Consumer Magazines—An Efficient Medium for Reaching Organizational Buyers

Network television and consumer magazines were compared with trade publications for cost efficiency in delivering individuals who influence organizational purchase decisions of $1,000 or more. Consumer magazines were found to deliver the total organizational buyer segment and various subsegments classified by industry and product category of the purchase more efficiently than the trade magazines.     

Media portrayal of foods during Saturday morning television programming and in children's magazines

Eating habits are established in childhood and media portrayal of foods may affect food choices of children. To determine how foods are portrayed by the media, the contents of Saturday morning television programmes and commercials and three children's magazines were analysed. Foods portrayed during Saturday morning television programmes and commercials and in children's magazines were categorized as normal ‘food use’ (97.1% and 86.0%, respectively). Foods on television (91.3%) and in magazines (77.4%) were portrayed in a positive context. Foods were more often portrayed neutrally in magazines (206%) than on television (64%). The number of fruits and vegetables mentioned or shown on television did not statistically differ from the number of breads or cereals (P ≥ 0–05). In contrast, when combined as one group. fruits and vegetables that were included in magazines appeared more often than bread or cereals (P ≤ 0.05). Eighty per cent of all foods mentioned/shown on Saturday morning television were part of commercials, whereas only 12% of all foods in magazines were located in advertisements. Results indicate that opportunities exist in print and electronic media to convey positive nutritional messages about foods to children.     

Gender Role Portrayals in Japanese Advertising: A Magazine Content Analysis

Abstract

The authors report a content analysis that assessed gender role portrayals in advertisements from highest circulation Japanese magazines. They found that, although some indigenous gender stereotyping was evident, several traits previously associated with Japanese women (devoted, obliging, rattle-brained, superstitious, thorough) were associated with men. Also, men were not linked with certain stereotypical male traits (autocratic, blustery, forgiving, generous, severe). Other findings included women being shown in a positive way as often as men. In terms of common international stereotypes, women were not associated with low priced products or portrayed as being more deferential than men. However, women still were portrayed as more concerned with appearance and as younger than men, were not depicted as product authorities, and were shown more often in sexist than in nonsexist depictions.     

The Impact of the Great Recession on Financial Services Advertising: An Exploratory Study

We explore how advertising managers of financial services organizations have responded to the repercussions of the Great Recession in their advertising strategies. To this end, we compare print ads for financial services that appeared in six magazines at two periods in time: 2005, prior to the Great Recession and 2010, after the end of the Great Recession. We content analyzed 755 prints ads and found major differences in the advertising strategies from prerecession to postrecession, particularly in the type of appeals. We further examined these strategic shifts by audience focus (business-to-business and business-to-consumer) and gender focus (male, female, or both).     

Negotiating Masculinities: Advertising and the Inversion of the Male Gaze

This paper seeks to underline the negotiated character of male identities by demonstrating the means by which lifestyle magazine advertising has caused men to gaze upon images of their own bodies and by outlining the implications of this inversion of the male gaze. The paper begins by delineating the unfinished nature of our bodies and their role in identity projects. It then charts the emergence of men's lifestyle magazines in the UK and their position in the representation of male bodies. Next, the paper outlines the traditional understanding of the male gaze and identifies how that gaze is being inverted by the advertising images contained in men's lifestyle magazines. The paper then explains how men can adopt multiple subject positions in their consumption of such advertising and what the implications of this are for the negotiation of male identities. Finally, conclusions are drawn and recommendations made for further research.     

The Prevalence of Sexual Imagery in Ads Targeted to Young Adults

To determine if advertisers use sexual imagery to appeal to youth, 2,863 ads in magazines read by young and mature adults were compared. Results indicate that ads targeted to young adults were 65% more likely to contain provocatively dressed models and 128% more likely to contain sexual behavior than those for mature adults. In the ads for young adults, female models were 3.7 times more likely to be portrayed sexually than were male models. The findings suggest that advertisers use sexual imagery, primarily by means of female models, to appeal to young audiences. Education and consumer action implications are discussed.     

