Béatrice Parguel
email: beatrice.parguel@univ-pec.fr

Maître De Conférences

Professeur Renaud Lunardo
email: renaud.lunardo@groupe-esc-troyes.com

Jean-Charles Chebat
email: jean-charles.chebat@hec.ca

Professeur Titulaire

L ' Activisme Peut S'

Averer Contreproductif

WHEN ACTIVISM MAY PROVE COUNTERPRODUCTIVE: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF ANTI-BRAND SPOOF ADVERTISING EFFECTS IN THE TOBACCO INDUSTRY

Keywords: spoof advertising, anti-tobacco activism, persuasion, netnography QUAND publicité parodique, activisme anti-tabac, persuasion publicitaire, netnographie

First stage of research on the effects of anti-tobacco brand spoof ads on the consumer, this paper proposes an exploratory study of netnographic inspiration of the comments left on YouTube by individuals freshly exposed to anti-tobacco brand spoof ads. The results show that anti-tobacco brand spoof ads generate more positive emotions than negative emotions, particularly among non-smokers, and that individuals respond according to the source to which they attribute the ads (i.e., an activist, the tobacco industry or the government). The discussion of the results led to anticipate that anti-tobacco brand spoof ads could prove counterproductive...

INTRODUCTION

According to the World Health Organization, tobacco use kills 5.4 million people a year  an average of one person every six seconds  and accounts for one in 10 adult deaths worldwide (see https://www.who.int/topics/tobacco/facts). Cigarette consumption is then a major cause of premature death worldwide. As a result, many government agencies are taking initiatives to keep young adults away from cigarettes consumption. At a national level, France has recently implemented a European Union directive requiring the display of shocking images on tobacco packs and is now considering the removal of any brand names and logos from those packs (Le Monde, 11/08/2010). At a supra-national level, the World Health Organization has proposed the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) in 2003 to guide countries in developing targeted effective tools for tobacco control policies (Gallopel-Morvan et al., 2010). In the same attempt to reduce the number of smokers, nonprofit groups appear very active as well. Using proactive and creative alternative methods to warn people, such as antibrand web-sites [START_REF] Hollenbeck | Consumer activism on the Internet: The role of anti-brand communities[END_REF]Krishnamurthy and Kucuk, 2009) or antibrand spoof ads [START_REF] Berthon | Ad lib: when customers create the ad[END_REF], they may well get round problems of overexposure and weariness of tired traditional anti-tobacco messages [START_REF] Gallopel | Impact des avertissements sanitaires dans la lutte contre le tabagisme: synthèse théorique et résultats d'une étude qualitative[END_REF]Gallopel-Morvan et al., 2010). So far little research has been conducted on anti-brand communication and we know very little on consumers' response to anti-brand communication. In this paper, we put the focus on the effects of anti-tobacco brand spoof advertising.

From a general point of view, anti-brand spoof ads can be thought of as hijack actions on official brand ads, mixing part of those ads' official materials (e.g., logo, slogan, picture, style) with new ones in a ironical or sarcastic way in order to make the original ad ridiculous or distasteful. These ads range from poking harmless fun to malicious and spiteful jibes directed at some of the world's best known brands [START_REF] Hollenbeck | Consumer activism on the Internet: The role of anti-brand communities[END_REF][START_REF] Bal | Caricatures, cartoons, spoofs and satires: political brands as butts[END_REF].

While those kinds of parodies were previously the prerogatives of professionals, today, anyone with a computer, a little sense of inventiveness and a statement to make can craft a professional looking anti-brand spoof advertising, strongly resembling in form to the ads of the products and brands they criticize [START_REF] Berthon | Ad lib: when customers create the ad[END_REF][START_REF] Bal | Caricatures, cartoons, spoofs and satires: political brands as butts[END_REF]. Besides, the Internet has empowered ordinary consumers and nonprofit groups by giving them powerful means to express their views effectively and tools to reach a large targeted audience at will. Easier to make thanks to inexpensive media software, spoof ads are then as well easier to spread through the Internet and its vehicles (e.g., YouTube, Facebook, DailyMotion).

Therefore, negative parodies are becoming increasingly common on line [START_REF] Bal | Caricatures, cartoons, spoofs and satires: political brands as butts[END_REF]Krishnamurthy and Kucuk, 2009), especially for tobacco brands, which appear among the most spoofed brands worldwide along with alcohol, computer and clothing brands (Harvest Communications LLC, 2002). As an illustration, anti-brand activists have for instance launched Adbusters, a website (http://www.adbusters.org) on which appears Joe Chemo, the Joe Camel mascot in his retirement years and suffering from lung cancer.

Spoofing tobacco brands on line, activists' focus is clearly on questioning negative advertising's impact on a consumption-driven society. In the short term, they aim at countering the effects of official tobacco brands advertising and warning people against tobacco dangers. In the long term, their objective is to affect individual cigarettes consumption. However, to our knowledge, few academic studies have already been conducted on anti-brand spoof ads effectiveness. While research has recently begun to address the question of spoof ads effects, it has mainly focused on consumer-created communications undertaken by brand loyalists on behalf of the brand [START_REF] Muñiz | Vigilante marketing and consumer-created communications[END_REF] and left antibrand spoof ads unexplored [START_REF] Berthon | Ad lib: when customers create the ad[END_REF]. It is therefore now important for both antibrand activists who create and spread anti-brand spoof ads, and the researchers who study them, to understand their effects.

Clearly, anti-tobacco brand spoof ads do not target a specific brand, such as Marlboro or Camel, but the tobacco industry that this prominent brand symbolizes (Harvest Communications LLC, 2002). However, they could still have an impact on both the tobacco category and the tobacco brand they target. Therefore, it is highly relevant to question whether anti-tobacco spoof ads actually hurt tobacco consumption and tobacco brands images, as these variables have largely been shown to influence tobacco consumption behaviors and intentions as a means of self-expression [START_REF] Belk | Developmental recognition of consumption symbolism[END_REF][START_REF] Solomon | The role of products as social stimuli: a symbolic interactionism perspective[END_REF][START_REF] Pollay | The targeting of youths by cigarette marketers: archival evidence on trial[END_REF]Pechmann and Rathneshwar, 1994;[START_REF] Pechmann | An experimental investigation of the joint effects of advertising and peers on adolescents' beliefs and intentions about cigarette consumption[END_REF][START_REF] Golmier | Can cigarette warnings counterbalance effects of smoking scenes in movies?[END_REF].

