Advertising 2006 Abstracts
Advertising Division
Research
Effects of “Gender Role Orientation” on Perceived Role Offensiveness in Advertising: A Cross-cultural Study of Korea and U.S. • Daechun An, University of North Texas and Sang Hoon Kim, Inha University and Gul-Jin Jung, Kyung Buk National University • Employing Hofstede’s gender role items as a new scale for female role orientation, this study examined cross-cultural differences in the female role orientation, the perception of female role offensiveness in advertising, and its consequences with Korean and American student samples.
Humor in Advertising and Audience Offense: An Exploratory Study • Fred K. Beard, University of Oklahoma • The use of humor in advertising has often been considered risky, partly due to its potential for causing offense. The findings of this study of consumer complaint adjudication reports, published by the Advertising Standards Authority of New Zealand, reveal that audience members are (1) more offended by inherently offensive themes than anything else, and (2) when an intentionally humorous advertisement offends, it is likely because it was a certain type of humor that frequently includes inherently offensive themes.
Real Women on Real Beauty: Perceptions of Attractiveness and Thinness in Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty • Kimberly L. Bissell and Amy Rask, University of Alabama and Ron Leone, Stonehill College • Using an experiment with college women at a university in the south, we used an image of a model from Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty with other lingerie and swimsuit models of varying shapes and sizes to test how or if the campaign’s objective of teaching women that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes was at all successful in changing college women’s beliefs about beauty and attractiveness in themselves and in other women.
Blue Ads, Red Ads: Are Connections Being Made in the Political Blogosphere? • Laura F. Bright and Gracieli Scremin, University of Texas at Austin • Blogs are a new force in the online media market used to reach niche markets. This study examines advertising on the most popular type of blog: political blogs. A content analysis of 74 political blogs was undertaken which analyzed advertisements with respect to their interactivity, product context and political affiliation. Advertisements were found to be mostly static, politically congruent within their blogs and to feature products as opposed to political issues or organizations.
Publication Productivity and Topic Trends in Advertising Research: 1996 through 2005 • Jongsuk Choi, Hyejin Yoon, Hana Kim and Jooyoung Kim, University of Georgia • Retrospective studies are meaningful in the way that they guide us in designing our future courses by shedding light on pas progress and limitations. The purpose of this study is to reveal and document the contributions of institutional and departmental affiliations to theory and model development, advertising topic trends, and research method via a retrospective study in the field of advertising research.
Generating Congruence: How Repeated Sponsorship Messages Enhance Evaluations of Incongruent Sponsors • Frank E. Dardis, Pennsylvania State University • Much research on sponsorship indicates that congruent sponsors – brands or companies with a perceived fit with the sponsored event or cause – enjoy much more favorable reactions from consumers than do incongruent sponsors. However, by conceptualizing congruence as a static property and by exposing individuals to only one sponsorship message, extant research in this regard remains limited.
Senior Citizens on Interpersonal, Advertising, and Other Mediated Sources of Rx Drug Information • Denise E. DeLorme, University of Central Florida and Jisu Huh, University of Minnesota and Leonard N. Reid, University of Georgia • A series of in-depth interviews was conducted with senior citizens (1) to determine how they evaluate, compare, and use different interpersonal, advertising, and other mediated sources of prescription drug information; (2) to provide additional insight on their perceptions of the credibility, trustworthiness, and value of these sources, including DTC advertising; and (3) to capture verbatim comments for translation into scalar statements in future survey research.
Do They See What We See? A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Advertising Visuals • Katherine T. Frith and Kavita Karan, Nanyang Technological University • In this globalized world, advertising is becoming more visual, yet to date, there has been little research on how culture shapes audience’s perceptions of visual messages. In this qualitative study the authors asked respondents in the USA, India, and Singapore what they saw in the visuals used in global ads.
Advertising Students’ Attitudes about Advertising: A Nationwide Survey of Generation Y • Jami Fullerton, Oklahoma State University and Alice Kendrick, Southern Methodist University and Connie Frazier, American Advertising Federation • The first large-scale nationwide survey of advertising student attitudes toward advertising in-general revealed more positive beliefs about advertising than did previous studies of both advertising and non-advertising students. The 1,226 students from 187 colleges and universities expressed most favorable attitudes toward the economic effects of advertising and the level of regulation for the industry. Students were largely neutral in their attitudes toward advertising ethics and social effects.
