Observations

This article is a commentary on the theme of the 2012 ICORIA Conference held in Stockholm, which was about ‘The changing role of advertising’. We propose that the role of advertising has not changed. The role of advertising has always been, and will continue to be, to sell more of the branded product or service or to achieve a higher price that consumers are willing to pay than would obtain in the absence of advertising. What has changed in recent years is the notable worsening of the academic–practitioner divide, which has seen academic advertising researchers pursuing increasingly unrealistic laboratory studies, textbook writers continuing to ignore practitioners’ research appearing in trade publications and practitioner-oriented journals, and practitioners peeling off into high-sounding but meaningless jargon. Also evident is the tendency to regard the new electronic media as requiring a new model of how advertising communicates and persuades, which, as the authors’ textbooks explain, is sheer nonsense and contrary to the goal of integrated marketing. We provide in this article a translation of practitioners’ jargon into more scientifically acceptable terminology as well as a classification of the new advertising formats in terms of traditional analogs with main stream media advertising.     

Towards a New Paradigm in the Ethics of Women's Advertising

This paper identifies the ethical issues involved with women's advertising, and argues that ads can be successful in generating sales without portraying women as things or as mere sex objects, and without perpetuating various weakness stereotypes. A paradigm shift in advertising appears to be at hand. This new model replaces images of women as submissive or constantly in a need of alteration, with a move to reinstate beauty as a natural thing, not an unattainable ideal. This paper also reviews general ethical issues of the advertising industry, including: (1) that advertising equates the pursuit of material gain with human happiness; (2) that advertising pushes its own values, artificial or false as they may be, as to what is "good" for the consumer; (3) that advertising plays on physical appetites and the body; (4) that advertising strives to bypass rational thinking, by desensitizing the viewer and playing on group dynamics.     

Attitudes of Contemporary European Women Toward Sex Role Portrayal,Company Image and Purchase Intention: The French versus U.S. Experience

The portrayal of women in advertising has received much attention over the past three decades. However, most of the research is focused on U.S. women and lacks a global perspective. Little is known about the attitudes of non-U.S. women toward female role portrayal in advertising. This study, building on previous research conducted by Ford, LaTour and Lundstrom, reports the findings regarding the attitudes of European women, specifically French, towards their sex role portrayal in advertising and its affect on purchase intention. Furthermore, it compares these results to a recent baseline study conducted in the U.S. for the express purpose of illustrating what differences, if any, exist between the cultures of women who live in two different, post-industrial societies.     

Low involvement processing—a new model of brands and advertising

This article puts forward a new theory of how advertising and other brand learning is processed and stored by consumers. The theory, based on low involvement processing, discusses how advertising creates brand associations which drive intuitive brand purchase decisions. The model explains why we frequently find it difficult to demonstrate that advertising has played an effective role in strengthening brands.     

Disbanding an Effective System for Self Regulation of Advertising: Beyond the Media Council of Australia

This paper analyses the role of government, advertisers, advertising agents, and the industry complaints body in unravelling what was once an effective self regulatory system for advertisements. It outlines the connection between the system for the accreditation of advertising agents and the system of fuzzy Codes of Practice rules for the content of advertisements that regulated Australian advertising until the end of 1996. It shows how a revamped competition policy, government review, aggrieved advertisers and an entrenched Advertising Standards Council contributed to the demise of the Media Council system of self regulated advertising. The paper describes the new self regulatory system that has been put in place and analyses both the old Media Council Code of Practice rules and the rules of the new Advertiser Code of Ethics.     

Do new forms of television advertising occasion better recall than traditional advertising spots?

The loss of effectiveness of television advertising centred on advertising spots has caused the development, and subsequent consolidation, of new forms of advertising within this medium. While management assumes that these new forms of advertising generate greater recall, in order to justify their usage, there is a noticeable lack of research evidence to prove this supposition. Therefore, in this article we use a representative sample of Spanish television audiences to compare the advertising recall that advertising spots generate, as opposed to that occasioned by a combination of new television advertising formats. The empirical analysis was carried out by means of an Ordered Probit model, which showed that the new forms of advertising gave rise to better recall than advertising spots, as much with regard to aided as with unaided recall.     

Consumer Response to Coupon Advertising

Because coupon advertising has both the characteristics of advertising and sales promotion, it may have distinctive effects on consumers that cannot be explained solely by coupons or advertising. Past studies present contradicting results as to the consumers' response to coupon advertising. Our experiment shows that while the coupon may be an incentive for loyal consumers of competing brands, it may be a distractor for brand-loyal consumers in processing the coupon advertising. For multi-brand users, coupons do not appear to have any distinctive effects on processing the coupon advertising. An empirical investigation of an integrated consumer response model to coupon advertising indeed shows that there are various interactive effects between the coupon and the main advertisement. These results may provide guidelines for making targeting and promotion decisions, especially for an internationally well-known brand that is entering a new market where local or other international brands are already serving the customers.     

