Effectiveness of Outdoor Advertising of Services

Outdoor advertisements are now routinely used by marketers of products and services as they have been found to be effective in general. However, there have been no studies testing the effectiveness of outdoor advertising of services in particular nor have there been studies comparing the effectiveness of outdoor advertisements of services with that of consumer goods. In this paper we study the effectiveness of outdoor advertisements of services and investigate the influence of few billboard and consumer related fac- tors on its effectiveness. The results show that the outdoor advertise- ments of services are very effective. Further, the recall of outdoor advertisements of services may be enhanced by providing direc- tional information when applicable and by unusual executions such as having them in black and white when most other ads are in color. Recall of outdoor advertisements of services was also found to be positively associated with respondent involvement with outdoor advertising and their attitude toward advertising.     

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.     

Women in Advertisements: Retrospect and Prospect

This article provides a comprehensive review of research and commentary on the use and reaction to women in advertisements in the last decade for the purpose of projecting future trends. Specifically, trends in sex-role differentiation and sex in advertising are examined and discussed. The authors conclude that the 1980's will exhibit a larger proportion of advertisements featuring women in work-related settings in parity occupations with men. Sex in advertising is expected to become more explicit. However, use of women as sex objects will decline.     

Examining the influence of different levels of sexual-stimuli intensity by gender on advertising effectiveness

Abstract

Sexual appeals grab attention and elicit emotional responses, yet the existing literature surrounding this area of research has yielded inconsistent findings with regard to their ability to influence consumer liking and preference. Little attention has also been given to investigating sexual appeals beyond the scope of the effects of gratuitous sexual stimuli (nudity), and as such, most of what is known about sexual appeal advertising is centred on the effects of nudity alone. The current study examines sexual-stimuli intensity (explicit vs. mild) in print advertising and assesses its influence on advertising effectiveness and how this varies by gender for Australian consumers. An experiment is conducted as a test of the hypothesised relationships, with findings indicating that the level of sexual-stimuli intensity in print advertising is more effective in influencing consumers’ attitudinal and behavioural responses when depicted at a mild intensity level than at an explicit intensity level. These findings offer important insights for marketers in the design and configuration of sexual appeals used in advertising to maximise the effectiveness of ads to achieve favourable consumer behaviour outcomes.     

Magazine Advertising: Factors Influencing the Effectiveness of Celebrity Advertising

This study analyzes the differences in celebrity effectiveness in advertisements of different styles as well as the impact of source credibility. This study uses an experimental magazine to test nine fictional advertisements for three products with unreal brands and three advertising styles. The findings show that the advertising styles that generate the greatest effectiveness differ according to the product; the celebrities do not increase effectiveness, but when the respondents recognize the celebrity, effectiveness increases; and credibility influences affective and conative measures. The work also considers how celebrity-product pairings, the existence of negative celebrity information, and the familiarity with the celebrity affect the effectiveness.     

A New Viewpoint on Nudes in Advertising and Brand Recall

Despite research findings' that scantily-clad or even nude models in advertisements do not improve brand recall of the products advertised, marketers continue to employ nudity in their advertising. In recent years males as well as females have been used as models. Since current research reflects only the effectiveness of female nudity for brand recall among male audiences, this study was conducted to see what happens when those roles are reversed. Findings did not replicate those of previous studies which indicated a reverse correlation between increased nudity and brand recall. Both male and female audiences demonstrated increased brand recall as the model's nudity was increased.     

Do Violent Social Cause Advertisements Promote Social Change? An Examination of Implicit Associations

Violent content is used in social cause advertising campaigns as a means of discouraging antisocial attitudes and behaviors, despite the fact that findings regarding the effectiveness of including violence in advertisements are equivocal. The present research explores the efficacy of violent advertisements by investigating how such ads affect implicit associations with violent words/acts. The importance of implicit associations is that they can affect judgments and behaviors long after explicit memory for the advertisement has decayed. The findings of the research point to the prevalence of individual differences in response to violent ads. Specifically, social cause advertisements are effective in weakening implicit associations with violence for nonaggressive individuals, as would be desired. However, these campaigns strengthen implicit associations for aggressive individuals. Ameliorating their aggressive associations would be advantageous both to the individual and society; however, the results suggest such advertisements make matters worse. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The effect and moderation of gender identity congruity: Utilizing “real women” advertising images

The present article examines the predictive ability of gender identity congruity in explaining women's responses to advertising appeals. The contributions of the article are twofold: (1) to demonstrate whether advertisements that are congruent with female consumers' gender identities elicit strong positive responses and (2) to identify the factors that moderate/mediate the impact of gender identity congruity on consumer responses to advertisements. The research findings provide evidence of the ability of gender identity congruity to elicit positive responses to advertising appeals. The relationship between gender identity congruity and responses to the advertisement is mediated by advertising involvement. The moderating roles of national culture, physical concern, and physical view are also supported. Overall, the congruity theory provides a powerful framework to examine consumer responses to gender portrayals in advertising. ©2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

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.     