Krugman Revisited: Brain Wave Measures of Media Involvement for Print and Television • Joel Geske and Saraswathi Bellur, Iowa State University • In 1971, Krugman used brain waves to examine differences in media involvement. From a sample of one subject, he posited his finding that television evokes passive involvement as opposed to active involvement by magazines. The current study re-evaluated this proposition with a larger sample of thirty participants. Findings run counter to those found by Krugman, suggesting greater attention to television than to magazines. Methodological concerns and implications for EEG and media effects studies are discussed.
Is Beauty a Joy Forever? Young Women’s Emotional Responses to Varying Types of Beautiful Advertising Models • J. Robyn Goodman, Jon Morris, and John Sutherland, University of Florida • This paper investigated college women’s emotional responses to Solomon et al.’s (1992) six beauty types. Factor analysis revealed that the original six beauty types did not hold up. Instead, the six types combined into two mutually exclusive, independent dimensions: Sexual-Sensual and Wholesome Beauty. After testing emotional reactions to these two beauty types, it was found that models with higher degrees of Wholesome Beauty produced significantly greater pleasure, arousal, and dominance. Implications for the industry are discussed.
Implicit Memory as a Complementary Measure of Brand Placement Effectiveness in Video Games • Federico de Gregorio, University of Alabama • Explicit memory measures (free recall, recognition) assume that items which cannot be accessed explicitly have been forgotten and are, thereby, ineffective. Implicit memory is proposed as a means of tapping into such “forgotten” items. An experiment to explore the utility of implicit memory as a complementary measure of brand placement effectiveness in video games shows that participants demonstrated explicit recall for approximately three placed brands while demonstrating implicit memory for an additional two (different) brands.
Reconceptualization of Advertising Clutter in the Online Environment • Louisa Ha and Kim McCann, Bowling Green State University • The paper proposes an analytical framework that reconceptualizes advertising clutter by separating the physical presence from the perception of advertising clutter with individual differences taken into account. We compare the characteristics of online and traditional media to show how various online ad formats constitute the dual self-pace and the captivity characteristic of online media. Task orientations and time orientations should be additionally taken into consideration in determining consumers’ perceived advertising clutter level.
Blog Ads Revisited: A Follow-Up Analysis of Advertising on Weblogs • Daniel M. Haygood and Amanda L. Miller, University of Tennessee and Cassandra Imfeld, SunTrust Bank • Weblogs, a form of personal expression placed on the Internet, are now often the front lines of political debate and candidate races; just one of the many changes occurring on weblogs. Among those changes is the growing presence of advertising. This research, a follow-up study from six months ago, gauges the advertising presence on weblogs to determine just how advertising has changed since that time, a substantial amount of time in technological terms.
The Development of a Popular Culture Identification Scale: A New Way to Investigate Consumers’ Attitudes • William Hoon, Western Illinois University, Jyotika Ramaprasad, Southern Illinois University Carbondale • Over the years, as advertisers broadened their scope of potential customers and diversified the models used in advertising, the salient factors of consumer attitudes became a significant interest to marketers. A new variable, popular culture identification, was introduced as an explanatory variable with respect to white consumer behavior. The paper addresses the need to examine the salience of popular culture and the development of a scale to measure the variable.
What’s Eating CARU About Kids’ Food Advertising? An Exploratory Analysis of Recent CARU Food Advertiser Cases • Mariea Grubbs Hoy and Margaret Morrison, University of Tennessee • Obesity among children is a major concern in the U.S. with advertising often being cited as a contributing factor. Self-regulation is viewed as the most favorable approach to combat the influence of advertising on childhood obesity. This paper examines some recent CARU cases involving foods, beverages and fast foods to determine the focus of advertising self-regulation aimed at food advertisers who target children.
Hispanic TV Advertising, Where did All the Mariachis Go? • Maria-Gracia Inglessis, Felipe Korzenny and Holly McGavock, Florida State University • Based on the assumption that marketers have begun to represent the Hispanic market in a less stereotypical fashion, this content analysis examines the frequency and nature of the value orientations represented in U.S Hispanic television commercials. The most commonly occurring value orientations dealt with enjoying life, collectivism, and wisdom/education. Notably less frequent were value orientations referring to luxury/social status, respect for the elderly, and nurturance, among others. Implications and recommendations for the industry are discussed.
