 (42.6)	11 (5.0)	p < .01	p < .01	p < .01
	Total	217 (100.0)	(100.0) 202	(100.0) 221	-	-	-

Distribution of Fear Ads in Selected Categories

Notes: n.s. = not significant at p < .1; all tests are 2-tailed