Local or Global Image? The Role of Consumers' Local–Global Identity in Code-Switched Ad Effectiveness Among Monolinguals

Local and global brands alike have increasingly used code-switching to enhance advertising persuasion. Although this tactic is widely used, previous studies have focused on bilinguals but not monolinguals. Because of the emerging use of code-switching in advertisements in monolingual markets, more research efforts are required to understand its effectiveness and boundaries among monolinguals. This study investigated whether the consumers' local–global identity plays a moderating role in the effectiveness of code-switched advertisements among monolinguals. The consumers' local–global identity refers to the combination of local and global identities possessed by individuals that affect how they define themselves in relation to the social environment. Study 1 (manipulating consumers' local–global identity) demonstrated that the local–global identity moderated the effect of code-switched advertisements. The results indicated that the congruence between code-switching and the consumers' local–global identity enhanced persuasiveness, and that advertising involvement mediated this effect. Study 2 replicated the findings of Study 1 by using a local–global identity measure. These findings provide implications for branding and advertising strategies.     

Consumer-perceived signals of ‘creative’ versus ‘efficient’ advertising

The paper investigates the effects that consumer-perceived sender expense and effort might have on brand perceptions. More specifically, it extends the marketing signal literature to advertising by including both sender expense and effort, and by including both positive and negative effects. A quantitative analysis of 4,000 consumers’ perceptions of creativity award winning, effectiveness award winning and non-award winning advertisements finds that advertisements with higher-than-average perceived expense and effort have positive impacts on brand attitudes, brand interest and word-of-mouth (WOM), while advertisements with lower-than-average perceived expense have corresponding negative impacts.     

Simon Broadbent: a tribute

Alcohol-impaired driving (AID) has devastating effects on society. To decrease the incidence of AID, high-risk populations like college students are often targeted by anti-AID advertising campaigns. The present study examines the effectiveness of anti-AID advertisements as a function of pre-existing audience mood. Two experiments showed that congruity between the mood of the audience (positive, negative) and the regulatory focus of the ad (promotion, prevention) can increase advertising effectiveness. Positive mood enhanced the effectiveness of promotion-framed ads, whereas negative mood enhanced the effectiveness of prevention-framed ads. The effects were attributable to differential engagement in global or local processing. Positive mood induced a tendency to engage in global processing, and negative mood fostered engagement in local processing. Theoretical contributions are considered along with actionable recommendations for the creators of anti-AID advertising campaigns.     

The effectiveness of advertising appeals: A culturally-derived power perspective

Based on the perspective of culturally-derived power, we explore the influence of advertising appeals on attitudes towards advertisement, as well as their psychological mechanisms and boundary conditions through three experiments. The results indicate that individuals primed with personalized (vs. socialized) power have a better advertising attitude towards self-benefiting (vs. other-benefiting) appeal advertising via processing fluency. In addition, we find that consumption situations moderate the interaction effect between culturally-derived power and advertising appeals on advertising attitudes. The research findings enrich the theoretical research on advertising appeals and provide practical implications for companies to improve the effectiveness of their advertisements.     

An investigation of the influence of cinema environment on advertising effectiveness

Many advertisers are looking to cinema advertising as a nontraditional medium to reach consumers. Although several scholars have examined the effectiveness of this advertising vehicle, there is a dearth of empirically grounded research on how to improve such effectiveness. This study, based on the reactance and the equity theories, is probably the first academic project investigating how to manipulate an advertising environment in a real movie theatre to maximize advertising effectiveness. Results indicated that audiences in a distractive environment held a more positive attitude toward cinema advertising in general, but those in a restrictive environment were more likely to remember the advertised brands. In addition, the provision of ticket price information improved audiences’ acceptance of cinema advertising, but did not enhance recall. Moreover, the influence of ambient scent emitted into the atmosphere in a cinema room on ad recall dissipated when movie viewers became accustomed to such stimuli. Based on these findings, theoretical discussions and recommendations for practising managers were made.     

A Field Test of the Effectiveness of Different Print Layouts: A Mixed Model Field Experiment in Alternative Advertising

This article investigates the effectiveness of bathroom print ads. Using liquor as the product domain, field study data (n = 146) indicate a high level of ad (60%) and product category (80%) recall. Contrary to the literature and the researchers’ hypothesis, respondents had a significantly higher level of recall for copy dominant than for visual dominant ads. Hypotheses suggesting that color advertisements would outperform non-color advertisements and interactions between ages and visual-based versus copy-based stimuli and gender and visual-based versus copy-based stimuli were not supported by the data. The implications for practitioners of the effectiveness of copy rich ads and suggested directions for future research are discussed.     