Advertising and Promotions in Children’s Programs in the New Millennium • Nancy A. Jennings, University of Cincinnati • Historically, scholars have examined children’s advertising, but this line of research has not been updated in the new millennium. This study updates and expands the investigation with a content analysis of 563 non-program segments appearing during Saturday morning programming on 2 network (ABC and WB) and 2 cable channels (Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon). Results show that media products are becoming an increasingly larger portion of the advertising environment and that program promotions have risen dramatically.
Brought to You by…: The Impact of Television Billboards on Advertising Effectiveness in Sports Broadcasts • Yongick Jeong and Joe Bob Hester, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • This study explored the impact of television billboards (the 5-10 second identification of a sponsor during a broadcast) on advertising performance in sports broadcasts and addressed the question, “Do television billboards increase the effectiveness of a sponsor’s advertisement?” The results showed that the brands whose advertising was paired with television billboards were better recognized than ones without television billboards.
Advertising Appeals in the Global Men’s Magazine: A Cross-Cultural Comparison • Hong Ji, The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey • This study content-analyzed the use of advertising appeals in Shishang• Esquire, the Chinese mainland edition of Esquire, compared to its U.S. counterpart by focusing the changes since the copyright cooperation between Trends Magazines and Hearst began. In 2004, the use of group, soft/hard sell, modernity/traditional, and nature appeals differed in Shishang• Esquire and U.S. Esquire. The mixed use of Western and Eastern appeals was found. Glocalization thesis was supported in a complex way.
Why Not “the Best?”: Women Scarce When Adweek Ranks the Best Creative • Karen L. Mallia, University of South Carolina • This study analyzed eleven years of Adweek annual issues in which the magazine’s editors identify the “best” commercials of the prior year, to evaluate the presence of women creative staffers in this industry accolade. The study looked at issues from February 1996 through February 2006, which culled advertising from 1995 through 2005. This study finds further evidence suggesting that women are severely under-represented in advertising agency creative roles.
More Than Meets the Eye: Investigating the Hidden Impact of Brand Placements in Television Magazines • Joerg Matthes, Christian Schemer and Werner Wirth, University of Zurich • A growing research literature suggests that visual brand placements need not to be recalled in order to have an impact on brand attitudes. In an experimental study, we investigated the influence of brand frequency, viewer’s involvement and viewer’s persuasion knowledge on the attitudes towards the brand. Results clearly indicate a mere exposure effect (Zajonc, 1968): A frequently presented brand placement can have a positive effect on brand evaluations although viewers do not recall the brand.
A Cross-cultural Study of Young American and Taiwanese Consumers’ Intentions to Opt-in to SMS Advertising • Alexander Muk, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater • This study aims at examining whether cultural differences between countries have significant impact on consumers’ adoption of SMS advertising. To understand whether culture is an important determinant of people’s intentions to accept SMS advertising, Taiwan and the U.S. representing two different cultures are selected in this study. Propositions presented in this study provide preliminary evidence that young consumers’ cultural orientations embedded in their belief systems may play an influential role in their decision-making processes.
The Pursuit of Self-Regulatory Goals: How Counterfactual Thinking Influences Advertising Persuasiveness • Xiaoli Nan, University of Wisconsin-Madison • Individuals have a self-regulatory system that regulates behaviors toward either promotional goals (those that relate to attaining positive outcomes) or preventional goals (those that pertain to avoiding negative consequences). This research tests the idea that matching versus mismatching the focus of an ad appeal (highlighting the positive outcome achieved or the negative outcome avoided by using the product) with an individual’s self-regulatory goal can enhance advertising persuasiveness.
One Goal, Three Voices: Content Analysis and Audience Evaluation of Antismoking Advertisements in Youth Magazines • Hye-Jin Paek, University of Georgia • Through both content analysis and an audience evaluation of antismoking advertisements, this study examines what kinds of antismoking advertisements are currently available in youth magazines and how audiences evaluate the different types of advertisements. It finds that antismoking advertisements in youth magazines are simply invisible. It also suggests that, to achieve intended results, campaigners should practice more sophisticated media planning and creativity techniques, and that they should pre-test their advertisements before execution.
