Research and Publishing in the Journal of Advertising: Making Theory Relevant

As the latest contributor in this invited article series, I offer my perspective on conducting and publishing advertising research and navigating the review process. I also discuss the importance of the relevance of research to advertising practice, with a particular emphasis on the role that theory plays in making research relevant. In addition, I offer a few general observations about future advertising research.     

Mistaken Inferences from Advertising Conversations: A Modest Research Agenda

I review the changing advertising landscape and suggest that the definition of advertising has inherently changed. Using the current advertising context, I develop research questions that consumer behavior scholars are well poised to address. This research agenda is rooted in real-world observations about advertising and can help us develop new theories about when, how, and why advertising influences and persuades consumers. A recurring theme in this article is that consumers may be misled due to information overload from multiple channels and sources. I use the advertising-as-conversation metaphor to derive hypotheses and test one such hypothesis in an experiment. I end with a summary and discussion of advertising impact measurement.     

Why marketing should quit giving subliminal advertising the benefit of the doubt

The popular belief in subliminal advertising has remained robust in spite of the fact that advertising professionals almost universally discount it as a practical technique. The current psychological theories of Silverman [Silverman, L. H. (1976). Psychoanalytic theory: The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated. American Psychologist, 31 (Sept.), 621–637] and his colleagues provide a conceptual basis for how changes in behavior might result from subliminal stimulation. However, the theory specifies stimulus conditions which make it highly unlikely that successful use of subliminal messages could be achieved in a promotional context. In light of Silverman's theories, even two recent demonstrations of subliminal effects in the advertising literature fail to enhance the credibility of subliminal advertising as a professional tool.     

How Related Multiscreening Could Positively Affect Advertising Outcomes

The use of multiple screens, also known as multiscreening, is assumed to have detrimental consequences for advertising outcomes. However, many people are engaging in this form of media multitasking on a daily basis. Therefore, it is important to focus on how to improve the effectiveness of advertisements when multiscreening. The aim of this study is to examine a key facilitator of advertising effects when multiscreening, namely task relevance. In two separate experiments—an online study (n = 280) and a laboratory (n = 185) study—we showed that people who engage in related multiscreening have better brand memory and more positive brand attitudes than people who engage in unrelated multiscreening via attention and subsequent program involvement. The results of the current study contribute to our understanding of multiscreening and advertising effects by showing that multiscreening does not always have to be detrimental to advertising effects. Furthermore, this study is unique because it combines two methodological approaches of multiscreening research.     

Green Grass,High Cotton: Reflections on the Evolution of the Journal of Advertising

This article reflects on my time as the fifth editor of the Journal of Advertising, makes observations about the evolution of scholarship in the Journal over the past decades, offers suggestions for how JA might advance in the coming years, and provides some “words of wisdom” to advertising researchers. Because it is the first in an invited article series of editor reflections, a bit of historical context is provided.     

Engagement with Social Media and Social Media Advertising: The Differentiating Role of Platform Type

This study examines how consumers’ engagement with social media platforms drives engagement with advertising embedded in these platforms and, subsequently, evaluations of this advertising. Our survey (N = 1,346, aged 13 and older) maps social media users’ engagement experiences with Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat and their experiences with and evaluations of advertising on these platforms. Our findings show that engagement is highly context specific; it comprises various types of experiences on each social media platform such that each is experienced in a unique way. Moreover, on each platform, a different set of experiences is related to advertising evaluations. It is further shown that engagement with social media advertising itself is key in explaining how social media engagement is related to advertising evaluations. The general conclusion is that there is no such thing as “social media.”     

Offensive Advertising

Abstract

Prior literature regarding offensive advertising relates mainly to western cultures. No work has been done on this area in an Asian context. The research in this article reports on a survey of Singaporean consumers. The survey aimed to identify what types of products and appeals consumers find offensive in advertising, the reasons why they find the advertisements offensive, and how this offensive advertising may affect their purchase intentions. The results found that advertisements relating to chat-line services and sexual diseases were the most offensive, followed by advertisements for dating services. Levels of offensiveness were clearly related to demographic variables such as gender and age. In terms of reasons for offensiveness, consumers were most concerned by advertisements that had a sexual connotation or evoked unnecessary fear.Levels of offensiveness also affected purchase intentions. Based on the results, the article recommends that advertisers and their agencies should think more carefully about the demographic profile of their audiences, how this profile might impact their audiences ?sensitivity“ to potentially offensive advertising, and how this sensitivity should be used as a guide when making media and message decisions     

Peeking Under the Curtain and Over the Horizon: The Reflections of Another Former Editor

Being an editor of the Journal of Advertising (JA) provides a unique perspective into the publishing process and the field of advertising. In this article I have tried to offer a glimpse of what I learned from this experience. It reveals what I learned (mostly from mistakes I made) about the review process. It also provides some thoughts about how to be a good reviewer. The second part of the article takes a broader view of how the field of advertising research has developed, what might be missing, and how we can expand its development in the future.     