In the present paper, our specific objective is purely exploratory. Considering anti-tobacco brand spoof ads as kind of consumer-created spoof ads dedicated to warn people against smoking health risks, we first review the literature on cigarette warnings effects and on consumer-created spoof ads. This review highlights some inconsistent findings and the need to consider an exploratory phase, which we did through a netnographic study of spoof ads-induced comments left on YouTube by subjects. Finally, we discuss the results of our exploratory study and suggest that as anti-tobacco spoof ads use humor instead of fear-appeal messages (as anti-smoking warning labels do), they may foster persuasion in a peripheral way (Petty and Cacciopo, 1986;[START_REF] Yong | The effects of humor in advertising: an individual-difference perspective[END_REF] and get a result opposite to activists' intent.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Spoofs ads can be classified according to two main criterions: their valence (i.e., positive, neutral or negative) and their source (i.e., the brand itself, its competitors, brands in other categories, ordinary individuals wishing to express their personal creativity or activists, including unsatisfied customers and employees) (see Appendix A1 for examples). In this typology, anti-tobacco brand spoof ads are a specific type of spoof ads, negatively valenced and designed by activists to warn consumers against tobacco consumption dangers. As such, anti-tobacco brand spoof ads fall between cigarette warnings and consumer-created spoof ads.

Therefore, they invite us to focus our literature review on these two main subjects.

Cigarette warnings effects

The health warnings, mandated by several governments to educate people about the risks of smoking, are usually printed on cigarette advertisements and on cigarette packages. Following the Elaboration Likelihood Model [START_REF] Petty | The elaboration likelihood model of persuasion[END_REF], two main routes have been described in the literature to explain how they may counter the mechanisms which lead young people to start smoking: an emotional one and a cognitive one (Gallopel-Morvan et al., 2010).

The emotional route asserts that an increase in the negative emotions experienced by the individual exposed to cigarettes warnings (e.g., fear, anxiety, disgust) result in an increase in the persuasiveness of these warnings [START_REF] Rogers | Attitude change and information integration in fear appeals[END_REF]. More concretely, fear appeals have been shown to have a positive impact on behaviors such as quitting, attempting to quit or reducing smoking, and on behavioral intentions such as intentions to quit, not to start or re-start [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] Hammond | Graphic Canadian cigarette warning labels and adverse outcomes: Evidence from Canadian smokers[END_REF]Gallopel-Morvan et al., 2010). However, many researchers pointed out that moderate fear appeals may be more persuasive than weak or strong fear appeals. Since weak appeals create too little tension and strong appeals create too much tension, the effect of fear appeals on persuasion could be represented by an inverted Ushaped curve indicating moderate fear levels to be optimal [START_REF] John | The protection motivation model: A normative model of fear appeals[END_REF].

The cognitive route provides an alternative explanation for the process through which warning messages influence adaptive behavior. Using this route, the Protection Motivation Model [START_REF] Rogers | A protection motivation theory of fear appeals and attitude change[END_REF] posits that the influence of fear on the way consumers chose to cope with a threat is mediated by two main cognitive processes: first the appraisal of the threat severity and probability and, second, the appraisal of the ability of a coping behavior to remove the threat and of one's ability to carry out this coping behavior. The outcome of these appraisal processes is an intermediate state called "protection motivation". The Health Belief Model offers a similar framework [START_REF] Rosenstock | Historical origins of the health belief model[END_REF] and predicts that consumers will be more likely to avoid risky behaviors as long as they understand the severity of the risks, their susceptibility to those risks and the benefits of the advocated behavior, and as long as they do not perceive any behavioral barriers. However, the most important limitation to the relevance of these risk-learning models lies in the fact that smoking behavior may appear to some consumers as more rewarding than risky. Actually, many consumers, among whom teenagers and young adults, consider smoking behaviors as a means of achieving group belonging or feeling mature, more confident, in control and coolall desirable traits [START_REF] Devlin | Comparative study of young people's response to anti-smoking messages[END_REF]. Some variables have been identified to moderate the effect of cigarette warnings. Among them are individual variables and cigarette warnings characteristics. As far as the individual variables are concerned, Laroche and colleagues (2001) have explored the effects of cultural differences between the Anglo-Canadians and Chinese on their reactions to fear appeals in cigarette warnings. They showed that both physical and social threat appeals had a much greater effect on the Anglo subjects than on the Chinese. Regarding the cigarette warnings characteristics are concerned, Gallopel and colleagues (2006) conclude that "warnings should be crasher, targeted, shorter, clearer, and more involving for smokers". In particular, their formatwhether warnings are only verbal ones or include both words and pictureshas been shown to explain the degree to which they affect beliefs about the negative health consequences of smoking and decrease the persuasiveness of advertisements. Actually, textonly or black-and-white warnings (such as those issued by the Surgeon General) are not as effective as graphic warnings to compete with imagery of tobacco ads, such as those showing the Marlboro Man [START_REF] Krugman | Do cigarette warnings warn? Understanding what it will take to develop more effective warnings[END_REF]. As they are more visible and easier to understand, graphic warnings increase awareness and knowledge of the health hazards of smoking [START_REF] Hammond | Effectiveness of cigarette warning labels in informing smokers about the risks of smoking: findings from the International Tobacco Control (ITC) Four Country Survey[END_REF]O'Hegarty et al., 2007). Further than the cognitive dimension of attitudes toward smoking, graphic warnings often use highly dramatic appeals and generate stronger negative feelings. Beyond warnings format, warnings themes affect strongly their effectiveness, with physical (e.g., cancers) and social (e.g., dangers of second-hand smoke, especially for children) messages being the most effective warnings [START_REF] Gallopel | Impact des avertissements sanitaires dans la lutte contre le tabagisme: synthèse théorique et résultats d'une étude qualitative[END_REF]Gallopel-Morvan et al., 2010). Finally, warnings perceived credibility is the last important variable to explain warnings effectiveness as non credible message can be avoided by smokers [START_REF] Gallopel | Impact des avertissements sanitaires dans la lutte contre le tabagisme: synthèse théorique et résultats d'une étude qualitative[END_REF].

