Gender portrayals revisited: searching for explicit and implicit stereotypes in Cypriot magazine advertisements

The study pursues a line of inquiry into contemporary gender stereotypes drawn from print advertisements in Cyprus. The investigation of implicit modes of stereotyping suggested by Goffman across explicit gender roles yield novel and interesting insights that broaden existing knowledge on male and female advertising depictions. Through a content analysis of 3.729 characters, the study reveals the existence of gender clichés in Cypriot magazine advertisements. Neither male nor female evolving roles are adequately reflected in advertisements, as men tend to be portrayed in traditional masculine stereotypes while women lean towards decorative portrayals. Implicit stereotyping is more likely to suggest the subordination and lower status of women compared to men. The study indicates that advertising in Cyprus reinforces the diffusion of hostile sexism by the underrepresentation of professional women and their commonplace portrayal in body revealing attires. At the same time, the high proportion of women's implicit subordination signifies benevolent sexism. The distorted representation of both genders raises key public policy concerns, as diminishing portrayals hold sway upon men's and women's psychological well-being and professional development.     

Race and attitude formation in HIV/Aids fear advertising

The study on which this article is based, examined whether fear appeal advertising increases the likelihood of adopting appropriate behavior and whether different racial groups perceive fear appeals pertaining to HIV/Aids communication differently. The extent of fear, attitude towards the advertisements, as well as threat and efficacy were also investigated to ascertain the influence of different levels of fear appeals.Social marketing programs address various pandemics and anti-social behavior, where citizens act in conflict with accepted social conduct. The use of fear as a motivation in advertising places emphasis on the severity of the threat. Marketing practitioners, believing the message is too difficult to implement, have questioned the use of fear appeal advertising messages.The findings of this study indicate differences among racial groups pertaining to levels of fear and attitude towards advertisements, as well as differences in threat and efficacy experienced after exposure to high fear appeals compared to other appeals.     

Psychophysiological Responses to Background Brand Placements in Video Games

Researchers have typically employed cognitive and affective measures to study the effectiveness of brand placements in video games. A psychophysiological approach to measuring effectiveness has been sorely lacking and is necessary to help both academics and practitioners further their understanding of how brand placements work. The current study measures individuals’ orienting responses in terms of increased skin conductance and decreased heart rate upon exposure to brands in video games. Results indicate that game players register background advertisements subconsciously even though they may not be able to explicitly recall them later. There were no differences between gamers and nongamers in the recall and recognition of brands from the video game. Furthermore, brands with preexisting favorable attitudes automatically received further processing, suggesting orienting response is an indicator of initial perception rather than further elaboration.     

Value Creation in the Video Game Industry: Industry Economics,Consumer Benefits,and Research Opportunities

In the past twenty years, the video game industry has established itself as a significant contributor to the global entertainment economy. Compared to more established entertainment industries such as movies and music, limited scholarly research in marketing has addressed the processes that create value for companies and consumers in the context of video games which are now available on multiple devices (e.g., consoles, portables, mobile devices) and through multiple channels (e.g., retail and online). The authors therefore develop a conceptual framework of value creation through video games, highlight important findings from extant research in marketing and other disciplines, and apply the framework to derive future research opportunities.     

The Effects of Psychobiological Motivational Traits on Memory of In‐Game Advertising Messages

This study examined the influence of psychobiological motivational traits related to individual approach and avoidance tendencies on cognitive processing of in‐game advertising. Participants played a custom‐built video game containing billboard advertisements. After playing the game, participants’ approach, positivity offset (PO), and avoidance, negativity bias (NB), traits were measured using the motivation activation measure (MAM). Recognition and recall memory were greater for high PO and low NB trait individuals. The findings of this study imply that advertising in first‐person‐shooter (FPS) video games may be most effective when targeting individuals with simultaneously high PO and low NB, risk takers, but least effective for those with low PO and high NB, risk avoiders.     

Calling It Out: The Impact of National Identity on Consumer Response to Ads With a Patriotic Theme

This study examined how ethnic minorities negotiate between ethnic and national identities and respond to ads that intend to appeal to consumers through patriotism. Specifically, this study proposed that activating ethnic minorities' national identity through a prime would affect their evaluation of ads with a patriotic theme. Further, this effect among ethnic minorities would be different from that among the majority. Findings from this study suggest that (1) Caucasian Americans (the majority group) responded more favorably to ads with a patriotic theme than did Asian Americans (ethnic minorities); (2) both Caucasian and Asian Americans became more positive in their ad evaluations when their American national identity was made momentarily salient through a national identity prime; and (3) the effect of national identity activation on evaluation of ads was greater among Asian Americans than among Caucasian Americans.     