Perception of Sex Appeal in Print Advertising by Young Female Anglo-Saxon and Second Generation Asian-Islamic British

Abstract

The aim of this research is to provide empirical data to either support or challenge the view that subculture has an impact on how sex appeal in advertising is perceived. The study looks at young females of two specific British subcultural groups, Anglo-Saxon and Asian-Islamic British. It reveals that there are differences in the perception of sex appeal, since the Asian-Islamic British have a rather more negative attitude towards this particular appeal, while the Anglo-Saxon have a much more positive attitude towards it.     

Empathy with influencers? The impact of the sensory advertising experience on user behavioral responses

Short-form video influencer advertising offers new opportunities for user sensory experience to promote advertising effectiveness and induce positive user responses. This unique means of influencer-generated advertising via short-form videos has not yet been investigated. This study builds on the reciprocity norm of social exchange theory to investigate relationships among ad sensory stimuli (i.e., the sensory advertising experience), the efficacy of influencer advertising (i.e., empathy and altruistic motive), and user behavioral responses (i.e., ad avoidance intention, ad engagement, and purchase intention). It also seeks to shed light on the critical role of perceived influencer effort in these relationships. An empirical study using data from TikTok (Douyin) users and results indicate that sensory advertising experience positively affects user behavioral responses through the serial mediation of empathy and altruistic motive. Additionally, perceived influencer effort is found to be a crucial moderator of the effect of sensory advertising experience on user empathy, which further influences user behavioral responses. The findings provide insight into the persuasion effect and mechanism of short-form video influencer advertising and offer suggestions for advertising campaign designers.     

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.     

Influence of gender stereotypes on advertising offensiveness and attitude toward advertising in general

Although considerable research has examined attitude toward advertising in general (AG), little is known about AG's determinants. This study investigates gender stereotype-related constructs whose relationship with AG is understudied and unclear. Structural equation modeling demonstrates that attitude toward sex/nudity in advertising predicts AG indirectly through the perceived offensiveness of advertising. Also, the more consumers believe that advertising portrays gender stereotypes, the less favorable their AG. Multi-group analyses, however, demonstrate that offensiveness harms AG for men, but not women. Also, gender-stereotype attitudes harm AG for female and younger consumers, but do not harm AG for male or older consumers. These results have important implications for advertisers in message targeting and advertisement execution strategies. Also, because unfavorable AG increases demands for governmental oversight and interference, the advertising industry should strengthen self-regulation. This self-regulation should proscribe traditional gender stereotypes and excessively erotic ads that may offend consumers, even if those consumers are outside an advertiser's target market.     

Does Sex Sell in a Chinese Society

Sexual appeal was once was regarded as panacea in advertising. Research findings in western countries regarding sexu- ally explicit advertising generally have divergent views-positive and negative advertising effects. Published findings indicate advertise- ments that employ sex appeals are attention-getting and result in better brand recall, while on the contrary, these advertisements are viewed as offensive and creating negative attitudes and behavioural intentions. The use of sex in advertising is a complex issue. The gender of the model, the gender of the receivers, the product adver- tised, the culture background of the market etc. will have an impact on the effectiveness of advertising. The present study focuses on the relationship between sexually explicit advertisements in Hong Kong and the advertising effectiveness, in the form of recall, attitude and purchase intention.     

Does manufacturer advertising suppress or stimulate retail price promotions? Analytical model and empirical analysis

Does manufacturer advertising for a brand stimulate or suppress retail price promotions? This study addresses this controversial issue. The authors develop an analytical model that shows that the relationship between manufacturer advertising and retail price promotion depends on the role of advertising. If advertising differentiates brands and suppresses consumer response to retail promotion, then the relationship is negative. But, if advertising is informative enough to increase consumer response to retail promotions, then the relationship is positive. A follow-up empirical analysis shows a strong positive relationship between category advertising expenditure and size of retail price discount, and between advertising and discount frequency. The finding supports the informative role of advertising in the context of retail price promotions. The implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.     

Effects of ironic advertising on consumers’ attention,involvement and attitude

The use of an ironic message in advertising has increased, but little empirical research has been conducted to identify the effects of ironic advertising on consumers. This study demonstrated that ironic advertising can lead to consumers’ higher attention to the ad and greater involvement in the ad message compared to non-ironic advertising, applying schema incongruity theory. This study also examines whether ironic advertising influences consumers’ attitudes toward the ad and the brand. Lastly, this study identified a moderating role of need for cognition on ad attention.     