Consumer-created spoof ads effects

Research on consumer-created spoof ads is still scarce. To date, academics have mainly pointed out that spoof ads are highly relevant to advertisers and brand managers as they provide evidence of consumers' perceptions of brands and of the vividness of consumers' attachment or despite to those brands [START_REF] Thompson | Emotional branding and the strategic value of the doppelgänger brand image[END_REF]Muniz and Schau, 2007).

Though, academics have only recently begun to address the question of spoof ads effects, a cognitive and an emotional route seem to be relevant to explain spoof ads effects.

On the cognitive route, when creating spoof ads for the brands they love or just to express their personal creativity, consumers often show a strong level of agility in appropriating advertising and branding conventions. Celebrating brands ads, these consumers share the messages brands want to convey with other consumers, which contributes to continuously revitalize their brands (Muniz and Schau, 2007). Sometimes, they can even create new meanings to protect their brands from the competition, better reflect their experience of them or imbue them with the meanings they would like to attach to them (Muniz and Schau, 2007).

In the end, these kinds of positive or neutral spoof ads could be as effective as brands official ones in building brands image. What's more, they could be as effective as brands official ones in encouraging the product consumption. As an example in the tobacco industry, cigarettes advertising have been found to be very efficient [START_REF] Botvin | Smoking behavior of adolescents exposed to cigarette advertising[END_REF][START_REF] Pucci | Exposure to brand-specific cigarette advertising in magazines and its impact on youth smoking[END_REF], particularly among adolescents who are wrought with self-conflict and thus more susceptible to the influence from cigarette advertising because these ads portray cigarettes as providing self-identity-relevant and social benefits [START_REF] Freeman | Youths' understandings of cigarette advertisements[END_REF]. Specifically, by the association of positive images with the act of smoking, presenting an image of smokers as physically attractive and healthy individuals, displayed in exquisite settings or engaged in exciting activities, positive or neutral spoof ads could run counter to messages that smoking is dangerous to one's health [START_REF] Altman | How an unhealthy product is sold: Cigarette advertising in magazines (1960-1985[END_REF][START_REF] Loken | Effectiveness of Cigarette Advertisements on Women: An Experimental Study[END_REF]) and reinforce perceptions that smoking is a normative consumption product [START_REF] Collins | Psychosocial predictors of young adolescent cigarette smoking: A sixteen-month, three wave longitudinal study[END_REF][START_REF] Aloise-Young | Peer influence on smoking initiation during early adolescence: A comparison of group members and group outsiders[END_REF]. Two theories have been particularly relevant to explain cigarette advertising persuasion processes. The Social Learning Theory (also named Social Cognitive Theory) suggests that subjects adopt the behavior to receive the social rewards portrayed in the ads [START_REF] Bandura | Social Learning Theory[END_REF][START_REF] Bandura | Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory[END_REF][START_REF] Aloise-Young | Peer influence on smoking initiation during early adolescence: A comparison of group members and group outsiders[END_REF][START_REF] Hawkins | Adolescents' perceptions of print cigarette advertising: a case for counteradvertising[END_REF][START_REF] Aloise-Young | Mediators and moderators of magazine advertisement effects on adolescent cigarette smoking[END_REF]. The Stereotype Priming Theory posits that recurrent exposure to cigarette ads makes salient positive stereotypical beliefs about smoking and generates more favorable thoughts about and less disapproving judgments of smokers [START_REF] Anderson | Traits and social stereotypes: Efficiency differences in social information processing[END_REF][START_REF] Maheswaran | Country of origin as a stereotype: effects of consumer expertise and attribute strength on product evaluations[END_REF][START_REF] Pechmann | A comparison of health communication models: risk learning versus stereotype priming[END_REF][START_REF] Pechmann | An experimental investigation of the joint effects of advertising and peers on adolescents' beliefs and intentions about cigarette consumption[END_REF]. As they explain cigarette advertising effects, the Social Learning and Stereotype Priming theories lead to imagine that neutral or positive spoof ads for cigarettes brands are likely to encourage smoking.

On the contrary, when spoofing communication to express their dissent, consumers highlight the negative aspects of a product or a brand, as warnings would do. On the side of the product, they associate negative images with the product consumption, which could therefore discourage its consumption according if we apply the Social Learning and Stereotype Priming theories previously mentioned. On the side of the brand, they create a "Doppelgänger Brand Image" that is "a family of disparaging images about a brand that are circulated in popular culture and that are able over time to coalesce into a coherent set of opposing meanings that plague brand" [START_REF] Thompson | Emotional branding and the strategic value of the doppelgänger brand image[END_REF]. In the end, this diffuse image is likely to lead to brand avoidance [START_REF] Thompson | Emotional branding and the strategic value of the doppelgänger brand image[END_REF], change in consumers' attitudes and behaviors and a drop in brand value (Krishnamurthy and Kucuk, 2009).

On the emotional route, spoof ads are supposed to make laugh, even when they are created to have a specific effect on a targeted audience and not just for fun or for self-promotion [START_REF] Berthon | Ad lib: when customers create the ad[END_REF]. From the literature of satire and caricature, Bal and colleagues (2009) identify three necessary characteristics for a spoof to work and make laugh in the field of politics: sympathy (i.e., the audience has to sympathize with the object of caricature), gap (i.e., there should be a disparity between the image and the realty of the object of caricature) and differentiation (i.e., the object of caricature has to be distinctive). Then, generating humor, spoof ads can overcome resistance to persuasion as humor enhances ad attention and memorability under conditions of low humor-expectancy [START_REF] Duncan | Humor in advertising: A behavioral perspective[END_REF][START_REF] Kellaris | Humor and ad memorability: On the contributions of humor expectancy, relevancy, and need for humor[END_REF]Strick et al., 2009c), as well as product attitude and behavioral preference by a distraction effect and mere association (Strick et al., 2009a and b).

