Not Getting the Message on Climate? Attention as a Key Barrier to Mass-Marketing Experimentally-Validated Messages
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Scholars often use survey experiments to evaluate political messages’ persuasive effects, but messages developed in the lab do not always persuade in real-world campaigns. In this research note, we report three experiments on one central obstacle in lab-to-field messaging applications: getting people’s attention. We first analyze a large-scale direct mail campaign run by an established non-profit that promotes conservative solutions to climate change. In this experiment, postcards with messages based on extant survey-experimental research did not cause changes in key climate attitudes. In a follow-up survey experiment, identical postcards induced attitude change— Re but only when participants were required to pay attention to them. A final field experiment highlights the difficulty of inducing attention; in another real-world campaign, postcards with eye-catching scratch-off panels performed no better than standard postcards. These findings illustrate the crucial role of attention and the complexity of translating messages developed in survey experiments into effective real-world campaigns.
Authors: Nicholas Carnes, Geoffrey L. Henderson
Institutions: Duke University, University of Michigan
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,550
OpenAlex ID: W4413225887