The Development and Testing of a Child-inspired Advertising Disclosure to Alert Children to Digital and Embedded Advertising

Via three studies, this article aims to develop and test an advertising disclosure which is understandable for children (ages six to 12 years old) and which can alert them to different types of advertising in multiple media formats. First, cocreation workshops with 24 children (ages eight to 11 years old) were held to determine a selection of disclosure designs based on insights from the target group. Second, two eye-tracking studies among 32 children (ages six to 12 years old) were conducted to test which of these disclosure designs attracted the most attention when the disclosures were integrated into a media context. These studies led to the selection of the final advertising disclosure: a black rectangular graphic with the word Reclame! (i.e., Dutch for “Advertising!”) in yellow letters. Finally, a two-by-two, between-subjects experimental study (disclosure design: existing versus child-inspired advertising disclosure; advertising format: brand placement versus online banner advertising) with 157 children (ages 10 and 11 years old) was performed to test the effectiveness of the child-inspired disclosure by comparing it with existing ones. This study not only showed that children recognized, understood, and liked the child-inspired disclosure better than the existing ones, but they were also better able to recognize advertising after exposure to this child-inspired advertising disclosure.     

Advertising Self-Regulation in a Broader Context

Abstract

As the world braces itself for a unified European marketplace, it is critical that we look at the industries likely to be influenced by, and in turn shape, European integration. The advertising industry and its handling of unification are particularly important given that advertising is the voice of the marketplace and a major communications force, shaping cultural norms and values. In order to ensure the free movement of goods, communications about those goods must also move freely. At this time, however, each European country has its own rules and regulations for advertising. One of the major issues facing European advertising as the European Union (EU) comes together is the regulation of cross-border advertising. In 1991 the European Commission issued a call to action for the European advertising industry and almost immediately the industry began work on a trans-border complaints system. Since then the European Advertising Standards Alliance has worked diligently to iron out issues resulting from international advertising disputes. As this article shows, European regulators must determine how advertising will fit into the larger scheme of European law; who will be responsible for controlling advertising; and whether it should be monitored at the national or pan-European level. Certainly the advertising industry is not the only one struggling to determine which controls can remain at the national level and which should be raised to the European rank. But this analysis of how advertising self-regulation fits into the European legal scheme does provide a useful case study of the hurdles ahead. It will be interesting to watch as Europe works to find the proper balance between free trade and national autonomy to control industries.     

Construct Measurement in Advertising Research

This article presents an initial inquiry into measurement practices in advertising research based on a review of all research articles published in the Journal of Advertising (JA), the Journal of Advertising Research (JAR), and the International Journal of Advertising (IJA) between 2012 and 2014. The analysis focused on the measurement of attitude toward the ad (A_Ad), attitude toward the brand (A_Brand), and brand purchase intention (PI_Brand) because these are the most frequently studied constructs in advertising research. The results show there are weaknesses with the theoretical foundation of measures, in that constructs are often not defined and the measures are not taken from measure development studies. Moreover, there is great diversity in the items included in measures, the number of items in the measures, and in the answer scales used to capture responses, which casts doubts on the comparability of results from different studies. The implications of current measurement practice for advertising research are discussed and suggestions are made for how authors, editors, and reviewers can contribute to improved measurement practice.     

Concerns About Advertising Practices in a Developing Country: An Examination of China's New Advertising Regulations

This article examines China's 1993 Interim Regulations on the Advertising Agency System and Interim Advertising Censorship Standards as reflections of a developing country's concerns over advertising practices. Four issues facing a developing country such as China are identified: (1) The influence of foreign advertising practices on the domestic advertising industry; (2) the urge to speed up the learning process of advertising skills and know-how; (3) the threat of advertising to the indigenous culture; and (4) the government's authoritarian role in maintaining order. The new regulations are conceived as the Chinese government's remedies to these issues. The article concludes with a discussion on the enforcement problems and consequences of the regulations on China's advertising industry.     

The Typicality and Accessibility of Consumer Attitudes Toward Television Advertising: Implications for the Measurement of Attitudes Toward Advertising in General

Despite the wide array of contemporary advertising formats and media, television advertising remains the most dominant form to which typical consumers are exposed. Research on attitudes toward advertising in general (Att-AiG) implicitly assumes that the Att-AiG measure represents advertising as a whole. A major finding of the current research is that consumers tend to have a mental representation, or exemplar, of the most typical type of advertising—television advertising—when they report their Att-AiG. Therefore, in reality, Att-AiG primarily reflects attitudes toward television advertising. In addition, the results of our experiments indicate that television ad exemplars generate temporal changes in consumers’ reported Att-AiG and attitudes toward television advertising. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

What's Wrong with Computer-Generated Images of Perfection in Advertising?

