Trends in Advertising Research: A Longitudinal Analysis of Leading Advertising,Marketing, and Communication Journals, 1980 to 2010

This study provides a longitudinal content analysis of advertising research articles in 17 top-tier advertising, marketing, and communication journals published over the past 30 years (1980–2010, n = 926). The study's purpose is to shed light on the direction and progression of advertising as an academic field by updating and extending Yale and Gilly's (1988) study of advertising research trends. Nine content characteristics of the journal articles were examined: (1) theory presence (theory driven versus not theory driven), (2) names, types (theory versus theoretical framework/model versus construct), and originating disciplines of theory, (3) topic areas, (4) media of interest, (5) research approaches (empirical versus nonempirical and quantitative versus qualitative versus mixed), (6) methods, (7) types of effects, (8) units of analysis, and (9) research implications. Changes in the content characteristics of journal articles were found across the 30 years analyzed in five-year intervals. Implications for the field, scholars, and advertising practitioners are discussed.     

Methodological Issues in Advertising Research: Current Status,Shifts, and Trends

This article presents some self-reflective considerations on the methodology applied in advertising scholarly publications, based on a review of articles in four leading journals: Journal of Advertising, Journal of Advertising Research, International Journal of Advertising, and Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising. This article first identifies two approaches in the positivist paradigm that exert strong impacts on the development of advertising research: the message effects research tradition in the communication field and the consumer psychology research tradition in marketing. With this background, the article next introduces several research questions to explore which methods have dominated advertising research, the role of theory building in affecting the adopted methods and the number of reported studies, differences across the journals, and the degree to which researchers integrate different methods or approaches (quantitative and qualitative) in their research. A content analysis of articles published in these four advertising journals from 2001 to 2015 helps address these research questions and reveals the current status, shifts, and trends in advertising research since the turn of this century.     

Perspectives on Advertising From the Geographical Literature: A Critical Review

In recent years, geographers have been devoting increasing attention to the field of advertising, and in particular to advertising imagery. The authors of this article offer a critical review of articles with substantial advertising content that have appeared in geography journals, and assess their relevance to advertising practitioners, scholars and students. These writings are reviewed under three headings: considerations of place and space; issues related to gender and race, and aspects of international advertising. Although many geographers are critical of advertising, there is nevertheless much in their work to interest an advertising readership.     

Knowledge Flows Between Advertising and Other Disciplines: A Social Exchange Perspective

Knowledge flows between advertising and other academic disciplines are examined to identify the structure of scientific knowledge, the extent of social exchange and the scientific status of the field. Bibliometric analysis is used to identify who is citing our research and who we cited. Cocitation patterns for the leading advertising journals (Journal of Advertising [JA], Journal of Advertising Research [JAR], International Journal of Advertising [IJA], Journal of Interactive Advertising [JIA], and Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising [JCIRA]) and the top 50 citing and cited journals with citation relationships from 2005 to 2014 were examined. Findings revealed that advertising is citing advertising scholarship the most, followed by marketing, consumer research, psychology, and communication. This suggests a “maturing field” where scholars look within the discipline's body of knowledge. In turn, advertising research is cited by advertising, marketing, business (general), communication, and psychology. The overall citing-to-cited ratio suggests that advertising is more a “receiver” than “provider” of knowledge to other disciplines; however, there is variation across the advertising journals. The positioning of advertising journals in the larger disciplinary framework shows close relationships to consumer research and interactive communication. The most common focus among the top-cited articles is digital media, with few articles focusing on traditional advertising. The implications of our findings for the field of advertising are discussed.     

Is television advertising being placed to reach product users?

Several textbooks, journal articles, and advertising practitioners indicate that the advertising for many products should be directed toward the heavy users of the product category. Other works suggest that advertising should be directed at current users of a brand to retain them or to users of competitive brands in an effort to attract them. The purpose of this article is to compare these directions for how advertising should be placed with data showing how advertising is being placed. The comparison is made using supermarket scanner panel data and household advertising exposure data. Examples are also provided to indicate the extent to which advertising could be targeted to heavy users of the product category and users of a brand, given the actual viewing and consumption patterns. Several implications for the placement of advertising are discussed.     

A retrospective on the state of international advertising research in advertising,communication, and marketing journals: 1963–2014

Scanning from the earliest to the recent literature on international advertising research, this study aimed to provide a more comprehensive and detailed picture of the research trends and patterns across the advertising, marketing, and communication disciplines over the past half century. Findings exhibit continuous growth in terms of the quantity of international advertising studies. While theoretical foundations need to be further solidified and elaborated, methodological and statistical rigors have been increasingly underpinned in international advertising research. Further, this study recognized authorial and institutional productivity, and influential articles in the field of international advertising research. The finding indicates that scholarly endeavors are necessary for diversity of countries studied in future research.     