“If Her Name Is on It, She Must Be Famous:” The Impact of Naming the Spokesperson on Attitude Toward the Ad • Kartik Pashupati, Southern Methodist University and Pushkala Raman, Texas Woman’s University • In spite of the large amounts of money being spent on celebrity endorsements, many ads do not explicitly identify the celebrity spokesperson. This study investigates whether the explicit identification of a celebrity spokesperson by name results in more favorable attitude toward the ad. The impact of identifying a non-celebrity (or fake celebrity) spokesperson is also investigated.
Direct to Consumer Advertising: Enhancing Patient-Provider Communication and Health Literacy • Paula Rausch and Debbie Treise, University of Florida • Direct-to-consumer advertising (DTC) of prescription medications through mass media has burgeoned, accompanied by significant interest in how this advertising affects patients and their health-care providers. This study’s purpose is to add to existing literature by investigating through in-depth qualitative interviews the perceptions of nurse practitioners, who have largely been neglected in prior studies. Five themes emerged: communication effects, DTC learning, quick fix, de-stigmatization, and paradoxes. These themes and their implications are discussed in detail.
Does “Passing the Courvoisier” Always Pay Off? Positive and Negative Evaluative Conditioning Effects of Brand Placements in Rap Videos • Christian Schemer, Joerg Matthes, Werner Wirth and Samuel Textor, University of Zurich • The proliferation of brands in rap videos continues to loom. One mechanism by which brand placements affect consumer attitudes is evaluative conditioning. Given that rap videos contain positive and negative scenes, there is a high potential for positive and negative attitudinal effects. The results of our experimental study indicate the expected effects: The pairing of a brand (conditioned stimulus) with positively evaluated rappers (unconditioned stimulus) produces positive attitudes toward the brand.
Western Women in the Chinese Edition of Cosmopolitan Magazine: A Preliminary Comparison of Western and Asian Models in Advertising to a Middle-Class Chinese Audience • John C. Schweitzer, Bradley University • This exploratory research was undertaken to investigate the use of Western models in Chinese advertising; specifically to look at how Western and Asian models are depicted in a Chinese edition of an international magazine, Cosmopolitan. The results of the investigation showed that Western models were associated with Western fashion and accessory ads for Western-based companies. On the other hand, both Chinese and Western cosmetic companies featured Asian women in their advertising.
Building Trust and Loyalty through Corporate Social Responsibility Advertising: The Effects of Transparency and Intent • Janas Sinclair and Karen Mishra, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • The strength of advertiser (1) intent and (2) transparency communicated in a corporate social responsibility ad were experimentally manipulated, and trust was examined as a key mediator of advertising effectiveness. In the proposed model, strong intent builds trust by increasing perceptions of shared values, and strong transparency builds trust by increasing perceptions of reliability. Further, perceptions of shared values and reliability were expected to build loyalty by increasing trust.
Effects of Third-Party Endorsements on Information Strength and Purchase Intent: Information Relevancy vs. Product Communication Form • Alex Wang, University of Connecticut-Stamford, Carolyn A. Lin, University of Connecticut-Storrs • This experimental study examines whether the insertion of a TPO endorsement—or the lack of it—in conjunction with product information relevancy, influences consumers’ perceived information strength and purchase intent. Study findings indicate that, while TPO endorsements had no influence on consumer perceptions of product information strength, product information relevancy did. Product information relevancy to consumers’ choice goals also has a significant influence on both product information strength and purchase intent.
Gender, Humor and Sexual Appeals in Advertising • Fei Xue, University of Southern Mississippi and Tom Reichert, University of Georgia and Ignatius Fosu, University of Arkansas • Many advertisements that contain sexual information also contain humorous information. However, it is not clear what pattern of responses the two message appeals elicit when they are combined in the same ad. The current experiment examined the relationship between the use of humor and participants’ reactions to sexually oriented commercials, as well as individual difference variables such as gender and sexual self-schema.
Cross-Cultural Comparisons of U.S. and Chinese Corporate Websites • Jie Zhang, Wan-Hsiu Sunny Tsai and Wei-Na Lee, University of Texas at Austin • This study investigates information content and advertising appeals reflected in top U.S. and Chinese companies’ corporate websites to understand the role of corporate website in marketing communication mix, in different stages of e-commerce development, and in relation to specific sociocultural environments. The results suggest that most U.S. corporate websites were based on the e-commerce model and featured significantly more detailed product information.