Contextual advertising in games: Impacts of game context on a player’s memory and evaluation of brands in video games

Contextual advertising is growing in digital marketing communication. Previous research on traditional media has shown that the surrounding context affects advertising effectiveness. Similarly, the context in a game may influence a player’s processing of brands advertised in that game. To examine the effects of contextual advertising in games, the present article affords two independent experiments investigating how positive and negative game contexts influence players’ memories and attitudes with respect to brands advertised via billboards in games. Drawing from literature on the limited capacity model, the authors demonstrate that positive and negative game contexts decrease brand memory since they require a high level of cognitive effort. The authors also find that varying a game context influence the perception of brands advertised in the game via the contextual priming mechanism and that positive contexts generate more positive brand attitudes than negative or neutral contexts. The findings have important implications for consumer researchers and marketers, as they indicate how contexts in games can be utilized to establish brand awareness and increase positive brand perceptions in contextual advertising using games.     

What online game spectators want from their twitch streamers: Flow and well-being perspectives

Over the last five years, live-streaming platforms, such as Twitch and YouTube, have been dramatically developed and used for individuals' broadcast of digital content, including online video games. Consequently, online game live-streamers have played an important role in the business industry (e.g., advertisements) as well as the online video game industry. By focusing on this context, this study identifies streamer attributes and live-streaming mobile application attributes, and examines how each attribute influences spectators’ flow experience, psychological well-being, commitment, and loyalty toward their favorite streamer. Based on the cognitive appraisal theory and social media influencer literature, the authors classify streamer attributes (i.e., friendship, interaction, and streamer skills) and live-streaming mobile application attributes (i.e., perceived usefulness, technology & functional quality, convenience, and security quality) in the context of Twitch. The data were collected from Twitch users in the United States via two waves. The empirical findings indicated: (1) friendship, technology & functional quality, convenience, and security quality significantly affected flow experience; (2) friendship, streamer skills, convenience, and security quality significantly influenced psychological well-being; (3) flow experience significantly impacted commitment and loyalty; (4) psychological well-being had a significant effect on commitment; and (5) commitment significantly affected loyalty. The empirical findings of this study provide meaningful implications to scholars and practitioners in the social media and online video game contexts.     

Impacts of advertisements that are unfriendly to women and men

Taking Belgium as a case in point, this study analyses, first, tolerance for advertisements unfriendly to women and men as expressed by advertising and marketing professionals, consumers and gender equal opportunity workers. Second, it compares which types of unequal gender portrayal raise concerns with which sector of respondents. Finally, it analyses the differences in adherence of the three sectors to the two main policy solution paradigms proposed in the 2008 European Parliament Resolution on ‘How marketing and advertising affect equality between women and men’. Results suggest a degree of tolerance that varies significantly according to sector, language, gender and age. Overall, respondents express more concerns regarding traditional sex roles in advertising than regarding nudity, unattainable beauty standards or gender stereotypes, and prefer gender-and-advertising literacy programmes and awards for advertisements that break through gender stereotypes over stricter ethical and/or legal regulations. These findings should prove useful to advertising and marketing professionals, national advertising regulatory bodies and policy makers.     

Ethnic Consumer Reaction to Targeted Marketing: A Theory of Intercultural Accommodation

Abstract

Marketers are increasingly recognizing the growing power of ethnic groups, and are responding with targeted marketing efforts. Targeted communications often draw on various references to the ethnic culture in an attempt to enhance communication with and gain the approval of the intended audience. However, research on how such accommodation efforts may be received is lacking. Drawing on a variety of disciplines, the authors develop a theory of intercultural accommodation to fill that gap. The proposed model views the consumer as having both affective and attributional responses to a targeted communication. The consequences of the response are proposed to influence the consumer's evaluation, comprehension, and recall of the message, and to influence behavioral intentions toward the communicator.     

现代企业营销渠道发展的博弈系统分析

论文认为,在营销渠道形成的博弈过程中,存在着流通博弈、需求博弈和供应博弈等三类博弈.博弈分析的结果表明,顾客便利是营销渠道发展的基本要求,企业的发展阶段对于营销渠道的管理有着不同的要求,精确地设计营销渠道成为降低企业经营风险的有力手段,保持营销渠道的灵活性是增强企业核心竞争力的保证.     

Effects of In-Game Virtual Direct Experience (VDE) on Reactions to Real-World Brands

As brand placement into video games becomes an increasingly popular marketing strategy, little research has examined the role that in-game virtual direct experience (VDE) with branded products plays in affecting recall of and attitudes toward the real-world brands. The current experiment employed the manipulation of performance features of the integral brand needed to play an auto-racing game (a Volkswagen car) to determine if players' VDE would translate into differences in real-world, brand-related outcomes. Results indicate that players who had an easier VDE exhibited greater recall of and attitudes toward the brand than did players who had a more difficult VDE. Effects generally were unique to the integral brand; peripheral brands were unaffected. Results are interpreted via the LC4MP model of memory, VDE and affect-transfer theory, and brand-placement prominence. Practical implications are discussed.     

