Ethical Responses to Public Allegations of Skin Tone Manipulation in Print Advertising: Consumer Indifference or Consumer Concern?

This study examines the effect of consumer prejudice on ethical responses to public allegations of skin tone manipulation in print advertising. A sample of 156 undergraduate business students read a fictitious news story in which an advertising watchdog group accused business executives of using digital manipulation to lighten the skin tone of a Black female model featured in a product print ad. Participants then answered questions on ethical perceptions, behavioral intentions, and prejudice toward Blacks. Results suggest that low-prejudice consumers have stronger ethical concerns toward the digital lightening of ethnic models in print ads than do high-prejudice consumers. The authors discuss the findings, limitations, and directions for future research.     

Cone,Fairfax M. The Blue Streak. Chicago: Crain Communication, 1976

Abstract

This survey, conducted among 17 of the 25 largest advertising agencies, highlights the reduction of entry-level employment opportunities, for college graduates, when 1974 is compared to 1973. The survey also gives indication of the relative popularity various schools enjoy as preparers of future advertising executives. The author closes with an appeal to the advertising industry concerning the need to increase the number of entry-level opportunities.     

William L. Rivers and William T. Slater,Aspen Handbook on the Media,Aspen Institute Program on Communications and Society,Palo Alto,California, 1975, 182 pp.

Abstract

A study of the use of humor in U.S. and U.K. television advertising was developed by surveying ad agency executives in the two countries and then by conducting a content analysis of television commercials. The survey of executives revealed a more accepting attitude toward the use of humor, and a broader view of the potential uses of humor among the British agencies. The content analysis showed a significant increase in the use of humor in the U.S. since the last major benchmark study, but less humor than in the U.K. sample of advertising. An examination of the content analysis data using the Foote, Cone and Belding (FCB) planning matrix revealed a situational use of humor in both countries, with humor most often used with low involvement/ feeling products and least often used with high involvement/feeling and thinking products. For the most part, the views of agency executives reflect the incidence and use of humor in their respective countries.     

Professionals' views of comparative advertising and the scholarly research literature: A review and synthesis

Comparative advertisements that contrast identifiable, competing products or services may be among advertising's most important tactical weapons. Despite nearly a century of use in the USA, growing use by advertisers in many other countries, and decades of scholarly research, some researchers continue to argue that the status of empirical knowledge regarding comparative advertising's effectiveness remains equivocal. This study addresses this equivocality with a review of the research literature and comparisons with the findings of a recent survey of US advertising creative executives. The findings reveal substantial agreement among the beliefs of academic researchers and advertising professionals in regard to when and how comparative advertising will likely be effective. In addition to offering confirming evidence that academic researchers and advertising professionals do sometimes arrive at the same destination in regard to their shared understandings of advertising effects, the findings also point the way toward important directions for future research on comparative advertising.     

Sex Differences in Socially Responsible Advertising Decisions

This article attempts to document potential differences in socially responsible behavior exhibited by male and female advertising executives. Earlier research has found that female advertising majors see themselves, and the “successful” advertising practitioner, as being more sincere and honest than do male advertising majors. This indicates that, once a practitioner, female advertising executives may perform in a more socially responsible manner. Findings reported in this article do indicate greater social responsibility in advertising content decision-making by female advertising executives. Further research is called for and some possibilities are suggested in the article.     

Agency / Client Relationshipsas Seen by Influential on Both Sides

Abstract

This article concerns a subject of interest and concern to both advertising agency executives and their clients; i.e., how the two of them feel about each other and themselves in terms of the agency/client relation-ship. These perceptions and feelings were gleaned from a survey of agency leaders and major users of agency services. Based on the findings, some suggestions and directions are offered for making the agency/client dyad more harmonious.     

How sponsorship transparency mitigates negative effects of advertising recognition

The proliferation of covert online advertising formats such as advergames has raised concerns about consumers’ ability to recognize such content as advertising and about how recognition affects evaluative outcomes. The present research utilized an online experiment (N?=?179) to examine differences between covertness of advertising format (advergame vs. online video commercials) on advertising recognition, and whether sponsorship transparency mediates – and mitigates – the negative effects of advertising recognition on attitude toward the ad, attitude toward the brand, and purchase intent. The results show that covertness of advertising format, recognition, and sponsorship transparency all shape consumers’ responses to online ads. Specifically, the predicted negative indirect effect of covertness of advertising format on attitudes and behavioral intention via advertising recognition reversed valance when sponsorship transparency was included in the serial mediation model.     