Lessons and limits of past research to predict anti-tobacco brand spoof ads effects

While no empirical research has been conducted on the effects of anti-brand spoofs ads in the tobacco industry, the interesting results underlined by past research conducted on cigarette warnings and consumer-created spoof ads may help building a conceptual framework to explain these effects. To begin, such a framework should study their influence on images at two specific levels: at the brand's level and at the product's level. Then, such a framework should integer two routes to persuasion as in the Elaboration Likelihood Model [START_REF] Petty | The elaboration likelihood model of persuasion[END_REF]): a cognitive one and an emotional one. Still anti-tobacco brand spoof ads influence remains unclear on several points. First, anti-tobacco brand spoof ads may generate ambivalent emotions: negative ones because of the presence of a health message and positive ones because of this message hijacking.

Research does not identify these emotions precisely and does not say which emotions are dominant in consumers' responses to this kind of spoof.

Second, from a cognitive point of view, message credibility is an important variable in message elaboration but we do not know how consumers perceive anti-tobacco brand spoof ads. More precisely, to whom do they attribute this kind of messages and what credibility do they associate to them? Third, anti-tobacco brand spoof ads target young adults, when past research on warnings has usually focus on adolescent, considering that cigarette advertising in magazines specifically targets youth readers [START_REF] Pucci | Exposure to brand-specific cigarette advertising in magazines and its impact on youth smoking[END_REF]. To date, no research has provided evidence that the fear appeal route could be found among young adults, though they are among the heaviest consumers of tobacco products. For instance, in France, 45.6% of people aged between 20 and 25 smoke (INPES, Baromètre Santé 2005).

Our general goal is to broaden the scope of past research on anti-tobacco warnings by extending it into the new substantive area of spoof ads, but before building a strong conceptual framework to explain anti-tobacco brand spoof ads effects, finding answers to these questions seems essential. For this reason, the present research is exploratory and aims more specifically at identifying the nature of feelings and thoughts exhibited by consumers when exposed to anti-tobacco brand spoof ads. As such, it is the first piece of a larger program of research interested in consumers' emotional and cognitive responses to antitobacco brand spoof ads and, in the end, in anti-tobacco brand spoof ads effectiveness.

METHODOLOGY

We used netnography and collected qualitative material under the form of comments posted by Internet users on a social networking Website. Netnography allows observing real processes and patterns of behavior through the observation and/or participation in communications on publicly available online forums [START_REF] Nelson | Exploring cross-cultural ambivalence: A netnography of intercultural wedding message boards[END_REF].

The Website where we picked up comments was YouTube, a video sharing Website on which users can view, share and comment videos. The choice of YouTube was based on its worldwide use. By July 2006, 100 millions videos were being watched every day, and 65.000 videos added daily. Moreover, 10% of ads on YouTube are actually spoof ads [START_REF] Berthon | Ad lib: when customers create the ad[END_REF]. In order to obtain spoof-induced comments and emotions as diverse as possible, we also first considered using DailyMotion to pick-up comments of Internet users. However, this Website has been found to propose only four spoof ads, viewed by only 1.410 individuals and receiving not even a single comment. DailyMotion was eventually not considered.

We used "anti-smoking spoof" as a key word to select comments related to anti-tobacco brand spoof ads. We picked up comments only for spoof ads viewed by a large number of individuals in order to maximize the number of comments. Only spoof ads viewed more than 3.000 times were selected, representing 12 videos. These 12 videos totalized around 1.200 comments, composed of more than 20.000 words and producing 73 pages of text. This diversity of spoof ads and comments enabled us to accumulate narratives from respondents with a broad range of opinions and emotions elicited by the spoofs. When identifying emotions in comments of spoof ads posted on YouTube, two major hurdles appeared.

The first hurdle was to exclude narratives describing emotions induced not by the spoof but by a preceding comment. Consequently, two coders analyzed the comments to retain only those that were directly linked to spoof exposure. We deleted 21 pages of comments, cutting down the number of pages to 52 pages.

The second hurdle, which has been mentioned in previous netnographic studies [START_REF] Wolf | Emotional expression online: Gender differences in emoticon use[END_REF][START_REF] Kozinets | Click to connect: Netnography and tribal advertising[END_REF][START_REF] Kozinets | Netnography. Doing Ethnographic Research Online[END_REF], was to deal with a great body of various minimalist punctuation marks used to express emotions online, such as acronyms (like "LOL" or "OMG", terms such as "friending" or "flaming") and emotional icons (emoticons or smiley faces such as ";-)" or ":-()" in the comments). The same two coders were previously provided with operational definitions and detailed rules and procedures to follow for coding smileys.

More specifically, coders were invited to read instructions on two particular Websites1 designed to help Web users interpreting such punctuation marks. This allowed coders to translate acronyms and emoticons in words to further categorize them into emotions. This was particularly helpful since for instance 147 acronyms or emoticons (18% of the whole set of words) were referring to laughing.

RESULTS

As our exploratory study aims at exploring the consumers' response to anti-tobacco brand spoof ads, the qualitative corpus collected was analyzed in this regard. The presentation of the results of this analysis distinguishes between consumers' emotional and cognitive responses.

Emotional responses induced by anti-tobacco brand spoof ads exposure

When interpreting this body of qualitative data, our aim was to identify the most recurrent and robust patterns of emotions elicited by anti-tobacco brand spoof ads exposure. In the whole set of comments, 813 words were related to emotions.

Since words describing upbeat feelings were of great diversity, only the two main dimensions of finding the spoof funny and laughing are presented in Table 1 but readers can refer to Appendix A2 to get more details about the words found by the two coders in the comments from YouTube. Among words referring to finding the spoof funny, coders took care at keeping in the analysis the word "like" only if this one clearly referred to the fact of liking the spoof. The results presented in Table 1 show that positive emotions were by far the most recurrent set of emotions in the comments studied. 86% of the emotions described in the comments referred to experiencing fun and laughing, two components of upbeat feelings [START_REF] Mooradian | Personality and ad-evoked feelings: the case for extraversion and neuroticism[END_REF]. The other sets of emotions referred either to negative feelings (i.e., dislike and fear) or to neutral emotions (i.e., surprise). Surprise, a neutral emotion, represented 3.8% of the words.