Penetration of Brand Pre-evaluation on Hierarchy of Advertising Effect: A Structural Equation Modeling Analysis • Yanjun Zhao, Southern Illinois University Carbondale • Employing structural equation modeling analyses, this study checked the role of brand pre-evaluation within the framework of hierarchy of effects in advertising. By comparing two SEM models, the study examined the extent to which brand pre-evaluation exerts an impact on advertising effectiveness. Results from an experiment with 60 undergraduates showed that brand pre-evaluation influence attitudes toward brand and product, but not purchase intention in the hierarchy of effects.
Effects of Culture-Congruent Visuals on Affect Perception and Purchase Intention • Shuhua Zhou, Yinjiao Ye and Jie Xu, University of Alabama • This paper examines visual elements of TV commercials that influence viewers’ affect, perception and purchase intention. Based on theories differentiating cultures along the dimensions of contextuality as well as individualism and collectivism, we designed a study to test the effects of culture-congruent visuals on viewers’ affect, perception and behavioral intentions, in contrast to culture-incongruent visuals.
Cultural Values in Internet Advertising: A Longitudinal Study of the Banner Ads of the Top 100 U.S. Web Sites • Lin Zhuang, Louisiana State University and Xigen Li, Southern Illinois University Carbondale • This longitudinal study explores dominant cultural values in Internet advertising of the top 100 U.S. Web sites in 2000 and 2003. The findings reveal that Internet advertising reflects more utilitarian values than symbolic values. The study also found that the type of advertising appeal is associated with product categories. The results indicate that Internet advertising reflects a convergence of the typical cultural norms of the American society and the particular features of Internet advertising medium.
PF&R
Calls for a temporary ban on direct-to-consumer advertising of news prescription drugs: Would such regulation violate freedom of speech? • Terri Ann Bailey, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • This paper focuses on recent calls for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to impose a temporary ban on Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) advertising of newly approved prescription drugs. By analyzing recent Supreme Court commercial speech cases and by applying the Central Hudson test established for ascertaining whether regulations of commercial speech violate the First Amendment, this study addresses whether a temporary ban on DTC advertising of prescription drugs would likely pass constitutional scrutiny.
Whose advertising is this? Examining the social communication in television advertising for the general and African American audiences • Karie Hollerbach, Southeast Missouri State University • Market segmentation made communication with the advertising audience predicated on the audience segment. African Americans were the first minority group identified as having economic viability as a target market that could be reached through advertising content and placement. A content analysis of 358 television advertisements for General and African American audiences revealed that African Americans are still playing a subordinate role, even in advertising targeted to them.
Truly Toffee and Raisin Hell: A textual analysis of lipstick names • Debra Merskin, University of Oregon • This study examines the monikers of 1,722 lipstick names from 52 national brands. Using Goffman’s (1959) concept of presentation of self and impression management and Barthe’s (1982) semiotic model, the findings show, in addition to simple color names, most of the lipsticks are named after food, beverages, sex, and romance. Understanding how naming, as a creative strategy, constructs meaning is an important part of apprehending the role of cosmetics in women’s lives.
Asian American females: The influences of life-stage on ethnic media use and other important advertising variables • Mariko Morimoto, University of Georgia and Carrie La Ferle, Michigan State University • Asian Americans are becoming one of the fastest growing ethnic groups in the U.S. With estimates of significant buying power, the group is becoming an attractive market for advertisers. However, little is known about this group regarding advertising responses. Previous studies on this group suggest we must start to examine differences within the group rather than ignoring potential variations in demographic factors.
Special Topics
Popular Music Placement in Prime-time Television Commercials • David Allan, Saint Joseph’s • Have you noticed a lot of popular music in commercials lately? This research analyzed 3,456 prime-time television advertisements to quantify and qualify the placement of popular music in advertising. The results showed that of the 715 unique ads, 14% contained popular music. Popular music (primarily pop and rock) was observed more often in automotive, audio/video, and food commercials than any other product category.
Direct-to-Consumer Advertising: Agency Perspectives • Jim Avery, Oklahoma • This paper discusses the issues surrounding direct-to-consumer (DTC) pharmaceutical advertising. The intent of this advertising is to convince or inform consumers about a drug or condition. These consumers can then discuss ailments with their doctors. A great deal has been written on this subject, but the author found no published information on how advertising agencies work with these pharmaceutical clients and the high level of scrutiny within the category.
