The effects of commercial advertising on children

This paper examines recent published research into the effects of advertising on children in the light of public concern. It states a series of hypotheses on which much public criticism appears to be based and demonstrates that they are not supported by the evidence of researchers into child psychology and advertising. It argues that undesirable and anti-social behaviour by children is not the result of some simple stimulus-response mechanism. Up till now, no serious study has been able to prove a direct and exclusive link between advertising and juvenile purchasing or other forms of behaviour. However, a number of studies have shown that the most important influences on a wide range of children's attitudes and behaviour are parental, family, peer-group and other social factors. This paper first appeared in Commercial Communications, January 1999, and we are grateful to the author for permission to reprint.     

Physiological measurement of advertising effects

The attractiveness of a “pure” measure of individual response to marketing stimuli has given rise to the use of a variety of physiological measures of advertising response. Unfortunately, such measures are neither “pure” nor, to date, of demonstrable usefulness for management decisions.     

Development of TV advertising literacy in children

This study investigates the role of physical appearance (body mass index (BMI), body shapeperception, self-esteem) and variables related to eating habits (food choice, critical attitude towards food, parents’ attitude towards food) in the development of advertising literacy in children focusing on food advertising. Based on the concept of self-esteem and the theory of cognitive dissonance, a research model is developed and tested in an empirical study with 249children aged 7 to 11. Using PLS path modelling, self-esteem and critical attitude towards food are identified as factors influencing advertising literacy directly. Self-esteem is significantly influenced by children’s BMI and body shape perception, while critical attitude is determined by children’s food choices and children’s perception of their parents’ attitude towards food. Evidence was found that the influence of body shape perception on advertising literacy is fully mediated by self-esteem. The results link variables related to physical appearance and eating habits to how children deal with advertising. Implications for academic research and public policy are discussed, and the study raises issues for children’s advertising literacy support and training.     

The effects of imagery-evoking radio advertising strategies on affective responses

A debate in the marketing literature concerning the relative effectiveness of various imagery-evoking strategies in influencing consumer responses to advertising has been unresolved. This study examined the effects of three imagery-evoking strategies commonly used in radio advertising—sound effects, vivid verbal messages, and instructions to imagine—in influencing mental imagery, ad-evoked feelings, and attitude toward the ad. The theoretical basis for the study is an imagery model based on propositional representations theory. Consistent with the implications of the theory, of the three strategies, sound effects had the greatest impact on imagery and affective responses. Compared with sound effects, a vivid verbal message had a slightly weaker influence. Instructions to imagine, however, had a very weak impact on imagery and no significant influence on affect. Finally, the results indicated that the three strategies interacted with one another. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Tobacco advertising and children: The limits of first amendment protection

A recent wave of public interest surrounding the alleged advertising of cigarettes to children has raised First Amendment issues under the commercial speech doctrine. The two most vocal sides of this debate are sharply divided over the amount of constitutional protection that should be offered to tobacco advertisers. Proponents of restrictions on such ads argue that commercial speech does not advance any ideas worth preserving and is consequently deserving of less protection than other forms of speech. Their opponents assert that commercial speech should be offered wide protection because of its role in contributing to individual autonomy in the marketplace of ideas through informing consumer choice. While I believe that commercial speech should be offered broad protection, I will argue that severe restrictions are morally justifiable and legally defensible when it comes to advertising to children, particularly with respect to harmful products. Since the free market of ideas model is premised upon a notion that there are reasonable consumers that can discern falsehood from truth, this model is invalidated when it comes to children since they cannot be expected to possess the same capacity for judgment as adults. Kenman L. Wong is a Ph.D. candidate in Social Ethics at the University of Southern California. He teaches Business Ethics at Biola University and is currently co-editing (with Scott B. Rae) Business Ethics: A Judeo-Christian Approach to be published by Zondervan Publishing House (A division of HarperCollins Publishers) in 1996.     

Music format effects in radio advertising

Radio advertising performance was experimentally investigated to determine whether music format can moderate the persuasive effect of ads for low involvement type products. Recall, attitude toward the product, attitude toward the advertisement, and behavioral intention scores each provide support for the research hypothesis. As predicted, a highly involving music format produced the most consistently favorable effects for the products tested.     

The effects of gender on processing advertising and product trial information

Consistent with past research and theory explaining gender differences in information processing, the empirical study reported here showed that men process two forms of marketing information (advertising and product trial) differently than women. Specifically, women are more sensitive to the comprehensiveness of the trial information, recognizing manipulated differences in trial diagnosticity. In contrast, men tend to use readily available information to form brand judgments and are less likely to notice that other attribute information is unavailable in the product trial.     

The joint effects of advertising and product trial: A source-monitoring perspective

Various sequences of exposure to advertising and product trial were examined using a source-monitoring framework. The findings suggest that memories of positive product-trial experience can be enhanced by advertisement exposure and such facilitation is greater when the temporal separation of the two information sources is minimal. In contrast, when product-trial experience is negative, the reverse is true. A source-monitoring explanation is put forth to understand the role and limit of memory (re)-construction from advertising exposure and product-trial experiences.     

Question effects on information processing in advertising

This research reports the results of a study in which pre-questions and post-questions are employed in a radio commercial. Responses of subjects exposed to questions are compared to responses of other subjects exposed to content equivalent statements. Also manipulated in this research is the length of a pause after commercial arguments. Post-questions were found to be more effective in facilitating information processing than post-statements. However, pre-questions and combined (both pre- and post-) questions were not more effective than pre-statements and combined statements respectively. Further, the length of the pause did not affect outcomes. Results are discussed in terms of the conditions under which questions may and may not be expected to increase message processing. Different theoretical views are presented in explaining the pattern of results observed.     