Less than 10 % of the words were describing negative emotions: 8.2% of for "disliking" emotions, 1.2% refers to fear, making fear the least represented emotion among the four emotions identified in this qualitative analysis. Some of the negative reactions generated by anti-tobacco spoof ads exposure are linked to the fact that the moral message conveyed by spoof ads infringes smokers' rights to decide on their own what they should do or not do. This appears in smokers' and non-smokers' verbatim:

"These smoking commercials get more and more retarted every time they make one! Let us smoke in peace dammit!" "Truth ads are some of the most annoying ads ever....and I don't even smoke! The principle of the thing is even more annoying: A perfect stranger is chastising a person's life choice. As long as the person keeps their habit to themselves or does it in places where people accept the risks, then it's all kool and the gang."

"Personally I dont smoke and can't stand to be near one but its there choice and I could careless. I hate them truth commercials. It's all about their rights. They know what there doing and long term as well. So why put out an commercial to stop them?"

These negative reactions may lead to a rebellious attitude and to health message avoidance, which is particularly true among smokers:

"I started smoking because those truth commercials pissed me off haha."

"Yay! I hate those fucking truth ads, all they do is make me wanna light another cigarette, and truthfully, I only have four left."

"I enjoy thinking about anti-tobacco ads while taking long, thoughtful drags on my cigarette" (ironically)

Despite these negative reactions (less than 10 percents), most of the comments collected on YouTube suggest a very positive attitude toward spoof ads, seemingly driven by strong upbeat feelings (more than 86 percents), especially among non-smokers.

Cognitive responses induced by anti-tobacco brand spoof ads exposure

In addition to the identification of upbeat feelings, dislike, surprise and fear as emotions induced by spoof exposure, these comments also highlight the fact that individuals exposed to spoof ads widely engaged in debates and questions regarding the source of the spoof. People did not agree on whom to attribute the creation of the spoof to.

Some individuals thought the spoof was a real ad, either created by a cigarette manufacturer: … or by the tobacco industry itself:

"Actually, it is a tobacco sponsored program. Funny, though, how the ads don't mention any of that. Equally funny how they also lack citations toward their claims of tobacco companies."

Other people, though clearly noticing that the spoof was not a usual ad, attribute the spoof to a government sponsored program. Prior research has emphasized the great involvement of governments in the fight against the dangers of smoking. The principal method used by the government to educate consumers about the risks of smoking refers to warnings [START_REF] Loken | Effectiveness of Cigarette Advertisements on Women: An Experimental Study[END_REF]. Other governmental actions aim at making illegal the targeting of youth by tobacco companies' promotional campaigns, outdoor and transit advertising, cartoons as a marketing feature, product placement in the media, and merchandising [START_REF] Krugman | Do cigarette warnings warn? Understanding what it will take to develop more effective warnings[END_REF]. Thus, it is not surprising to find comments suggesting that spoofs are believed to be a governmental initiative:

"This is fake. Truth, what a joke. Probably another government sponsored program. I haven't seen one of their ads yet that were any good."

Finally, the last ones thought spoof ads they were exposed to had been designed by antismoking activists and clearly identified the fake aspect of the spoof and the fact that it was not a real ad from any brand or any government program, but rather a copy of an existing ad made by an individual or by an activist: Three perceived sources of the spoof can be identified: individuals and activists, a tobacco brand or the tobacco industry and the government. What's more, the last excerpts exemplify that the message seems to get a better reaction when it is attributed to an individual just wishing to make laugh rather than a government program.

DISCUSSION

Our qualitative analysis of individual comments posted on YouTube following anti-tobacco brand spoof ads exposure brings about three important results. First, the main spoof-induced emotions are upbeat feelings. Negative emotions such as dislike and fear represent a minor part of the induced emotions, especially compared to upbeat feelings. Surprise is also an emotion quite poorly represented. Second, some people misunderstand the nature of the spoof.

Some see it as a brand-initiated fake humoristic ad, others see it as a campaign from the tobacco industry, or by the government. Third, spoof-induced response depends on the perceived source of the spoof and on consumer's involvement in tobacco consumption. These results invite to discuss several points about anti-tobacco brand spoof ads effectiveness.

First, what might be the effect of anti-tobacco brand spoof ads on cigarette consumption image? As they generate more humor than fear to persuade consumers to adopt an antismoking behavior, it is unlikely that the fear-appeal route could fully explain spoof ads effects as it explains warning labels effects on consumers. Precisely, humor could distract consumers from the elaboration of the health message. Then anti-tobacco brand spoof ads would be less effective than traditional cigarette warnings to discourage smoking, even though they use an innovative form of communication. About the question of their effectiveness compared to the absence of any anti-tobacco communication, anti-tobacco spoof ads prime some of the negative consequences of the product consumption, like physical and social risks. Therefore, following the Protection Motivation [START_REF] Rogers | A protection motivation theory of fear appeals and attitude change[END_REF] and the Health Belief [START_REF] Rosenstock | Historical origins of the health belief model[END_REF] models, consumers exposed to anti-tobacco brand spoof ads should perceive more risks associated with smoking. However, we do not know whether, and in what circumstances, humor distraction effect eliminates or only reduces spoof ads influence on smoking beliefs saliency.

Second, what might be the effect of anti-tobacco brand spoof ads on cigarette brand image?

On the one hand, these spoof ads associate the brands with negative health drawbacks.

Actually, they have been created by individuals who aim at disparaging the image of tobacco consumption. Doing so, they may erode all tobacco brands image. But on the other hand, they prime the targeted brand identity codes, which could make them more salient in consumers' mind, with a positive contribution to image building for this specific brand. Actually, Spotts and colleagues (1997) show that the use of humor in ads for what they call "yellow" products, such as cigarettes, can be very effective in enhancing initial attention, aided brand recall and held attention. They contend that, consumers would spend little time seeking information and concentrating on the advertising about them since cigarettes are consumed for selfgratification. What's more, as they really make consumers laugh, they could lead to an affective transfer [START_REF] Zajonc | Attitudinal effects of mere exposure[END_REF][START_REF] Zajonc | Feeling and thinking: preferences need no inferences[END_REF] and to an enhanced preference for the targeted brand.

Would that be the case, the targeted brand would paradoxically benefit from the spoof campaign, which is not part of activists' goals. To explore this question, it would be particularly interesting to distinguish between functional and symbolic brand associations when studying the effects of anti-tobacco brand spoof ads, and to explore their influence at the level of the targeted brand and at the level of its competitors.