Accountants' Attitudes Toward Advertising and Their Use of Marketing Tools

This paper reports the results of a national study of accountants' attitudes toward advertising and heir use of various marketing tools. A mail survey was used to collect the data from a randomly selected sample of accountants. Analysis of the results using percentages and means revealed overall negative attitudes toward advertising. However, younger accountants were more favorable toward the use of advertising. This indicates that in the future there will be increased emphasis on marketing and advertising of accounting services. Seminars, yellow page ads, and brochures were ranked as the three most effective marketing tools. The major reasons respondents did not engage in more marketing activities were concerns over the costbenefits of their use.     

Advertising Agency-client Attitudes Towards Ethical Issues in Political Advertising

Political advertising has long been a target for criticism regarding unethical behaviour. This study looks at the attitudes of Australian advertising agency executives and politicians towards ethical issues relating to political advertising. A sample of 101 advertising agency executives and 46 federal politicians were compared and some attitudinal differences were found, which could be areas of tension in the agency-client relationship.     

Attitudes of Indonesian Mothers Toward Food Advertising Directed to Children

Advertising directed toward children is a controversial issue with growing concerns from parents around the world, including emerging markets such as Indonesia. The reasons for its negative effects include that such advertising could lead to materialism, parent–child conflict, and feelings of unhappiness. In particular, advertising by food companies is a target for criticism due to concerns about unhealthy food and childhood obesity. This article reports on the findings of a number of focus groups of Indonesian mothers to obtain an indication of the mothers’ ethical judgment toward such advertising. The results identify reasons why the mothers found particular advertisements to be unethical and ways advertisements can improve their message. From the responses, some important issues are raised that would be of interest to international advertisers.     

Trends in Total Advertising Expenditure In 10 Countries, 1970–1983: America,Australasia and the Far East

The use and relative effectiveness of comparative advertising has been extensively studied and reported on in the marketing and advertising literature. However, few studies have specifically dealt with this topic from the advertising practitioner's perspective. This paper reports the findings of an empirical investigation aimed at determining some of the factors and underlying perceptions contributing to American advertisers' and agency representatives' attitudes toward comparative advertising. Often-cited criticisms/concerns about comparative advertising as well as past and future plans to use a comparative format were specifically considered.     

Conceptualization and Exploration of Attitude toward Advertising Disclosures and Its Impact on Perceptions of Manipulative Intent

Significant research has been conducted in an effort to understand how varying elements of disclosures (e.g., size, placement, complexity) in advertisements impact consumers' abilities to understand and recall the disclosed message. Although it is important to research the effectiveness of disclosures, advertisers may have additional concerns if the mere presence of a disclosure impacts consumers' perceptions of the company, advertisement, or brand. Little research currently exists examining the notion of consumers' attitudes toward advertising disclosures or how they might impact the effectiveness of the disclosed message, attitude toward a given communication, or overall evaluation of the brand. We introduce the concept of attitude toward advertising disclosures and develop a scale to measure consumers' attitudes toward disclosed messages. The resultant 14‐item, multidimensional scale is then used to demonstrate how attitude toward advertising disclosures plays a moderating role in influencing consumers' perceptions of manipulative intent.     

Editorial

Abstract

Even though operating within a different electoral system, Great Britain is rapidly following in the footsteps of the United States in the area of political communications. Electoral communications, including advertising, have found a place in the British political process.

This study seeks to find what place and is based largely on personal interviews with politicians, party officials, broadcast and print journalists, academicians and advertising agency executives.

Emphasis is on the marketing and communications efforts of the Conservative Party as the leader in the trend toward American-style campaigning. However, both the Labour Party and SDP/Liberal Alliance are also examined.     

Some European Attitudes on the Advertising Transference Question: A Research Note

This article reports a portion of the findings of research conducted to determine the attitudes of select French and Dutch advertising agency leaders and German marketing executives regarding specific standardized advertising issues. These findings are compared with results obtained in earlier studies of U.S. advertising agency and corporate executives and the differences are highlighted.     

