Context effects of TV programme-induced interactivity and telepresence on advertising responses

This article provides an analysis of the relationship between annual advertising expenditures and sales, using a time series regression procedure, for beer, wine, and liquor sold in the United States from 1971 to 2012. Information from these four decades provides a comprehensive analysis of the relationships of numerous variables with aggregate alcohol category sales. Even though per capita alcohol consumption has not changed much throughout this period, alcohol advertising media expenditures for all alcohol beverages have increased almost 400% since 1971. This study has provided evidence of consumption changes across categories of alcohol beverages over the past 40-plus years with the preponderance of those changes significantly correlated to fluctuations in demography, taxation and income levels – not advertising. Despite other macro-level studies with consistent findings, the perception that advertising increases consumption exists. The findings here indicate that there is either no relationship or a weak one between advertising and aggregate category sales. Therefore, advertising restrictions or bans with the purpose of reducing consumption may not have the desired effect. Implications on policy decisions regarding advertising controls are addressed.     

Dealing with complaints about advertising in Australia: the importance of regulatory self-discipline

Many countries have imposed restrictions on tobacco advertising in the belief that these will curb tobacco consumption. These beliefs rely on the ‘strong’ theory of advertising, which holds that advertising exerts a powerful persuasive influence on consumers' behaviour. However, the research examining the advertising-consumption relationship has reached contradictory conclusions and led some to argue that such bans are ineffective.

In contrast, proponents of the ‘weak’ theory of advertising suggest that advertising reinforces rather than initiates consumers' behaviour. This paper explores tobacco advertising restrictions in the context of the weak theory and suggests that the apparent failure of increased restrictions to depress either juvenile or aggregate tobacco consumption is unsurprising. The paper concludes that decisions about tobacco advertising restrictions are political and should be based on ethical principles and not on assumed behavioural consequences, which are unsupported by modern advertising theory.     

Tobacco Advertising Bans and the Dark Face of Government Paternalism

This article uses the landmark Chabot judgement to examine the question of the legitimacy of tobacco advertising bans. While Justice Chabot's decision has been subsequently overturned on appeal on a point of law, his findings about the failure of tobacco advertising bans to reduce consumption were sustained. The author argues that such advertising bans are antithetical to the very nature of a democratic society in that, first, they are instances of state paternalism that attempt to supress individual autonomy and diversity through legislating the truth; and second, they are at odds with the legitimate process of democratic public policy inasmuch as they found that public policy to be based on shoddy, biased and unreliable ‘evidence’.     

Policies for the prevention of cigarette consumption: the case of Spain

This paper describes the causes that generate the relatively high – among comparable OECD countries – prevalence of tobacco consumption in Spain. It evaluates the current policy interventions geared towards reducing incidence and prevalence. It argues that, despite a recent major breakthrough in legislation on advertising and consumption in public places, one of the major shortcomings of current policies is the lack of an effective fiscal policy. This lack of effectiveness is explained by some idiosyncrasies of the Spanish cigarette market that call for specific measures.     

Tobacco Consumption and Advertising Restrictions: A Critique of Laugesen and Meads (1991)

The report of the New Zealand Toxic Substances Board (1989) analysed data from most OECD countries over many years, and concluded that a total ban on advertising would reduce tobacco consumption by 7 per cent. The rather simple method of analysis used has been subjected to some criticism. The scientific editor of the report has recently published a paper in a learned journal in which he subjects the data collected for the report to a more formal statistical procedure, with essentially the same conclusion.

This article is an assessment of the recent paper. It demonstrates that the data used are so flawed that no form of analysis could yield valid conclusions. It also argues that the regression model used is based on an invalid assumption, resulting in a mis-specified model which proves only that advertising restrictions tend to be more severe in countries with lower 27-year average tobacco consumptions.     

Alcohol Advertising: Orientations and Influence

The paper presents an analysis of the effects of televised alcohol beverage advertising on the consumption of alcohol among a sample of US teenagers. While no effects of exposure on total consumption are demonstrated for the total sample, consistent with other research on alcohol advertising effects, the present analysis reveals the importance of ‘orientations towards advertising’ as linkages between exposure and consumption behaviour. Specifically, a social utility orientation, involving learning of normative expectations about drinking, and a vicarious utility orientation, involving identification with models in alcohol beverage commercials, are shown to be mediating factors which condition the effects of advertising exposure.

‘Alcohol Advertising: Content and Controversy’, by the same author, appeared in the last issue of this journal.     

The ‘Smee Report’ as a Contribution to The Tobacco Advertising Debate

The UK Department of Health's consultative document on tobacco advertising (informally known as the ‘Smee Report’) occupies a curious position with respect to debates on public policy about advertising. While its conclusions have not been accepted by the UK government, they continue to be used, uncritically, elsewhere in the world as part of the ‘justification’ for bans on tobacco advertising. This article examines the basis of the Smee Report's key conclusions concerning the UK, Canada, Norway, and Finland, and argues that its claims with respect to the effectiveness of advertising bans are untrue.     