7-Up: The Strategic Story of the Uncola Campaign • William Barre and Karl Idsvoog, Kent State • A brand’s position is crucial to its success in the category. This is particularly true in categories that are dominated by one or two brands. These dominant brands can reduce other brands in the category to niche positions. Such was the case for 7-Up in the soft- drink category. In 7-UP’s case, however, there were two dominant brands – Coke and Pepsi. In addition, there was a dominant type of product within the category, namely colas.
Consumer Responses to Visual Hyperboles in Print Advertising • Mark A. Callister, Brigham Young and Lesa A. Stern, Southern Illinois-Edwardsville • Advertising research on visual tropes is limited and has focused primarily on metaphors and puns. One type of visual trope that has been virtually ignored is the hyperbole. Depicting people, products, and objects in ways that far exceed their capability and nature is a popular strategy in advertising today.
Creative Strategies in Viral Advertising: An application of Taylor’s six-segment message strategy wheel • Guy J. Golan, Florida International and Lior Zaidner, Jetix • Based on a computer mediated word of mouth approach, viral advertising represents the latest online advertising phenomenon. The current study provides one of the first empirical investigations of viral advertising. It uses Taylor’s six segment message strategy wheel as a theoretical framework. A content analysis of 360 viral ads revealed that advertisers predominantly based their message strategies on an individual ego oriented appeals that were based on such themes as humor and sexuality.
Mobile Narratives and Mobile Citizens: What Cell Phone Ads Say about the Mobile World • Jonathan J.M. Lillie, Hawaii-Manoa • This article offers a critical reading of the active citizen of the mobile world as a dominant narrative presented in many marketing representations, such as those on Nokia.com. Within these “mobile narratives,” the individual is often articulated as a powerful construct to which technology-enabled agency is tied.
Student Papers
The Right Stuff: Brand Names and Logos on Clothing, Equipment and in Venues at the 2006 Olympics • Lois Bauman, Brigham Young University • Brand names and logos on clothing, equipment and in venues during the broadcast of the 2006 Olympics were analyzed for measures of visibility through content analysis. These results were compared to viewers’ perceptions collected through survey responses. Content analysis showed fewer actual brand names and logos than were reported by survey respondents. Perceptions of Olympic ad clutter were prevalent despite Olympic Brand Protection and Clean Venue policies.
The Joint Production of Advertising and Film: Brand Placement in Korean Films • Jongsuk Choi and Yongjun Sung, University of Georgia • As part of a larger research program examining the effectiveness of film as a brand placement vehicle in Korea, an exploratory content analysis was conducted of brand placements in popular films between 1995 and 2003. The present study attempts to examine to what extent and in what context brands have been placed in popular Korean films over a nine-year period.
Learning About Logos: Jamaican Children and Brand Advertising • Anthea Edalere-Henderson, University of the West Indies • This study investigates the recognition rates exhibited by Jamaican children for various televised brands and advances the argument that some perspectives on the effects of foreign media content require revisiting, given the dynamism of local industry and changes in advertising practices. In respect of this particular study, the real challenge facing Caribbean people seem to center on ideological shifts related to consumerism generally, which are reflective of processes occurring at the global level.
Direct Mail Advertising to Hispanics: The Influence of Acculturation on Attitude Toward the Ad • Kenneth Wilson Graham, Oklahoma State University • This study examines the influence of acculturation, language used and model ethnicity on the effectiveness of direct mail advertising to Hispanic consumers, as measured by respondents’ emotional response to the ad. An advertising experiment was conducted with a convenience sample of 205 respondents in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Bidimensional Acculturation Scale for Hispanics (BAS) was used to group respondents into one of three acculturation groups: low acculturated, bicultural, and high acculturated.
Mobile Media Use and Its Impact on Consumer Attitudes Toward Mobile Advertising • JongWoo Jun and SangMi Lee, University of Florida • This empirical study researched cell phones, the representative mobile media, based on the approach of uses and gratifications. Using U.S. college students as a sample we explored the relationship uses and gratifications, attitudes toward mobile advertising, and behavioral intentions and we tried to construct a model with them. The results of this study indicated that mobility/convenience and multimedia service were positively related to attitudes toward mobile advertising and lead to favorable behavioral intentions.