Reaching Goals and Doing Good: Exploring Consumer Responses to Meaningful Advertisements

The purpose of this study is to investigate how consumers respond to meaningful advertisements, which promote products or brands by portraying moral virtues and life meaning. The authors present findings of an online survey in which participants reported their responses to two meaningful advertisements. A conceptual model was proposed and tested based on the survey data. Results demonstrated that when viewing meaningful advertisements participants' perceptions of meaningfulness positively influenced their feelings of elevation, which leaded to favorable attitudes towards the advertisement and brand. Empathy served as a moderator in the conceptual model. Participants who felt low empathy actually experienced stronger feelings of elevation. This study presents how consumers respond to portrayals of moral virtues and life meaning in advertisements. It contributes to the literature of advertising by demonstrating that the emotion of elevation benefits advertising effectiveness. It has significant implications to advertising professionals as well.     

Are two brands better than one? Investigating the effects of co-branding in advertising on audience memory

Co-branded advertising, where advertisements feature two partnered brands from different categories, should ideally benefit both brands. We test this assertion by studying the effect of featuring a second brand in advertisements on ad and brand name memorability, and the role of category context on which brand is recalled. Our test covers online display advertisements for consumer-packaged brands paired with charity and retailer brands in three markets (USA, UK, and Australia). Independent sample comparisons across 54 brand pairs show that advertising two brands has a neutral effect on ad memorability and negative effect on brand memorability. Furthermore, the advertisement’s category context determines which of the brands is recalled. Our findings support a competitive interference theory of dual-brand processing, whereby the two brands compete for attention resources. The results have implications for the return on investment from advertising expenditure, which will vary substantively depending on whether the costs of advertising are shared or borne by one brand in the pair.     

When retailers and manufacturers advertise together; examining the effect of co-operative advertising on ad reach and memorability

Retailers often feature manufacturer brands in their advertising with the aim to drive sales for those brands and, at the same time, increase in-store traffic. The adoption of such co-operative advertising strategies should reach an expanded audience base comprising of store and brand buyers. Based on empirical evidence in non-retail settings, these buyers are more likely to remember the advertising than non-buyers. This usage-bias effect implies that co-operative advertisements achieve greater cut through than would be the case if either brand advertised alone. Our paper tests this hypothesis in the context of retailer advertisements that feature manufacturer brands in the US, UK and Australia. Our results confirm that a retail brand's shoppers are more likely to recall its advertisements than non-shoppers, extending the usage-bias generalisation to a retailing context. However, while co-operative advertising does expand the buyer-base reach, any uplift in ad-memorability is negated by a reduced ability for buyers of only one of the two brands to recall the advertisement. Information overload on cognitive processing is a possible explanation for this finding, and has implications for extracting value from any investment in co-operative advertising.     

Book Reviews

This study examines community attitudes of Australians towards gender portrayal in advertising. Despite some well-publicised cases involving sexually provocative billboards, we find that gender portrayal in advertising is not of major concern to many Australians. We also examined the relationship between attitudes to gender portrayal and Arnott's (1972) Female Autonomy Inventory, a measure of feminist consciousness. Ford and LaTour (1996) tested a model of attitudes toward gender portrayal in advertising that found an unambiguous relationship between attitudes to female autonomy and the perceived offensiveness of the portrayal of women in advertisements. Our study, in contrast, suggests that the relationship is more complex. While one group of high female autonomy respondents (that we labeled "Feminist Pessimists") rated the offensiveness of the portrayal of women in advertising very highly, another high female autonomy group (labeled "Feminist Optimists") did not. Hence regulatory bodies may treat complaints on stereotyping in advertisements from these groups in different ways and advertisers may modify their messages for maximum effect. Differences in the findings between this study and Ford and LaTour's are discussed.     

Differential Effects of Chinese Women's Sexual Self-Schema on Responses to Sex Appeal in Advertising

Despite the increased use of sex appeal in advertising, little is known about the influence of individual personality differences on responses to sexual information. This study examines the effects of the “sexual self-schema” personality trait on Chinese women's responses to advertisements using sex appeal. Regardless of the type of sexual information used, attitudes toward these advertisements mediate the effect of sexual self-schema on the purchase intentions of women with lower sexual self-schema while this mediating effect was not observed in women with higher sexual self-schema. The theoretical and practical implications of sex appeal in advertising for Chinese women are discussed.