An examination of how message fatigue impacts young adults’ evaluations of utilitarian messages about electronic cigarettes

ABSTRACT Campaigns rely on the repetition of similar messages over time. However, message fatigue can lead people to ignore or resist messages, such as ones aimed at preventing tobacco usage. We implemented a longitudinal design to examine the impact of message fatigue on message processing outcomes in the context of electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes); we also tested whether functional matching weakens these effects. Participants with greater fatigue toward health messages about e-cigarettes were less likely to pay attention to and more likely to be annoyed with utilitarian messages about e-cigarette use. At the same time, greater feelings of fatigue predicted higher evaluations of message quality. Functional matching among participants with utilitarian attitude functions did not modify these effects. These findings suggest that fatigue promoted automatic evaluations of utilitarian messages about e-cigarettes, potentially limiting the impact of genuinely novel information, and opportunities exist to design e-cigarette messaging that targets non-utilitarian concerns.