Abstract
<title>Abstract</title> <p>Advertising in India straddles a unique space between rapid sociocultural upheaval and ingrained tradition, which has led to a known trend of consumer initiated boycotts and curbing of campaigns. While persuasion through cultural acquisition and persuasion through traditionalism have been studied, existing models stop short of explaining a phenomenon wherein two sets of seemingly similar consumers respond discrepantly to the same culturally targeted advertising. This conceptual article aims at bridging the said chasm by synthesizing the Elaboration Likelihood Model, Cultural Congruence Theory and dogmatism theory, postulating dogmatism as the crucial psychographic Moderator explaining why a culturally similar set of consumers will either be embroiled in elaborating on the ad in the central-route or be swept away in peripheral-route persuasion, processes influenced by a set of powerful emotionally charged cues and low-dogmatic advertisers abetting identity-defensive opposition if they are fed culturally incongruent advertisements, thereby effecting the attitudes toward the ad and purchase intention in two very dissimilar ways. Provides a psychographic-based segmentation method for multi-route campaign strategy that mitigates potential market 'alienation', with implications to social marketing efforts to improve public health, literacy, and gender equity. Shows how the dogmatism construct can be formally adopted into the ELM–CCT framework within a non-Western, emerging-market context, and advances theory and concept measure to enable the study of dogmatism in future empirical research.</p>