Effects of the preference for environmental quality on the export competition between China and OECD countries

This study examines how importers’ preferences for environmentally friendly products influence the effect of China’s export growth on the exports of OECD countries to third markets. The effect of China’s export growth is systematically investigated using the theoretical gravity model, which assumes that importers’ environmental preferences are heterogeneous among countries. A new measure is also proposed to represent importers’ revealed preferences for environmental quality across countries. Panel data consisting of observations for 30 OECD exporting countries and 60 importing countries over the 2000–10 period confirm that the crowding‐out effect of China’s export growth on the exports of OECD countries observed in markets for consumption goods and the dampening effect observed in markets for intermediate goods are becoming weaker as the importer preference for environmental quality becomes stronger.     

The Effects of Advertising,Social Influences,and Self-Efficacy on Adolescent Tobacco Use and Alcohol Consumption

Exploring the simultaneous effects of key variables on the unhealthy consumption behavior of adolescents, two studies focused on the relative effects of advertising, parental and peer influence, and self-efficacy on adolescent tobacco use and alcohol consumption. The results suggest that (1) advertising effects are largely neutralized by parental and peer influence; (2) peer and parental influence strongly predict adolescent tobacco use and alcohol consumption; and (3) self-efficacy is a weak predictor of both adolescent risk behaviors.     

Alcohol Advertising Controls in the 1990s

Public health campaigners have criticized the British system for the regulation of alcohol advertising, which relies on several distinct codes of practice governing different media. This paper looks at the options for change, in the light of the economic, political and technological factors that will influence the development of the UK's alcohol advertising policy in the 1990s. The available evidence on the costs and benefits of alternative policies is reviewed, drawing on the Addiction Research Centre's multi-disciplinary programme of work undertaken at the Universities of Hull and York. While there is some evidence that a ban on alcohol advertising would have a marginal effect on overall consumption, it is argued that legislative intervention is no longer feasible. Technological innovation and global pressures for deregulation have made it difficult for national governments to ban the advertising of any one product. At the same time, however, it is feared that commercial pressures resulting from the introduction of satellite broadcasting and the increased competition for advertising revenues could undermine the existing self-regulatory system and exert a downwards pressure on advertising standards. It is suggested that the way forward lies in developing a strong self-regulatory system throughout Europe.     

Responsibility and Brand Advertising in the Alcoholic Beverage Market: The Modeling of Normative Drinking Behavior

This review compares alcoholic beverage advertising, responsibility advertising, and media advocacy; considers their actual and desired impacts; describes and evaluates the controversy surrounding industry-sponsored responsibility campaigns; and identifies a number of issues that would benefit from additional research. Results indicate that alcoholic beverage advertising does not exert a material influence on total consumption or abuse, but models normative drinking behavior, and thus may actually inhibit alcohol misuse. Industry-sponsored responsibility efforts, like those sponsored by government and nonprofits, appear to affect desired changes, are perceived to be similar to government and nonprofit efforts, model desired drinking behaviors, and may be more effective with heavier drinkers.     

The influence of advertising on the demand for chocolate confectionery

This paper addresses the impact of advertising on the size of five European chocolate confectionery markets: Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK. It is prompted by suggestions that advertising may be responsible for excessive consumption of confectionery by children. The literature on whether advertising affects the total market size is not one-sided but the balance of previous research indicates market effects to be less likely. Chocolate confectionery in Western Europe is a mature market in slow decline. We found no significant association between the weight of advertising and market growth with either contemporaneous or lagged effects. There was, however, negative correlation between market size and price, as was to be expected. The results were consistent across the five countries.     

Advertising and Children

Abstract

This article reviews the debate regarding the issue of growing obesity in society in terms of issues and possible policy options. The issue is most focused on children though having obvious ramifications for adults in many economies around the world. Policy solutions such as advertising bans or taxes that have been proposed in several countries seem to be based on insufficient evidence—i.e., there is no empirical evidence to substantiate the claimed causal effect between marketing communication practices directed at children and nutrition. These solutions, if enacted in policy, could be both inequitable and ineffective. While the study is couched and framed from a New Zealand context, nonetheless it serves to illuminate issues and policies of wider relevance.     

On Quality

M. J. Stewart failed to critique the correct data set we sent him. He had two data sets of ours in his possession, and has written a critique (Stewart, 1992) of the earlier data set, data already rejected by us. Stewart's ‘Critique of Laugesen and Meads 1991’, wrongly titled, critiques our 1991 paper using a 1990 data set. We discarded the 1990 data set and revised and replaced it in 1991 prior to publication (Laugesen and Meads, 1991). The 1991 data set used for our 1991 paper differs from the 1990 version with regard to tobacco price in most countries; in addition the advertising restriction score for Sweden has been updated.

