(Un)Bothered by the Story’s Ambiguity: How Individual Differences in Consumers’ Need for Closure Affect Transportation and Brand Attitude in Narrative Ads

Narrative ads tell stories to communicate with consumers; the persuasive power of narrative ads depends on whether they succeed in transporting viewers into their story world. Previous research has shown that subjective comprehension promotes transportation, which in turn improves brand attitudes, and that a strong link between the product and the story enhances subjective comprehension. We test this extended transportation-imagery model in two studies conducted in a Western European and an East Asian country and provide evidence for its (cross-cultural) generalizability. We also propose that individual differences in need for closure (people’s tolerance for ambiguity and desire for definitive answers) moderate the relationship between subjective comprehension and transportation and, as a result, influence the extent to which a strong product-story link increases product attitudes via subjective comprehension and transportation. Support for the predicted moderator effect is obtained primarily in the Western European country.