Are pharmaceutical ads affording consumers a greater say in their health care? The evaluation and self-empowerment effects of different ad appeals in Brazil

ABSTRACT

Given the pharmaceutical industry's immense global importance, drug manufacturers are currently spending approximately one third of sales revenues on marketing their products. A neglected area of inquiry is pharmaceutical marketing's contribution to consumer empowerment. The present investigation proposes an Advertising-Empowerment-Model which was tested in Brazil, the most important pharmaceutical drug market in Latin America. The model includes ad-, product- and health-related variables. Based on survey data from 241 Brazilian subjects (non-student sample), the model received support for four different ad appeals (informative, emotional, mixed and CSR). Results indicate that the mixed appeal ad led to the highest degree of empowerment in all three empowerment categories (message empowerment, self-medication empowerment, and health empowerment) and was followed by the informative and emotional ad appeals. The CSR appeal obtained the overall lowest scores. Implications regarding the relevance of empowerment in international advertising are discussed. Additionally, limitations and directions for further research are addressed.     

Advertising montage: Two theoretical perspectives

Building upon structuralist and phenomenological theories, this article explores the effects of video montage—camera cuts in particular—on the appeal and persuasiveness of television advertisements. The article proposes a structuralist method for objectively describing ad form and tests well‐known theories propounding that responses to a stimulus are a function of boredom and confusion. Camera cuts, boredom, and confusion were all found to affect subjects' attitude toward the ad. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Are Banner Advertisements in Online Games Effective?

Advertising in online games has grown considerably in recent years and is expected to see continued expansion (Cauberghe and DePelsmacker 2010). However, the literature suggests that banner advertisements in games are sometimes ineffective, often being seen as annoying and potentially triggering avoidance behavior. Because of the possibility of avoidance it is important to examine whether gamers have implicit memory of banner ads even if they don't explicitly recall them. The experiment conducted here measures both explicit and implicit memory of a banner ad in an advergame to assess whether and how well the game players exposed to the ad remembered it. Results suggest that a high proportion of the gamers exposed to the ads did have explicit and implicit memory of the messages shown. Moreover, gamers who were high achievers reported a higher level of implicit memory than those who were less effective at playing games, suggesting that these ads can be remembered despite a high level of concentration on the game. These findings are consistent with the notion that banner ads have a stronger chance of being effective in advergames than in some other contexts, especially among avid gamers.     

Entertainment in retailing: Challenges and opportunities in the TV game console industry

This study investigates the key development evaluation indicators of the TV game console industry based on the four dimensions of Saaty's ‘benefits, opportunity, costs, and risks’ model. The hybrid multiple attribute decision-making model is employed to create a new evaluation approach. The proposed hybrid model uses the decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) to determine the influential relationships among dimensions and criteria, the DEMATEL-based analytic network process to obtain influential weights, and the modified VlšeKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje method to assess performance gaps in industry development. The influential network relationship map and influence weights help TV game console firms' managers understand the industry's complex assessment system and set priorities for improving the industry's performance. The results of the study indicate that the improvement priorities of the model's dimensions have the following order: benefits, opportunity, costs, and risks. Several implications for the industry's management are also discussed.     

Journal of Marketing Communications

The Hispanic market in the USA is a rapidly growing demographic segment that receives considerable attention from marketers. In addition, there is a considerable amount of literature on the Hispanic consumer's attitude towards advertising. Prior research has focused on the Hispanic audience's preference for English language versus Spanish language advertisements and provided normative guidelines for advertisers. This paper analyses the content from advertisements in a Spanish language magazine and dual language (English–Spanish) magazine in order to determine whether they adhere to these normative guidelines. The findings suggest that media vehicle selection does play a part in determining the language content of an advertisement as well as the amount of copy used in English language and Spanish language advertisements. The results also suggest that the amount of advertisements that use a bilingual approach remains small, with advertisers preferring an either/or approach to language selection.     

网游十岁

<正>中国网络游戏今年10岁了。与具有百年历史的电影和唱片等"老大哥"相比,中国网络游戏产业无疑是个"初生的婴儿",但在全球数字化浪潮的推动下,这个"婴儿"正以令人眩目的姿态飞速壮大,短短10年间,中国网络游戏产业已经成为一支不可忽视的力量,无论是玩家人数还是产业规模,都位居世界前列。     

Does playing a video game really result in improvements in psychological well-being in the era of COVID-19?

This study examines the structural relationships between the perceived value dimensions of quality, emotional, price, and social, positive and negative emotions, psychological well-being, and loyalty in the video game context along with the moderating role of the perceived severity of COVID-19. This study collected data from 258 video game consumers in the United States via three waves of surveys. The findings of structural equation modeling revealed significant associations among the perceived value dimensions, emotions, psychological well-being, and loyalty. In addition, the moderating role of the perceived severity of COVID-19 showed that the impact of video game consumers' positive emotions on psychological well-being would be weaker with a high level of perception of the severity of COVID-19. Based on the empirical results, this research proposes theoretical (i.e., extension of the cognitive appraisal theory in a digital environment, and integration of the cognitive appraisal theory with the two-factor theory of motivation) and practical implications (i.e., how to increase levels of users’ psychological well-being and loyalty via video games) for the video game industry during and after the era of COVID-19.