Does Health Anxiety Influences Brand Engagement?

COVID-19 pandemic delivers unprecedented impacts on human life. This study aims to investigate the effect of mortality threat on attitude and intention to buy healthcare brands during the pandemic. Grounded on Terror Management Theory, the current study assumes that ones' attitude and intention to buy a premium healthcare brand will increase when reminded of their death. This study deploys an experimental approach in Indonesia involving two groups of participants: high and low mortality saliences. The former group receives scenarios about the accident and natural disaster news followed by death tolls, while the latter receives similar news without human casualties. Subsequently, the participants are asked to view a premium healthcare brand advertisement and answer questions on attitude and intention to purchase the brand. The study finds a significant difference between the high-mortality-salience group and the low-level one in their responses to premium healthcare brands. Furthermore, the low-level group shows their increasing attitude and intention to buy economical brands. These indicate health anxiety influences healthcare-brand engagement in general, yet the response is different between the high and low mortality-salience groups.