Caring for her: the influence of presumed influence on female consumers’ attitudes towards advertising featuring gender-stereotyped portrayals

ABSTRACT

This study investigates how presumed influence on others affects women's evaluations of advertising featuring gender stereotypes. Previous research has largely overlooked the social context of the reactions to gender stereotypes. Addressing that gap, this study draws on the influence of presumed influence model to proposed that female consumers believe that other women are negatively affected by advertising that contains gender-stereotyped portrayals. This perception is hypothesized to influence ad and brand attitudes as consumers ‘punish’ the brand for hurting others. The results of two experimental studies featuring stereotyped and non-stereotyped advertising portrayals indicate that the hypothesis holds for two types of stereotype components (physical characteristics and role behaviour). This new theoretical perspective to the literature on gender stereotypes in advertising, one that helps to explain why many women dislike gender stereotypes in advertising even though those stereotypes often have limited impact on them personally.     

Sex discrimination in advertising — A summary of the situation in Sweden

This report treats the way in which Sweden looks upon the phenomenon of sex discrimination, and how it has been handled by theConsumer Ombudsman and theMarket Court. The possibilities of legal intervention in such discrimination seem small at present, but may be increased as a result of current governmental and parliamentary enquiries. A Working Party appointed by the Consumer Ombudsman has tried to delineate the concept of sex discrimination in advertising, and the Working Party's classification of such discrimination into several distinct categories is presented in the paper, together with a series of examples of advertising regarded as discriminatory by this Party.     

基于环境变化的广告监管研究

随着市场经济的发展,广告在促销产品、引导消费、传播先进文化、带动经济发展等方面发挥越来越重要作用。但是,广告市场仍然存在着广告行为不规范,甚至违法行为时有发生。在信息化、区域化、国际化的环境下,新的广告形式层出不穷,广告行业面对的是机遇与挑战并存的发展状况。广告业发展的新环境,为广告监管带来了有利条件,同样也提出了严峻挑战。     

美国电影预告片检查制度及其合法性

预告片本质上是电影广告,这是美国预告片检查制度得以建立的必要性与合法性所在。作为电影广告,预告片在很大程度上能够影响电影票房收入。为了吸引观众,预告片以性、色情、暴力、吸毒等内容为主要叙事元素,引发政府与压力集团的谴责与反对,催生出美国预告片检查制度。这种检查制度建立于古典好莱坞时期,历经新好莱坞时期并延续至今。预告片检查的合法性基础在于预告片是不受《第一修正案》完全保护的商业表达。但是,随着制作艺术与技术的提升,预告片逐渐成为兼具商业性与艺术性的混合表达,预告片检查制度的合法性面临挑战。     

The Panoptic Role of Advertising Agencies in the Production of Consumer Culture

Advertising's role in promoting an ideology of marketed consumption has been widely commented upon by critical theorists yet the mechanisms through which this influence becomes manifest remain relatively under-examined. In particular there has been no explicit examination of the mediating role of cultural knowledge in the production of ideologically driven advertising. This paper invokes the panoptic metaphor to position the knowledge gathered by and on behalf of advertising agencies as a major dynamic in the production of consumer culture. The consumer of advertising is a known entity for advertising agencies: the subject is watched, filmed, questioned, recorded, and tracked. Indeed, consumer biography and subjectivity itself has become material that is both produced and consumed by advertising agencies in order to produce culturally constitutive advertising. The paper integrates disparate literatures to situate knowledge of consumer culture at the hub of advertising's constitutive ideological influence.     

Gender stereotypes in advertising: a review of current research

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the historical context of gender stereotypes in advertising and then examine the scholarship related to gender stereotypes. Gender portrayals in advertising have been examined extensively in the last five decades and still remain an important topic. Changing role structure in the family and in the labor force has brought significant variation in both male and female roles and subsequently how it is reflected in advertising. It has been noted that there is a culture lag. Sexes for a long period of time were depicted in advertising in more traditional roles. Women were presented in an inferior manner relative to their potential and capabilities, while at the same the data indicated a shift towards more positive role portrayals. The changing role of men is the area that has seen the greatest interest in the past few years. Men are depicted in advertising in ‘softer’ roles, while interacting with their children. Men are also shown in more egalitarian roles. The paper finally attempts to outline the future research direction of gender portrayals in advertising. First, research should focus on examining gender portrayals in online platforms, and find ways to modify current coding schemes to digital formats. Second, companies and the media are beginning to pay attention to a once largely ignored segment the lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender (LGBT) consumer. Third, recent advertising has focused on the ‘empowered’ women called femvertising.