The Efficacy of Religious Outdoor Advertising in the Southern United States

This study examines the efficacy of outdoor religious messages. In other words, does exposure to roadside advertisements displaying religious messages, particular church services or prayer, increase one‘s intent to attend church services or to engage in active prayer? Three hundred thirty-five undergraduate and graduate students from a medium-sized southern university (in the United States) took part in the study‘s experiment (Seventeen students did not complete the experiment so their responses were eliminated). One hundred sixty-five students were placed in a control group. The remaining 153 students were placed in a treatment group. All participants answered the same pretest and posttest questionnaires on a computer screen. In addition, they observed a variety of outdoor advertisements (on the computer screen) after the pretest questionnaire and before the posttest questionnaire. The control group was exposed to 14 non-religious messages while the treatment group was exposed to 14 religious and non-religious messages. The results showed a ceiling effect on its participants. Essentially, most were religious to begin with which left little room for them to increase their religious habits. As the study showed, most participants did not change their responses from pretest to posttest after exposure to the outdoor ads.


Hypotheses
The literature has shown that Lancendorfer and Reece (2004) concluded the -God Speaks‖ outdoor advertisement campaign did not result in an increase in church attendance behavior.
The results of other studies such as those conducted by Grube andWallack (1994) andFleming, Thorson, andAtkin (2004), have indicated intents to act based upon exposure to advertising. This study examines the increased efficacy of outdoor advertising (signs promoting particular worship services and those displaying religious messages) and how it relates to the intention of church attendance. Examining these findings as examples, the following hypotheses are posed: Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies Volume: 4 -Issue: 3 -July -2014 H1: Exposure to outdoor religious messages will lead to an increased intent to attend church services.
H2: Exposure to outdoor religious messages will lead to an increased Intent to engage in active prayer.

Method
Similar to Ducoffe's (1995) laboratory experiment, this research randomly selected 335 undergraduate and graduate students from a medium-sized southern university to take part in a pretest/posttest laboratory experiment (with a pretest and a posttest questionnaire) to test this study's hypotheses. The researcher queried 22 of that university's professors (representing multiple disciplines-accounting, business, criminal justice, Earth science, education, English, history, journalism, kinesiology, nursing, psychology, and speech) if they could ask their students if they would be willing to take part in a voluntary study on advertising. Those students who agreed to participate were then directed to come to specified computer laboratories on campus. The students were assigned specified times to enter the labs which typically sat between 20 and 25 students each. Once the students arrived at the computer labs, the researcher handed them forms which asked for the participants' consent to participate.
The forms (which were signed by the students) mentioned that the experiment was voluntary and that the students could stop at any time during the project. On the top of each form was a random registration control number (which had no significance to the study) which the students were required to enter via the computer terminal once the experiment began. Each 1. I should attend church services more often.
The following question was used to test Hypothesis 2: 2. Should pray more often.

Results
A total of 335 undergraduate and graduate students from a medium-sized southern university participated in the study. However, 17 students did not complete the survey, so, their results were eliminated. As a result of this, survey answers from the remaining 318 participants were analyzed. Table 2 shows the breakdown of gender in this study was 223 females and 95 males. Thirtyone percent of those students were undergraduate juniors; 28 percent were undergraduate seniors; 19 percent were graduate students; 13 percent were undergraduate sophomores; and, nine percent were undergraduate freshmen. The ethnicity breakdown was 59 percent whites, 29 percent African Americans, seven percent Asians, two percent Hispanics, and three percent others. Of all the participants regarding their beliefs on whether they consider themselves religious, 78 percent agreed or strongly agreed they were religious while ten percent either disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement. The breakdown in church attendance among the participants was 42 percent who said they attend church services at least once each week; 24 percent who attend church services once a month; 14 percent who attend church services five to ten times a year; ten percent who attend church services one to four times a year; and, ten percent who said they never attend church services. The breakdown in religious prayer engagement showed 80 percent said they engage in religious prayer at least once each week; eight percent engage in religious prayer once a month; four percent engage in religious prayer five to ten times a year; four percent engage in religious prayer one to four times a year; and, four percent said they never engage in religious prayer. In the pretest of the treatment group for Hypothesis 1, 81 percent of the participants agreed or strongly agreed they were religious people. That number dropped slightly to 79 percent in the posttest (following exposure to a mixture of religious and non-religious outdoor ads). The survey question, -I should attend church services more often,‖ was used to test this hypothesis, utilizing a chi-square cross tabulation. In the pretest, 44 of the treatment group participants strongly agreed they should attend church services more often while the number rose to 47 in the posttest. Seventy participants agreed they should attend church services more often in the pretest whereas 67 agreed to the statement in the posttest. While two participants strongly disagreed they should attend church services more often in the pretest, that number rose slightly to five after exposure to a mixture of religious and non-religious Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies Volume: 4 -Issue: 3 -July -2014 outdoor ads. Twelve participants disagreed they should attend church services more often in the pre-test. That number jumped to 16 after the participants were exposed to outdoor ads displaying religious and non-religious messages. Table 4 indicates the results showed a significant difference between the pretest and the posttest (x 2 [16, N = 152] = 280.914, p < .001). Hypothesis 2 predicted exposure to outdoor religious messages will lead to an increased intent to engage in active prayer. The survey question, -I should pray more often,‖ was used to test this hypothesis, utilizing a chi-square cross tabulation. In the pretest, 61 control group participants strongly agreed they should pray more often in the pretest while the number dropped to 53 in the posttest. Seventy-three participants agreed they should pray more often in the pretest whereas 77 participants agreed to the statement in the posttest . Five participants strongly disagreed they should pray more often in the pre-test and four participants strongly disagreed in the posttest. Eight participants disagreed they should pray more often in the pretest while 12 disagreed to the statement in the posttest. Table 5 shows this resulted in a significant difference (x 2 [16, N = 163] = 370.687, p < .001), regarding how the subjects responded to the question before and after exposure to the non-religious outdoor ads. The survey question, -I should pray more often,‖ was also used while examining the treatment group participants' responses for hypothesis 2. A chi-square cross tabulation was used to test this hypothesis. While 58 participants in the pretest strongly agreed they should pray more often before observing the mixture of religious and non-religious outdoor ads, the number dropped to 54 in the posttest. Sixty-two participants agreed they should pray more often in the pretest whereas 65 agreed to the statement in the posttest. Three participants strongly disagreed they should pray more often in the pretest while two participants strongly disagreed to the statement in the posttest. Five participants disagreed they should pray more often in the pretest while eight participants disagreed to the statement in the posttest. Table 6 shows a significant difference (x 2 [16, N = 150] = 312.226, p < .001) between the treatment group's pretest and posttest.

Discussion
Hypothesis 1 predicted an increased intent to attend church services following the exposure of outdoor religious messages. While the results indicated a significant difference between the control group's pretest and posttest, they showed less of intent to attend church services. In other words, 131 control group participants did not change their answers from the prestest to the posttest. But, of the control group respondents who changed their answers in the posttest (from the pretest) after observing outdoor ads, 11 participants improved their responses while 22 participants answered more negatively. For example, Table 3 showed four people were neutral in their responses to the statement, -I should attend church services more often,‖ in the pretest. Yet, they changed their answers to disagree in the posttest. In addition, 12 people