Marketing and society: Preface to special section on volunteerism, price assurances, and direct-to-consumer advertising

We discuss the reasons why this call for papers was issued and describe the process of selecting the three articles presented in this special section. We argue that maximizing stakeholder welfare and not just consumption maybe a new goal for marketing that will be consistent with emerging societal trends. Three articles on volunteerism, price assurances, and direct-to-consumer advertising result from our call and are presented in this section. This introduction is an overview of the three articles.     

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.     

名人代言广告效果影响因素综述

作为一种重要的营销策略和宣传手段,名人代言广告被很多企业寄予厚望,但名人的推荐并不是成功的保证。近三十多年来,国内外学者对名人代言广告进行了深入研究,提出了信源模式理论、匹配理论等多种解释,从名人、产品、受众三方面提取了影响名人代言广告效果的诸多因素,在丰富和拓展了广告心理学研究的同时,也对企业营销实践发挥了重要指导作用。     

Time Pressure and Time Planning in Explaining Advertising Avoidance Behavior

Watching television advertising can represent a significant decision in time allocation. Those who avoid advertising represent a threat to advertisers and to television companies who depend upon advertising revenue. Two factors central to time allocation theory are identified as relevant to an understanding of television advertising avoidance behavior: time pressure and time planning. Drawing from Reactance theory, their significance in predicting two different types of avoidance, mechanical and behavioral, is examined empirically. As attitudes to time allocation are culturally and contextually dependent, two studies are reported, one in the UNITED KINGDOM, the other in Chile. In the former, time planning is a significant predictor of mechanical avoidance, in the latter behavioral avoidance is predicted by time pressure. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.     

New Developments in Soviet Advertising and Marketing Theory

This paper contrasts Soviet and Western advertising and marketing theory, and explains how Soviet theory has progressed in recent years. Soviet advertising practice has been adversely affected by the central planners' aim of regulating advertising, as well as consumption, so that demand is not stimulated beyond what is thought to be ‘rational’ or desirable. However, without abandoning their traditional product orientation, Soviet marketing theorists are developing the idea that consumer interests should be more important in product development. Moreover, in sharp contrast to previous Soviet practice, market segmentation is being examined as a means to increase the effectiveness of advertising. However, the omission of the important geographical and national group variables from this segmentation strategy implies that political considerations will remain paramount in any changes in theory or practice.     

Advertising targeting young children: an overview of 10 years of research (2006–2016)

A review of 138 published academic articles was conducted to provide an up-to-date and comprehensive overview of academic research of the past decade (2006–2016) on advertising directed to young children up to 12 years old. The research overview resulted in a conceptual framework comprising five research domains that were found to be most prominent. For each of these five domains, an overview, discussion and future research agenda is presented. We conclude that much of the research of the past decade included food advertising and its effects. Progress has been made in the domain of children's advertising processing, specifically with regard to advertising literacy. Despite the growing importance of embedded advertising, many of the new ad formats remain neglected (e.g. native and mobile advertising). Additionally, only a few studies investigated which executional factors (e.g. humour) are effective in advertisements to target children and social influences are also less often considered.     

Simply Captivating: Understanding Consumers' Attitudes Toward the Cinema as an Advertising Medium

Due to high costs, fragmented audiences, and cluttered environments, advertisers are finding it increasingly difficult to reach key target markets. Thus, many are looking to nontraditional media, such as cinema advertising, to maximize the effectiveness of advertising expenditures. Given the captive nature of this type of advertising, the authors explore factors influencing consumers' attitudes toward the cinema as an advertising medium, citing reactance, equity, and expectancy-disconfirmation theory as guiding theoretical frameworks. Using insights derived from 32 in-depth interviews, the authors develop a conceptual model around three main themes that shape attitudes toward the medium of cinema advertising and find that reactance, equity, and expectancy-disconfirmation theory may prove to be promising foundations for understanding attitudes toward cinema advertising.     

Recent Journal and Trade Publication Treatments of Globalization in Mass Media Marketing and Social Change

International marketing strategies, made possible by technological innovation and forced by economic reality, must be supported and refined by empirical study of their successes and failures. This study reviews all articles published in over 800 scholarly journals and trade publications in 1989 and 1990 in an attempt to describe the studies becoming available to the international marketer for guidance. In all, 130 articles dealing with mu media or advertising and marketing in an international perspective were found. Six dimensions of these are analysed and discussed: editorial type; subject; the mass medium of focus; inclusion of quantitative data; and country or countries.