Third, consumers' reactions to the spoof seem to depend on the smoking status of subjects, actual smokers eliciting more negative emotions and attitudes than non-smokers. This result is not surprising as prior research conducted on tobacco advertising has showed that effects to anti-smoking advertising largely depend on consumption status. For instance, smokers tend to avoid dissonant information about their smoking behavior [START_REF] Tagliacozzo | Smoking behavior and exposure to "dissonant" information, International[END_REF], leading them to avoid exposure to dissonant information, such as anti-tobacco campaigns. In addition to this selective exposure, they exhibit less acceptance of antismoking information than do nonsmokers, and they are more resistant to changing their beliefs [START_REF] Loken | Effectiveness of Cigarette Advertisements on Women: An Experimental Study[END_REF]. Thus spoof ads may be less efficient in changing smokers' beliefs on smoking than non-smokers' beliefs. Besides, according to the ELM [START_REF] Petty | The elaboration likelihood model of persuasion[END_REF][START_REF] Yong | The effects of humor in advertising: an individual-difference perspective[END_REF], non-smokers, who are less involved, are likely to process spoof under limited elaboration and pay more attention to the peripheral cues (i.e., humor) of spoofs than to the relevant arguments of the message. Therefore, their response should be more driven by a positive emotion than by the elaboration of the health message. In that case, their beliefs on smoking would not change, but their image of the targeted brand may be enhanced. On the whole, activists' efforts invested to spoof tobacco brand ads might be counterproductive.

Fourth, one of the important variables of the relative influence of the two routes seems to lay in the source the spoof ads can be attributed to. Actually, spoof ads generate less humor if they are attributed to a government program. Also, they could generate more elaboration in that case as governmental warnings should be perceived as more credible. For this reason, the perceived source of the spoof should as well be included in the model to be build to understand spoof ads effects.

Table 1 -

 1 Frequency of the types of emotions elicited by spoof ads

	Emotion after spoof	Occurrence of	Frequency (%)	Cumulated
	exposure	the word	of the word	frequency (%) of
				the emotion
	Upbeat feelings
	Funny Laugh	370 335	45,51 41,21	86,7
	Contempt
	Stupid	22	2,71
	Bad	17	2,09
	Hate	16	1,97
	Bullshit	4	0,49	8,2
	Dumb	4	0,49
	Annoying	2	0,25
	Suck	2	0,25
	Surprise
	Omg (Oh my God !)	14	1,72
	Crazy	11	1,35	3,8
	Amazing	6	0,74
	Fear
	Freaking	3	0,37
	Sad Creepy	3 2	0,37 0,25	1,2
	Death	2	0,25
	Total	813	100	100

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emoticons; http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060814020411AAwouFx.

Appendix A1. A typology of spoof advertising

Regarding the valence, positive or neutral spoofs refer to parodies which spread a rather positive image of the brand appearing in the spoof. For instance, the spoofs created by brands such as Chupa Chups or Burger king using such icons as the macho imagery of the Marlboro cowboy can be seen as positively valenced since they do not disparage the image of the spoofed brand, that is Marlboro.

On the contrary, spoofs that deliberately hijack logos are negatively valenced since they disparage the image of the brand through the use of slogans that ridicule the name and spread negative meanings of the brand.

Regarding the source of the spoof, ridiculing spoofs can be initiated by competitors (see the example of Apple featuring Microsoft as a chubby, ineffectual geek, cited by [START_REF] Bal | Caricatures, cartoons, spoofs and satires: political brands as butts[END_REF] or brands from other categories (see Chupa Chups or Burger King). More surprisingly, brands can decide to spoof themselves. They use humor to promote a cool image to a wide online target and through an inexpensive way. For example, the Pot Noodle company has created its own spoof ad to attract young audience and develop a positive image. Such strategies can be effective since this spoof ad has been viewed more than 238,530 views only two weeks after its launch on YouTube [START_REF] Long | Pot Noodle looks to run spoof ad on TV as it outdoes original on YouTube[END_REF]. Similarly with a self-spoofing ad by MasterCard featuring the cartoon character Homer Simpsons aired on the occasion of the football world cup.

However, most spoofs ads are anti-brand oriented, designed by consumers, detractors or activists, especially in the tobacco industry as illustrated by the following parodies of Marlboro and Camel ads. * All words that are combinations of "h" and "a" have been aggregated.

Appendix A2. Words referring to funny and laugh as components of upbeat feelings


Keywords: CSR communication, corporate brand attitude, greenwahsing, third-parties, experiment Track: Social responsibility, Ethics and Consumer protection

This paper aims at understanding whether firms should engage in CSR communications towards consumers, or let independent third parties do so. A generalisable sample of 275 adults participated in an experiment, manipulating third-parties credible information (positive information, negative, or absence of information) and company communication (generic vs. CSR communication). Results show a systematic positive effect of CSR communication on corporate brand attitude, even when negative third-parties information is available. CSR communication appears as an efficient and un-risky strategy. Results are further developed and discussed.

Introduction and conceptual background

The aim of this research is to understand whether firms should engage in CSR communications towards consumers, or rely on independent third parties to do so. Broadly defined, corporate social responsibility (CSR) attempts to achieve commercial success in ways that honour ethical values and respect people, communities, and the natural environment (Bhattacharya and Sen, 2004). Today CSR activities have clearly become a prerequisite amidst a global corporate strategy and is supposed to play a crucial role in the formation of ethical corporate perceptions [START_REF] Balmer | Corporate marketing: integrating corporate identity, corporate branding, corporate communications, corporate image and corporate reputation[END_REF][START_REF] Fukukawa | Mapping the interface between corporate identity, ethics and corporate responsibility[END_REF] and social legitimacy [START_REF] Vanhamme | Too good to be true! The effectiveness of CSR history in countering negative publicity[END_REF][START_REF] Waeraas | Green legitimation: the construction of an environmental ethos[END_REF]. However, the question "Is it beneficial to corporate image to proactively communicate about CSR activities?" is still controversial.

