"I" Value the Future, but "We" Value the Past: The Impact of Self-Construal on Nostalgia Versus Forestalgia Narrative Ads

Marketers often use narrative ads as a powerful tool to shape consumer attitudes. These ads deliver key messages through storytelling, but what makes a story effective in the eyes of the consumer remains largely unexplored. Using a Facebook field study and a series of four experimental studies, we examined the interaction between the narrative's temporal type (nostalgia vs. forestalgia) and the characters' self-construal (interdependent vs. independent) on consumer attitudes. Drawing on regulatory focus theory and regulatory fit theory, we found that consumers prefer forestalgia (vs. nostalgia) narrative ads when paired with an independent (vs. interdependent) character. In addition, this effect was mediated by narrative transportation, which enhanced consumers' attitudes toward the ad. These findings advance our understanding of effective narrative advertising and offer practical insights for marketers by highlighting the importance of aligning the narrative temporal type with the character's self-construal to create more impactful ads.