Advertisers often use computers to create fantastic images. Generally, these are perfectly harmless images that are used for comic or dramatic effect. Sometimes, however, they are problematic human images that I call computer-generated images of perfection. Advertisers create these images by using computer technology to remove unwanted traits from models or to generate entire human bodies. They are images that portray ideal human beauty, bodies, or looks. In this paper, I argue that the use of such images is unethical. I begin by explaining the common objections against advertising and by demonstrating how critics might argue that those objections apply to computer-generated images of perfection. Along the way, I demonstrate an ethically significant difference between computer-generated images of perfection and the images in ordinary ads. I argue that although critics might use this fact to apply the common objections to the use of computer-generated images of perfection, the objections fail. Finally, I argue that despite surviving the common objections, the use of computer-generated images of perfection is subject to an ethical objection that is based on aesthetic considerations. Advertisers are ethically obligated to avoid certain aesthetic results that are produced by computer-generated images of perfection.     

Opportunities for and Pitfalls of Using Big Data in Advertising Research

This editorial introduces the special section on big data. We define big data by examining how it is, or will be, created in advertising environments. We propose a conceptual framework for understanding the different types of digital advertising touch points that create big data, and use the framework for identifying research opportunities. We discuss the types of research questions that big data can inform, including developing and testing theories, identifying insights, and optimizing the delivery of messages. New methods that advertisers will need to use big data are identified. Recommendations are provided for how to think about and approach big data. Using the framework, we identify specific opportunities for advertising researchers to use big data. We also discuss pitfalls in using big data.     

Controls on Advertising: an Examination of Some Economic Arguments

There is increasing pressure to regulate advertising in Britain, and economic concepts are often advanced to support such a policy. One argument is that advertising is wasteful, but this depends upon a quite arbitrary view of what kinds of product differences are considered important. A second argument is that advertising distorts consumer tastes. This claim reflects a particular psychological view (behaviourism) which is not widely accepted nowadays. Other psychological theories, reflected in the writings of modern economists, see advertising as playing a constructive role in helping to reveal tastes, with consumers playing an active rather than passive role in choice. The proposals to limit advertising thus depend upon particular value judgements or psychological theories for which economics provides no justification.     

Culture,Perceived Value,and Advertising Acceptance: A Cross-Cultural Study on Mobile Advertising

Abstract

Adverting standardization has been widely discussed since 1990s. Recently, this discussion has been extended to mobile advertising. When it comes to adopt a standardization or localization strategy, it is important that marketers understand how mobile advertising is perceived in different markets. This study examines the impacts of four perceived values of mobile advertising on young Australian and Chinese consumers’ acceptance of mobile advertising. The findings suggest that perceived functional value have the most positive effect on mobile advertising acceptance, followed by credibility and interactivity value. Further analyses reveal that culture moderates the relationships between perceived values and advertising acceptance.     

Advertising and Deep Autonomy

Concerns about advertising take one of two forms. Some people are worried that advertising threatens autonomous choice. Others are worried not about autonomy but about the values spread by advertising as a powerful institution. I suggest that this bifurcation stems from misunderstanding autonomy. When one turns from autonomous choice to autonomy of persons, or what is often glossed as self-rule, then one has reason to think that advertising poses a moral problem of a sort so far unrecognized. I diagnose this problem using Charles Taylor's work on "strong evaluation". This problem turns out to have political ramifications that have been only dimly recognized in business ethics circles.     

Gender Roles and Humor in Advertising: The Occurrence of Stereotyping in Humorous and Nonhumorous Advertising and Its Consequences for Advertising Effectiveness

The advertising literature includes extensive research on the occurrence and effects of gender-role portrayals in advertising. None of these studies has examined the ways in which humor affects depictions and the advertising effectiveness of these portrayals. This article reports the results of content-analytic and experimental studies that investigate the occurrence and effectiveness of gender stereotyping in humorous and nonhumorous advertising. The findings from these studies are in line with the assumptions of information processing theories. They indicate that the way women and men are stereotyped in advertising is dependent on humor; in particular, traditional male stereotypes are more prevalent in humorous ads, whereas traditional female stereotypes are more prevalent in nonhumorous ads. With respect to the influence of these stereotypes, humor improves consumers’ attitudes, particularly if nontraditional stereotyping is utilized instead of traditional stereotyping. Furthermore, humor in stereotyped advertising influences women more than men. Women evaluate gender portrayals more favorably and as more credible in humorous ads than in nonhumorous ads, particularly when nontraditional stereotyping instead of traditional stereotypes are used. These findings provide implications for gender-role and humor research in advertising and for practitioners who wish to increase the effectiveness of ads that use stereotypes.