Pro's and Con's of CSR communication

The interest for CSR communication (i.e. communication designed and distributed by the company itself about its CSR efforts, [START_REF] Morsing | Corporate social responsibility as strategic auto-communication: on the role of external stakeholders for member identification[END_REF] is relatively recent in marketing research [START_REF] Maignan | Corporate social responsibility and marketing: an integrative framework[END_REF][START_REF] Schlegelmilch | The perils and opportunities of communicating corporate ethics[END_REF][START_REF] Swaen | The use of corporate social responsibility arguments in communication campaigns: does source credibility matter?[END_REF][START_REF] Morsing | Corporate social responsibility as strategic auto-communication: on the role of external stakeholders for member identification[END_REF][START_REF] Du | Maximizing business returns to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): the role of CSR communication[END_REF]. However, it has gained greater importance, as CSR communication expenses have grown to become the third-largest budget item for corporate communication departments in large companies [START_REF] Hutton | Reputation management: the new face of corporate public relations?[END_REF]. Within this body of research, consumer oriented CSR communication (i.e. communication activities targeted at consumers) is all the more neglected [START_REF] Schrader | Why do companies communicate with consumers about CSR? Conceptualization and empirical insights from Germany[END_REF].

On the one hand, a proverbial philosophical statement carved in 1622 on the Fountain of Tureen in Rome advises to "do good and let others do the talking". No communication about corporate social initiatives would be better. From a conceptual point of view, one justification for such CSR silent strategy could be that self-interest motives may be attributed to firms bragging about their corporate social initiatives [START_REF] Sjovall | From actions to impressions: cognitive attribution theory and the formation of corporate reputation[END_REF][START_REF] Van De Ven | An ethical framework for the marketing of corporate social responsibility[END_REF]. If a company focuses badly or too intently on its CSR claims, consumers may believe that it is trying to hide something [START_REF] Brown | The company and the product: corporate associations and consumer product responses[END_REF] or to deliberately mislead them [START_REF] Peattie | Climate change: a social and commercial marketing communications challenge[END_REF]. Then, skeptical consumers may associate an "amoralization of corporate culture" to the "moralization of corporate communication" [START_REF] Schultz | Institutionalization of corporate social responsibility within corporate communications: Combining institutional, sensemaking and communication perspectives[END_REF] and punish firms that are perceived as insincere in their social involvement [START_REF] Becker-Olsen | The impact of perceived corporate social responsibility on consumer behavior[END_REF]. In the end, the search for legitimacy through CSR communication may be perceived as pure manipulation (such as greenwashing when using environmental allegations to deliberately mislead consumers). In these cases, CSR communication may generate distrust and damage consumers' attitude towards a company that communicates about its CSR engagements.

On the other hand, in a context of generalized CSR communication, anonymous actions do nothing to enhance the reputation of a company [START_REF] Sjovall | From actions to impressions: cognitive attribution theory and the formation of corporate reputation[END_REF]. What is worst, the absence of any specific communication may be more perceived as a sign of the firm's indifference than as a sign of the firm's modesty. In such conditions, the potential benefits of CSR initiatives for corporate brand evaluation may be questionable, even for truly responsible companies.

1.2 CSR information... a question of sources [START_REF] Schrader | Why do companies communicate with consumers about CSR? Conceptualization and empirical insights from Germany[END_REF] defend that consumers rely on credible information by the company or trustworthy thirds parties like consumer policy actors to assess a company CSR performance. If we acknowledge the necessity of providing information regarding CSR practices to consumers, the question of who should do it and who is the most credible to do so still remains unaddressed... Furthermore, what is the combined effect of information coming from the company and credible third-parties?

Two types of CSR information sources differ from a consumer perspective: companycontrolled communication and uncontrolled information, such as word of mouth, mass media, or non-governmental organisations' (NGO) communications [START_REF] Balmer | Corporate marketing: integrating corporate identity, corporate branding, corporate communications, corporate image and corporate reputation[END_REF][START_REF] Du | Maximizing business returns to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): the role of CSR communication[END_REF]. With regard to ethical corporate identity, "uncontrolled communication is in need of increased attention" (Balmer et and Greyser, 2007, p.9), because consumers have access to independent sources of information and can compare information provided by the company with evaluations from third parties, such as sustainability ratings. Uncontrolled sources of information have increased in response to consumers' demand for more credible information about environmental concerns. Various third parties, including NGOs, consulting agencies, and media, publish independent general information and evaluations of companies' CSR practices (e.g. the guide Shopping for a better world, the Web site www.climatecounts.org, the magazine Fortune). [START_REF] Swaen | The use of corporate social responsibility arguments in communication campaigns: does source credibility matter?[END_REF] note that the use of a source that is not perceived as controlled by the company increases the positive impact of CSR campaigns. Information from third parties, such as reviews [START_REF] Chen | Third-party product review and firm marketing strategy[END_REF] or visible labels of quality [START_REF] Dickson | Utility of no sweat labels for apparel consumers: profiling label users and predicting their purchases[END_REF], may be influential if they are easily accessible, comprehensible, persuasive, and minimise cognitive requirements for consumers [START_REF] Carpenter | Label equity and the effectiveness of values-based labels: an experiment with two French PGI labels[END_REF].

Considering the context of a growing number of credible sources of information on CSR practices, this research specifically addresses questions about the potential influence of consumer oriented CSR communication on corporate brand attitude. To reach this objective, in the next section, we propose hypotheses depending on the information at the consumers' disposal. To test the hypotheses, we turn to an experiment with a sample of adult consumers and show that CSR communication is clearly a dominant strategy for firms.

Conceptual framework

When consumers do not have any information on firms' practices, they usually take the firms' claims for granted and attribute CSR communication to sincere intrinsic motives [START_REF] Sjovall | From actions to impressions: cognitive attribution theory and the formation of corporate reputation[END_REF]. Therefore CSR communication should enhance corporate brand attitude [START_REF] Swaen | See how 'good' we are: the dangers of using corporate social activities in communication campaigns[END_REF].

H1: When no external information on the firm's reputation is available, corporate brand attitude benefits from CSR communication.