The Different Effects of Involvement Types and Advertising Message Strategies on Product and Corporate Advertisements • Sora Kim and Yoon-Joo Lee, University of Tennessee, Knoxville • The purpose of this study is to gain a better understanding of the effects of different involvement types and ad message strategies on attitude and behavioral intentions toward the product and the company advertised. By comparing the advertisement of a computer brand with the advertisement of a corporation that produces the computer brand, the study intends to examine the different effects of involvement types and advertising message strategy. The results provided some useful insights.
Celebrity Endorsement in Cross-Cultural Advertising • Jenny Kriens and Weiqin Zhao, University of Nebraska-Lincoln • This study employs a qualitative research approach using focus groups to investigate American and Chinese consumers’ perceptions surrounding celebrity endorsers’ usage and effectiveness in American and Chinese advertisements. The findings of this study suggest that American and Chinese consumers’ perceptions of endorser usage differ and while celebrities attract attention to advertisements from both consumers group, this does not constitute effectiveness.
Attitude Certainty and Resistance to Persuasion: Investigating the Impact of Source Trustworthiness in Advertising • Jennifer Lemanski and Hyung-Seok Lee, University of Florida • This experimental study replicated previous research (Tormala and Petty, 2004b) concerning cognitive load and source expertise on attitude certainty. The present study replaces source expertise with another component of source credibility, trustworthiness. Under either high or low cognitive load conditions, participants generated counterarguments to a message either high or low in trustworthiness. Participants became more certain of their attitudes when counter-arguing a source low in trustworthiness, but only under low cognitive load.
Are You Ready for Some… Sex, Violence and Gender Stereotypes? A Content Analysis of Monday Night Football Commercials and Programming Promotions • Joel Massey, Louisiana State University • This study examined 2004 Monday Night Football commercials and promotions documenting sexual content, violence, and gender role stereotypes. Men appeared twice as often as women, but women were more likely to be stereotyped. Programming commercials were significantly more sexual and violent than other commercials. Despite apparent declines in objectionable content, this study alerts us to lingering concerns about advertising content, and raises the possibility that the networks themselves may be the worst offenders.
Attention, Attitude and Experience as Predictors of Advertising Avoidance Behaviors Among Five Different Media • Jensen Moore, University of Missouri-Columbia • This investigation extends on the 1997 Speck & Elliot study of advertising avoidance behaviors by examining attitudes, attention and experience in both traditional and new media. Drawing upon information processing theory, the hierarchy of effects model, and selective exposure and avoidance research, this study uses survey methodology to examine “coping” behaviors associated with exposure to today’s abundant advertising messages.
DTC Advertising and the Perceived Social Reality of Depression: The Potential Effects of DTC Advertising for Antidepressant Brands on College Students’ Perceptions of the Prevalence and Lifetime Risk of Depression • Jin Seong Park, University of Florida • This study is theoretically rooted in the research traditions of cultivation theory, construct accessibility and availability heuristic. Based on a survey with 206 student participants, this study finds that familiarity with DTC print advertisements for antidepressant brands are associated with college students’ inflated perceptions of the prevalence and lifetime risk of depression. Interpersonal experiences with depression also significantly predicts their perceived lifetime risk, but not perceived prevalence.
A Chain-Reaction View of Word-of-Mouth Communication: Effects of Perceived Group Norms on College Students’ Word-of-Mouth Communication Regarding the Issue of Choosing a Spring Break Destination • Jin Seong Park and Kenneth Kim, University of Florida • Based on the literature on the influences of perceived group norms on human behavior, the current study reveals a mechanism through which individuals’ exposure to WOMC could influence their own communication patterns in a later WOMC situation.
Appeals and Cultural Symbols in Chinese TV Commercials • Feng Shen, University of Florida • This content analysis examines the use of rational/emotional appeals and cultural symbols in Chinese TV commercials. The purpose is to explore their usage for indigenous brands and possible differences between product categories. Based on convenience sampling, the results indicate that there is no difference in the overall use of appeals and more use of Eastern cultural symbols, but there are significant differences in the use of appeals and cultural symbols between product categories.