Competitive effects of informative advertising in distribution channels

Informative advertising and persuasive advertising play quite different roles in the efficiency of distribution channels. A recent study observes that a direct channel structure outperforms an indirect one in the presence of advertising competition between manufacturers, assuming that advertising is persuasive. On the contrary, taking the informative view of advertising, this paper demonstrates an opposite result: Disintegration does make competing manufacturers better off for highly substitutable goods. We further discuss the optimum control of informative advertising under the indirect channel scenario, showing that retailers are more effective than manufacturers as advertisers.     

The effects of television advertising execution on recall,comprehension, and persuasion

The present study fills a gap in the advertising effects literature for a large-sample comprehensive study of the impact of general message factors on recall and persuasion measures of advertising performance. An analysis of executional factors in 1059 television commercials revealed that the presence of a brand differentiating message accounted for more variance in persuasion than other executional factors. Recall and persuasion performance were more closely related for new products than for established products. A brand differentiating claim in the commercial was the most important single executional factor affecting advertising effectiveness.     

实效创意才是真

都说这是一个创意贬值的时代,广告主越来越看重广告的实效性。那些广告人曾经绞尽脑汁,经过无数次头脑风暴后的产物,现在除了能获获奖,作为观赏品,只有墙角欢迎它们。难道,创意真的不再被需要？难道,广告人要从艺术家变成一个个商人？抑或是让创意自生自灭？广告创意真的还重要吗？     

The effects of an advertising retrieval cue on young children's memory and brand evaluations

Young children's memory for television advertising is important in order for children to recognize brands in stores and/or to recall the brand name in making a purchase request. Two experiments showed that the use of visual advertising retrieval cue (a green frog as the brand character) improved memory performance and brand evaluations. Study 1 (n = 40) showed promise in the cue's assistance in children's recalling the brand name (cued recall) from the ad memory trace. Study 2 (n = 40) contained multiple exposures to the ad, which resulted in greater free recall and in support for the cue's assistance in better access of the brand name from the ad memory trace (cued recall). Affected ad memory resulted in more favorable brand evaluations and intent to request the brand's purchase. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

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。     

Corporate crisis advertising: A framework examining the use and effects of corporate advertising before and after crises

While corporate advertising has been widely studied as a promotional tool, few studies have examined how it can be used in a corporate crisis situation. In 2013, Kim proposed a conceptual framework for examining stakeholders’ evaluation of pre-crisis corporate advertising, using the inoculation and reactance theory. The framework, published in Journal of Marketing Communications, suggested that pre-crisis advertising can increase audience resistance towards negative news of an organization and decrease audience resistance towards future corporate advertisements from the organization. The present study expands on Kim’s work to develop the corporate crisis advertising (CCA) framework. In addition to the inoculation and reactance effects discussed in Kim’s model, CCA aims to discuss the effects of corporate advertising on improving organization’s prior reputation based on halo effect, and how post-crisis advertising messages can be evaluated based on crisis theories. Our proposed framework provides a comprehensive view of the use of corporate advertising both before and after a crisis and is useful for organizations to understand the impact of corporate advertising on stakeholders’ evaluation of the organization in a crisis situation. Potential applications of CCA are discussed and directions for future research suggested.     

Effects of violent television programmes on advertising effectiveness among young children

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of violent TV programmes on the effectiveness of advertising aimed at children. Using an experimental method, this study found that violent programmes elicit a high level of excitation among kindergarten attendees, which substantially enhances their advertising effectiveness. When advertising was viewed within a violent programme, children showed better ad recall and more favourable attitudes towards the ad than when advertising was viewed in a non-violent programme. Higher purchase intention and brand preference were also found among subjects who viewed the ad embedded in a violent programme.     

The effects of polychronic-orientation upon retail employee satisfaction and turnover

Keeping front-line retail employees satisfied, and subsequently reducing their turnover, is important in retail management. This study introduces polychronic-orientation, or an employee's preference for switching between multiple tasks within the same time-block, as an employee trait with important implications for retail employee turnover. It demonstrates empirically that a polychronic-orientation has both direct (employee fit) and indirect (through fairness perceptions) effects on retail employee satisfaction. Moreover, by exploring these effects across career stages, polychronicity is revealed to be a stable and enduring trait but one whose impact is magnified in early stages of the retail career. Implications for hiring and employee education are derived.     

CMMB发展中的广告环节

奥运期间CMMB的推广试用取得了很大效果,至少让社会各界认识了这种新的传播手段。虽然国家下一步会大力推广CMMB,但由试用推广到大规模使用,再到成功的商业运作,这其中还有很长一段路要走。此时来讨论CMMB未来的发展,尤其是商业化中所应重视的问题是很有必要的。     

The effectiveness of post-release movie advertising

Frequent new product introductions and short product life cycles lead to unusually high levels of advertising in the movie industry. We study the effectiveness of television advertisements aired after the theatrical opening of a motion picture (‘post-release advertising’). We estimate an instrumental variables, lagged effects model using a novel dataset constructed to obviate simultaneity concerns and temporal aggregation biases. We find that post-release movie advertising exhibits a high degree of heterogeneity across films, but generates substantial returns for some movies. Our findings suggest that studios may find it beneficial to experiment with higher post-release advertising budgets. Further, exhibitors may benefit from extended movie life cycles if they share post-release advertising responsibility with studios.     

未来的广告代理商模式

广告代理业在全球舞台上已经存在很久,不是一个新的行业。今天引发很多广告业经营模式讨论最重要的原因,其实是媒体环境在快速改变。