However, when consumers have external credible information about the firm's practices which nourish an idea about its reputation, this information should exert a strong effect on corporate brand attitude in line with previous results regarding the credibility of the source [START_REF] Erdem | Brand equity as a signaling phenomenon[END_REF][START_REF] Swaen | The use of corporate social responsibility arguments in communication campaigns: does source credibility matter?[END_REF]. The combined effect of external information and CSR communication will depend on the valence of external credible information, according to the assimilation-contrast theory [START_REF] Sherif | Social judgment: assimilation and contrast effects in communication and attitude change New Haven[END_REF]. If the credible information is positive, CSR communication, positive by essence, will induce an assimilation effect: therefore, corporate brand attitude will not benefit from CSR communication. If the credible information is negative, CSR communication will induce a contrast effect and a perception of manipulation, therefore degrading corporate brand attitude. In both cases, firms would better not communicate.

H2: When positive external information is available, CSR communication does not change corporate brand attitude. H3: When negative external information is available, CSR communication degrades corporate brand attitude.

Method

The experimental design was a 3 (positive, negative or no credible information) x 2 (generic or CSR communication) between-subject design. External credible information consisted in an article, extracted from a highly-recognized daily newspaper, mentioning various firms ratings (including a fictive firm in the furniture and home improvement industry, D'ECO). Ratings are provided by an external non-profit organization with regard to their sustainable endeavors. D'ECO's communication consisted in the brand presentation Web page: on top of different elements, the page showed a section "our engagements" in the CSR communication version, and general press information in the generic communication version. To ensure realism, IKEA's engagement inspired D'ECO's environmental claim (i.e, producing furniture with wood from certified forests). Manipulation checks verified the credibility of the external information (mean=4.82/7) as well as of the Website (mean=4.66/7), and the perception of the valence of the external information (mean=-1 in the negative case, + 1.71 in the positive case on a -3/3 scale, p<.000).

Three items measure corporate brand attitude: "I have a positive opinion of this retailer", "I dislike this retailer" (inverted) and "I support this retailer's settlement" (Cronbach alpha=.865). A generalisable sample of 275 respondents, recruited from a market research institute online panel and randomly assigned to one of the six treatments, participated in the study.

Results

Test of hypotheses

Validating H1, an ANOVA corroborates the positive effect of CSR communication on corporate brand attitude, when no external credible information is available, and when societal consciousness and product category involvement are controlled (F(1,84)=27.03, p<.000). Corporate brand attitude equals 5.95 in case of CSR communication vs. 4.77 otherwise (p<.000). Contradicting H2, when positive external information is available, corporate brand attitude still benefits from CSR communication (F(1,41)=8.43, p<.01), reaching a level of 5.89 vs. 5.18 (p<.001). Again for H3, even when negative external information is available, CSR communication remains a good strategy (F(1,36)=12.45, p= .001). Corporate brand attitude equals 5.18 when consumers are exposed to the negative information and CSR communication vs. 3.95 when they are only exposed to the negative information (p<.000).

Additional results

To conclude, these analyses show that in all cases -with positive, negative or no external information -CSR communication is a winning and un-risky strategy as it boosts corporate brand attitude. This raises the question of the usefulness of external credible information. If inefficient, should such information be encouraged by policy-makers or not? To further investigate this result, we tested the effect of the presence of external information (positive or negative) associated with CSR communication on corporate brand attitude. The ANOVA shows a significant effect (F(2,36.41)=6.57, p<.01), validating the influence of external information. However, the effect is asymmetrical (see the figure below).

Providing positive external information, CSR communication does not induce stronger corporate brand equity compared with CSR communication only (m=5.89 vs. 5.95, n.s.). On the contrary, providing negative external information, CSR communication degrades corporate brand equity compared with CSR communication only (m=5.18 vs. 5.95, p<.000). This corroborates previous research [START_REF] Creyer | The influence of firm behavior on purchase intention: do consumers really care about business ethics?[END_REF][START_REF] Mohr | The effects of corporate social responsibility and price on consumer responses[END_REF] showing the asymmetric effects of societal information on consumers' evaluations, such that negative information (e.g. crises) causes more damage than does positive information provides benefits.

Discussion

To sum up, results show a systematic positive effect of CSR communication on corporate brand attitude, whatever the available information (positive / negative).

Theoretical implications can be drawn. Results show the potential protective effect of CSR communication as it seems to counterbalance the negative effect of external information. This unexpected result actually confirms previous research [START_REF] Swaen | The use of corporate social responsibility arguments in communication campaigns: does source credibility matter?[END_REF] showing the protective effect of CSR communication in case of a product crisis. The fact that, even with negative external information, CSR communication still enhances corporate brand attitude instead of boosting consumers' suspicion and drastically degrading their perception shows how much people are akin to believe CSR claims. Several explanations are plausible: first, consumers, being overwhelmed by all sorts of communication, do not treat information deeply. They quickly compute informational elements, making an "average" judgment, instead of criticizing the data. Furthermore, we can suppose that consumers do not know the exact status of external ratings compared to traditional Website communication. They do not know how to interpret these new forms of information that have appeared with CSR issues development. Finally, we conclude that consumers' skepticism is not that much important regarding CSR issues, probably because most of them cannot even figure out that firms could "lie" or at least exaggerate their claims. This belief is not part of their metacognition, i.e. the more or less extended set of knowledge regarding market mechanisms and persuasion techniques [START_REF] Friestad | The persuasion knowledge model: how people cope with persuasion attempts[END_REF]. We can draw the conclusion that, as far as consumers are concerned, CSR claims are performative, following Austin's theory How to do things with (1975). Claims are not only words that could be criticized, interpreted, questioned, but equate real actions that can be taken for granted. Finally, this paper exposes an important result regarding the asymmetrical effect of external information provided along with CSR communication. If positive information has no marginal effect, negative one strongly degrades corporate brand attitude, confirming previous research [START_REF] Creyer | The influence of firm behavior on purchase intention: do consumers really care about business ethics?[END_REF][START_REF] Mohr | The effects of corporate social responsibility and price on consumer responses[END_REF].

From a managerial point of view, the paper shows a very important result: proactive CSR communication is always a good strategy… un-risky even in case of bad external ratings. Were Romanians wrong with their "do good and let others do the talking"? Probably yes... From a societal point of view, we might lament that companies doing bad still benefit from CSR communication, and virtuous companies just enjoy a minor advantage on them. To counterbalance this unfair conclusion, the paper reveals how external information can be efficient to degrade perceptions of non-virtuous companies. This encourages the diffusion of such information (being labeling, reporting, rating…), while training consumers to decipher them to increase their diagnosticity.