Videostyle in Presidential Campaigns 2000 & 2004: An Informational Versus Transformational Approach • Feng Shen and Kenneth Kim, University of Florida • This content analysis examines the videostyle and advertising strategies in the 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns. The purpose is to test the concepts informational/ transformational advertising and product life cycle (PLC) in the context of political advertising and the relationship between videostyle and informational/transformational advertising. The results suggest that the PLC concept is applicable to political advertising and there are certain significant relationships between videostyle and informational/ transformational advertising.
Effectiveness of Product Placements in Video Games: Game Players’ Perception and Virtual Reality Experience • Wonshun Shin, Yejin Hong and Yuening Jiang, University of Minnesota • This study examined the effectiveness of product placements embedded in a video game. The research findings showed that players who perceived their skill to be higher than the challenge from the game tended to remember more brand names and logos in the game than those who perceived their skill to be lower than the challenge. The positive relationship between virtual products experience and overall attitude toward the product was also found.
Untangling Knots: An Alternative Approach to Hybrid Corporate Speech • Youngju Sohn, University of Georgia • This paper proposes more refined and useful guidelines for determining the constitutionality of regulations on hybrid corporate speech, where commercial speech is blended with noncommercial elements. This paper compares the existing legal standards for the analysis of commercial speech with Robert O’Neil’s proposition, which urges to reexamine the current criteria and look at the nexus between the speaker’s economic motive, context and audience. An alternative framework, which modifies O’Neil’s scheme, is proposed.
Promoting Television: Synergy Effects on Cross Media Promotion • Tang Tang, Ohio University • A content analysis of 2099 mentions for 209 new network programs in 84 issues of TV Guide from 1997 to 2002 was conducted to test the synergy effects in the field of program promotion. The study found a significant positive correlation between a new network program’s total exposure in TV Guide and a program’s ratings; and an overall significant positive association between a new program’s advertising mentions in TV Guide and its ratings.
Political Advertising, Political Cynicism and Affect: A Mediation Model Account • Changmin Yan and Carrie Sipes, Pennsylvania State University • Through an experiment, this study explored the relationship between negative political advertising and political cynicism. While negative ads per se did not lead to dramatic increase of political cynicism among voters, but when it combined with positive political ads, voters’ political cynicism soared due to exposure to contrasting information of a candidate. Further analyses suggested a mediation model for contrasting information and political cynicism by ad-induced negative emotion. Practical and policy implications were discussed.
Political Advertising Valence and Candidate Response Strategy • Changmin Yan, Carrie Sipes and Pat Farabaugh, Pennsylvania State University • This study examined multiple factors’ influence on viewers’ perceptions of political advertising’s issue salience and the importance of image or issue as a voting criterion. In general, negative ads are effective for challengers and positive ads are effective for incumbents. Moreover, going alone with the opponent’s advertising valence is an effective response strategy to raise image whereas going against the opponent’s advertising valence works better to emphasize the importance of stance on the issue.
Mediated by TV Campaign News: Indirect Effects of Political Commercials on Voters’ Political Knowledge • Jason Jusheng Yu, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • The purpose of this study is to examine the mechanism of how TV political advertising and TV campaign news work together influencing voters’ political knowledge by proposing that TV campaign news mediates the effect of TV political advertising on voters’ political knowledge. Empirical evidence supports the mediating role of TV campaign news in the relationship between TV political advertising and voters’ political knowledge. More experimental research is needed for integrated political communication.
Teaching
An Analysis of Career Aspirations of 1,200 U.S. Advertising Students • Jami Fullerton, Oklahoma State University and Alice Kendrick, Southern Methodist University and Connie Frazier, EVP Mosaic Center & Education Services, American Advertising Federation • A pool of 1,226 students studying advertising at 187 U.S. colleges and universities provided the largest data set to date about aspects of employment preferences as well as attitudes toward working in advertising. Three-fourths of students said they planned to enter the advertising work force upon graduating, and four out of five expressed interest in working in an agency setting.
How To Improve Critical Thinking Skills In The Media Strategy Course Using Online Peer Collaborative Learning: A Mixed Methods Study • Frauke Hachtmann, University of Nebraska-Lincoln • This study addresses how a specific teaching standard set forth by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications (ACEJMC) can be measured in the media strategy course. The purpose of this exploratory sequential mixed methods design was to show how online peer learning can improve critical thinking and to examine the effect of this teaching approach. The author found that using the approach resulted in higher quality media plans.
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