Practitioners’ perceptions of advertising strategies for digital media

Digital advertising is set to become a serious challenger within the rapidly changing media landscape. Today there are concerns that advertising strategies based on models and experiences developed with traditional media may need to be reviewed in the digital market. To provide insights into how online advertising strategies might need modification, 21 in-depth interviews were conducted across organisations representing key stakeholders in the digital advertising market. findings identified five key trends relevant to advertisers including: a move towards permission-based advertising; higher levels of personalised advertisements; more three screen advertising campaigns; increased levels of interactivity and the development of performance-based metrics. In the context of these trends, nine propositions are posited concerning the effective formulation and management of digital advertising strategies.     

Consumers' Responses to Implicit and Explicit Gay-Themed Advertising in Gay vs. Mainstream Media

ABSTRACT

Further study is needed to validate concerns over gay-themed ads appearing in mainstream media. This study investigates the effects of such ads by comparing them to the effects of gay-themed ads placed in gay media. The study delves into the differential effects of implicit and explicit visual messages. It also examines how consumers' attitudes toward homosexuality affect their purchase intention as well as advertising and brand evaluation. The study's findings suggest that implicit, rather than explicit, gay-themed ads lead to higher purchase intention and more favorable advertising and brand evaluation. The study results show that the type of advertising message (i.e., implicit or explicit gay-themed ads) moderates the relationship between gay-media and mainstream media. Finally, this study finds that a low level of tolerance toward homosexuality results in lower purchase intention as well as less favorable evaluations of both the advertising and brand. Managerial implications are also discussed.     

Pretesting TV Commercials: Methods,Measures, and Changing Agency Roles

Abstract

Research directors with the largest 200 agencies and advertising executives with the largest 200 advertisers were surveyed to examine their views on the current state of TV commercial pretesting. One-hundred and one agency researchers and 89 ad executives returned completed questionnaires (adjusted response rates of 52% and 49.7%), which asked them 23 closed-ended questions about (1) the methods and measures used to pretest TV commercial executions; (2) the perceived role of the agency versus the client in the selection of pretest methods; and (3) perceived changes in the role of the agency research department in TV commercial pretest research. Of those responding, 18 percent of the agency researchers and 19 percent of the advertising executives indicated that their agencies do not pretest TV commercials for assigned brands. Based on the responses of the 83 agency researchers and 72 advertising executives whose agencies pretest commercial executions, the findings suggest that the role of the agency research department has changed over the past 10 years. Most notably, there has been a proliferation in the use of qualitative methods and measures in TV commercial pretest research.     

An Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Internet Advertising Tools

ABSTRACT

This study explores a wide variety of Internet advertising tools. It presents an assessment of the persuasive impact of Internet advertising tools based on the perceptions of senior executives at interactive advertising agencies. The persuasion matrix developed by McGuire (1978) is used as a framework for assessing the impact of Internet advertising tools on the response hierarchy of consumers. Based on this assessment, a series of research propositions are offered in the spirit of propositional inventories for future testing. Finally, included is a discussion that alerts managers to important issues involved in using Internet advertising tools.     

Like or dislike? Adolescents’ responses to personalized social network site advertising

Increasingly, personal data posted by users of social network sites (SNSs) can be used to personalize advertising. The present study investigates how adolescents respond to personalized ads in terms of attitude toward the ad, brand engagement and intention to forward, and whether privacy concerns moderate their responses. According to pretest results, a medium level of personalization was expected to be optimal in terms of advertising effectiveness. A within-subjects experiment involving 40 participants aged 14–18 years was performed. Three conditions of personalized advertising were designed with, respectively, low, medium, and high levels of personalization. The study found that the highest personalization condition generated the most positive response and that privacy concerns did not moderate the effects of personalization. The privacy paradox is discussed as an alternative explanation, along with other implications of the results.     

A Factor Analysis of College Student Attitudes toward Advertising

Eighty college students were administered 26 Likert-type statements designed to measure their attitudes toward advertising along four different dimensions: 1) economic effects of advertising, 2) social effects of advertising, 3) ethics of advertising and 4) regulation of advertising. Analysis of the responses revealed five clusters or “types” of individuals based on their attitudes. While all five types exhibited some negative feelings toward advertising the degree of, and basis for, their criticisms varied considerably. Findings such as these indicate the need for a better understanding of the reasons for student dissatisfaction with the activities of the advertising community and a more comprehensive program for the dissemination of information about advertising and its activities to a wider cross-section of the college student today.