This analysis of all 130 studies reveals that articles are more apt to cover news than more generalizable types of knowledge, refer to media and to international aspects more in general terms than in specific terms, often provide unsubstantiated advice, generalizations or predictions, under-represent countries outside of Europe, and are very infrequently based on primary data.

An overall judgement is that empirical studies of the success or failure in the use of media or advertising in global marketing, necessary to provide guidance to international marketers, were virtually absent from the body of scholarly research published in the two years studied.     

Agency beliefs in the power of advertising

Two opposing schools of thought on how advertising works have emerged. One, known as the ‘strong theory’, holds that advertising plays a centrally important part in the economic system of a country and is therefore a formidable market force. This view is generally associated with North American scholars and practitioners. An opposing view is that advertising is a rather weaker force, capable only of gently nudging or reminding consumers, rather than actually persuading them. This paper reports on a study of Australian advertising practitioners' beliefs in the power of advertising. Findings suggest that opinion overall is more weighted towards the strong theory, particularly among creative personnel. However, educational background/field of study, age and agency experience play significant roles in determining a practitioner's theoretical orientation. Business faculty graduates are more inclined towards the weak theory, while mass communications, journalism and art school graduates lean in the direction of the strong theory. Furthermore, younger practitioners, and those with less than seven years' agency experience, are more inclined towards the strong theory, but as they age and gain more experience, they tend towards a weak theory orientation.     

International Advertising Expenditure Trends

From the early 1990s, marketing literature began to feature a number of articles suggesting that integrated marketing communications (IMC) would have a major impact on advertising as we know it, and on client—advertising agency relationships. A counter-view appeared at that time in the literature suggesting that IMC was nothing more than co-ordinated promotion and that many companies had been doing ‘it’ for some considerable time. More recent articles have lamented that the concept has not been embraced by marketing communications specialists and that implementation has proven difficult. A common definition of IMC—and how it differs from traditional advertising, both in philosophy and in implementation—has not evolved despite considerable academic discussion on the subject. This paper reviews the most comprehensive definitions of IMC and the competing paradigms—‘new’ versus ‘nothing new’—and summarises the results of a recent two-part study that compares the perceptions of clients with those of senior ad agency personnel in New Zealand regarding how and in what ways IMC is developing there.     

Attitude Toward the Viral Ad: Expanding Traditional Advertising Models to Interactive Advertising

As a form of advertising, viral video (VV) advertising is distinct in that its communication medium is the social connections between individuals instead of formal media. After viewing VV advertising, people are engaged in two independent but interrelated processes, i.e., video sharing and embedded brand information processing. Previous research has not examined the interaction between the two processes. This study expands on the mediation of attitude toward the advertisement model proposed by MacKenzie, Lutz, and Belch (1986). Experimental results from three viral video advertisements show that attitude toward the VV advertisement is the major factor affecting video sharing, but attitude toward the brand also has a significant impact on sharing activity. Affect transfer hypothesis (ATH) and its extended models are optimal in explaining viral video advertising, which is different from prior research on non-viral advertising that suggests dual mediation hypothesis as the optimal explanatory theory.     

Who’s messing with whose mind?

Regulation of advertising to children is receiving increased attention. We need to distinguish areas where practice needs reform from criticism based on flawed models of how advertising works and from wrongly perceived changes in advertising practice. This paper summarises the criticisms by Nairn and Fine (IJA, 27(3), 2008). It then sets out what seems to be reliable (i.e. the common ground) before raising concerns with other assertions. The argument that children cannot cope with advertising because their rational faculties are not yet developed collapses as it turns out, as Nairn and Fine concede, that the same applies for any age group. Maybe more controls are needed for product placement and/or advertising masquerading as editorial, but neither of these are areas where the rights of, or responsibilities to, children differ from adults. In other words, Nairn and Fine confound their concern for children with their antipathy to certain forms of advertising to all age groups. Nairn and Fine may also be confusing changes in advertising theory with changes in advertising practice. After reviewing other areas of contention, this paper concurs with the final Nairn and Fine recommendation, namely that the advertising industry should review self-regulation in regard to advertising to children.     

Construct heterogeneity and proliferation in advertising research

Abstract

This paper presents results from a study of measurement practice in leading advertising journals. The focus is on heterogeneity in measurement operationalizations of the same construct and construct proliferation (i.e. when constructs have different names but overlapping content). These issues were addressed by analyzing the measurement operationalizations in all articles published in three leading advertising journals between 2012 and 2014. Results show considerable heterogeneity in the operationalizations of three common advertising constructs (ad credibility, ad irritation and perceived humour) for which almost every study used a unique operationalization. Results also show considerable construct proliferation as different names were used for the same constructs and there was overlap in the operationalizations of several advertising constructs. The paper offers a discussion of implications for advertising research and suggests steps that can be taken towards improving measurement practice.