What Stewart wrote and asked for, and what we sent him, which he received but did not use, was a copy of the data we used in our 1991 paper (Laugesen and Meads, 1991). If he had any doubts as to which data set he should critique, he was entitled to ask us. As he did not use our 1991 data set, Stewart failed to note the very high correlation between our 1991 data and his UK price series.

We did not send Stewart the 1990 data set. Stewart evidently obtained it after the 1990 Quebec tobacco advertising trial. We made it available to the Canadian government, but with some reluctance to the Quebec Superior Court and hence to tobacco manufacturer plaintiffs, as we intended to revise and publish.

In response to the parts of Stewart's critique, applicable despite his using an earlier data set: 1. Stewart says we should calculate price independent of consumption, but the necessary data were only fully available for nine out of 22 countries; the method we used was the only feasible method, and gave a very high degree of correlation with Stewart's method.

2. Stewart misquotes us on income: as a comparator of incomes, we use gross domestic product per capita, in preference to private consumption which does not allow for the value of free public sector services.

3. After allowing for data errors in some values for tobacco consumption for the United Kingdom, and for Portugal's female work-force data, we recalculated our equations and confirm our published findings that adbans tend to be significantly associated with falls in consumption.

4. We preferred Generalized Least Squares for regression. The pre-conditions for using Ordinary Least Squares could not be met.

5. We confirm the general pattern of coefficients, and the tendency of advertising bans to be followed by falls in tobacco consumption, if we use country dummies and Ordinary Least Squares as Stewart suggests. The large residuals noted in our 1991 analysis disappear; between-country differences are significant, consistent with historical differences in intrinsic tobacco consumption.

6. We find significant correlations between adbans and later tobacco consumption. The converse was not true; earlier consumption did not correlate with later ban levels.

     

Comment on ‘The economics of tobacco advertising: spending,demand, and the effects of bans’

This paper comments on a paper by Lancaster and Lancaster ‘The economics of tobacco advertising: spending, demand, and the effect of bans’, published in the International Journal of Advertising, 22(1). In their response, the authors specifically tackle comments made on their method of meta-analysis.     

Does advertising grow markets?

Many observers believe advertising increases market size (with the implication that fewer people would smoke or drink alcohol or buy cars if there were no advertising for those products), and that it works by creating desires. This paper examines the historical evidence and recent case histories of successful marketing campaigns from the UK’s IPA Effectiveness Awards. It turns out that very few advertisers have tried to increase the size of their market or claim to have done so. In the few cases that describe an increase in market size, we see consumers switching from one type of product to another, without increasing their total category consumption. No case claims to have created a new desire. The inference is that banning or restricting advertising may be an ineffective instrument of social policy.     

A Dual-Step and Dual-Process Model of Advertising Effects: Implications for Reducing the Negative Impact of Advertising on Children's Consumption Behaviour

Children are important targets of advertising campaigns from companies. However, children have been found to be particularly vulnerable to negative effects of advertising, and protecting children from these effects is an important task of consumer policy. Two important aspects have to be considered in this task. First, advertising affects judgements and behaviour not only during ad exposure but also in delayed consumption and purchase contexts. Second, advertising operates largely at an implicit level—during ad exposure as well as in consumption decisions. The current article introduces a dual-step (ad exposure vs. purchase/consumption) and dual-process (implicit vs. explicit) model of advertising effects on children. The model is based on a review of implicit advertising effects and implicit mechanisms of self-control. It implies that consumer policies intending to prevent undesired advertising effects should support interventions that strengthen advertising and purchasing literacy and, in addition, implicit self-control mechanisms in children. As self-control in consumption decisions is largely relevant for, and learned during, shopping and consumption, such interventions should focus on educating parents or other primary caregivers because they are the most likely persons to accompany children in such situations and have a great influence on children's implicit learning.     

Labour Market Institutions and Household Consumption Insurance within OECD Countries

This paper tests empirically whether the effect of idiosyncratic income shocks on aggregate consumption depends on institutional features of national labour markets. The results show that, in a sample of 15 OECD countries, institutional heterogeneity is a significant determinant of the response of household consumption to country‐specific income shocks. This is consistent with the idea that institutionally provided social insurance may help increase income stability when people differ in their ability to access financial markets and smooth consumption fluctuations.     

The effectiveness of advertising alcohol products in sports sponsorship

Studies have shown that exposure to sponsorship can influence behavior. However, evidence of the effectiveness of sports advertising and its influence on alcohol consumption is inconclusive. The goal of this research is to examine whether sponsorship by alcohol products receives the same attention as sponsorship by nonalcohol products depending on their congruence and the way they influence the intention to consume. Using sports posters, an experiment was performed to measure attention through eye-tracking. The results show that attention paid to alcohol brands is no greater than the attention paid to incongruent brands and is no different from the attention paid to congruent brands, regardless of gender and sporting discipline. Attention paid to sponsors has no influence on the intention to consume. These results show the need for further research on the effectiveness of sponsorship and its relationship with alcohol consumption.