Abstract

Past research on body diversity has largely focused on the positive impact plus-size models in media have on consumers’ self-esteem and body image, but the impact of these diversity efforts on consumer responses to marketing communications and the advertised brands is less conclusive. This research aimed to understand why (and when) consumers may react more positively (or negatively) to body diversity and investigates the underlying psychological mechanism involved in the effect. To address this question, I employed experimental methods across one pre-test and three studies, one exploratory (Study 1) and two confirmatory (Study 2a and 2b). Participants in these studies were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk and were asked to evaluate a sponsored social media post featuring either a plus-size or thin model advertising a luggage (Studies 1 and 2a) or an app (Study 2b). Along with a significant main effect of model size on attitudes and marginally significant main effects on behavioral intentions and purchase likelihood, an exploratory serial mediation effect was found through participants’ opinion of the model and their perceived persuasion intent of the post. Study 2 aimed to replicate and confirm these findings. Study 2a used the same stimuli (i.e., carry-on luggage) to closely replicate Study 1, while Study 2b conceptually replicated it using a lower-involvement product (i.e., a mobile game app). Both Study 2a and 2b replicated the serial mediation effects found in Study 1. Finally, theoretical and managerial contributions are discussed.