This research addressed adults' health check-ups through the lens of Role Transportation Theory. This theory is applied to narrative advertising that lures adults into seeking health check-ups by causing audiences to empathize with the advertisement's character. This study explored the persuasive mechanism behind narrative advertising and reinforced the Protection Motivation Theory model. We added two key perturbation variables: optimistic bias and truth avoidance. To complete the verification hypothesis, we performed two experiments. In Experiment 1, we recruited 77 respondents online for testing. We used analyses of variance to verify the effectiveness of narrative and informative advertising. Then, in Experiment 2, we recruited 228 respondents to perform offline physical experiments and conducted a path analysis through structural equation modelling. The findings showed that narrative advertising positively impacted participants' disease prevention intentions. The use of Role Transportation Theory in advertising enables the audience to be emotionally connected with the character, which enhances persuasiveness. In Experiment 2, we found that the degree of role transference can interfere with optimistic bias, improve perceived health risk, and promote behavioral intentions for health check-ups. Furthermore, truth avoidance can interfere with perceived health risks, which, in turn, reduce behavioral intentions for health check-ups.