Sexual Issues: The Analysis of Female Role Portrayal Preferences in Taiwanese Print Ads

For a long time, female endorsers in advertising have been doing product information promotion in the market. However, with more and more highly educated women participating in the labor force, the conception of feminist depictions in advertising have become a perplexing issue. The traditional female role portrayals or stereotypes of the past are not able to totally reflect the expectations, behavior, attitudes, and beliefs of contemporary women. The author collected print ads as data from three types of the highest circulation magazines: foreign women’s magazines (Chinese edition), domestic women’s magazines, and domestic management magazines subscribed to in Taiwan to investigate what were the favorite feminine patterns and feminist depictions in a traditionally masculine society. The results showed classical beauty and girl-next-door images were “acceptable” gender-role behavior exposed highly in domestic magazines, which might contribute to conservative Confucian beliefs. On the other hand, being trendy was a significantly high preference for contemporary feminist depictions in foreign women's magazines; it might be considered as being due to the increased educational level of women and female labor participation rate in the work place as well as upgrading of social status.     

健康信息获取渠道对城市老年人健康信息素养的影响 ——基于我国西部地区三省市的问卷调查分析

基于2017年中国西部三个省市的812份老年人调查数据,利用列联表交叉分析和回归分析方法,探讨健康信息获取渠道对西部地区城市老年人健康信息素养的影响。研究发现:与媒介传播渠道相比,通过人际传播渠道获取健康信息的城市老年人健康信息素养水平普遍要低;通过杂志图书和电视获取健康信息对城市老年人健康信息素养产生正向影响作用;通过杂志图书和电视获取健康信息、受教育水平高、汉族、自评经济状况好、具有慢性病患病经历、主动获取健康知识的城市老年人更有可能具备充足的健康信息素养。     

Effects of sex and attitudes toward women on the processing of television commercials

This study examined the effects of sex and attitudes toward women on different cognitive measures that were obtained after ‘liberal’ and ‘nonliberal’ male and female subjects viewed 12 television commercials: 6 commercials depicted ‘traditional’ female roles and 6 were ‘neutral.’ The dependent variables included (1) ratings of the commercials, (2) objections to the commercials, (3) perceived content or interpretation of the commercials, and (4) willingness to buy. The results suggested that liberals had more objections to the stereotypic commercials and that they rated and interpreted some of them more negatively when compared with nonliberals. Liberals were also less willing to buy some of the products after viewing traditional commercials. The findings were discussed with reference to Bem's (1981) gender schema theory.     

Adjustments in performance measures: Distributive and procedural justice effects on outcome satisfaction

Adjustments for task difficulty occur regularly in performance evaluations, but their effects on satisfaction with the evaluation process has not been studied. This article reports an experiment examining the procedural and distributive justice effects of making adjustments for task difficulty in performance evaluation. Participants examined territory difficulty and sales‐volume data for a set of salespeople and rated a focal salesperson's performance. Subjects also rated their satisfaction with their performance rating and the fairness of the process. Results show that adjusting for territory (task) difficulty influences satisfaction through an intrapersonal referent effect and through procedural fairness judgments. Results also show that an intrapersonal referent effect occurs even when social‐comparison information is available; the two referents appear to have additive rather than interactive effects. Consistent with the work of van den Bos, Lind, Vermunt, and Wilkie (1997), the procedural justice effect of adjusting for territory difficulty occurs only in the absence of social‐comparison information. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Attitudes Toward Advertising by Veterinarians

Abstract

Using survey data on 382 participants, we refined and validated the Attitudes Toward Advertising by Veterinarians Scales (ATAVS) with exploratory factor analysis. To measure the participants' attitudes toward veterinarian advertising, we derived factor scores from 11 items on the survey. These scores were divided into high, median, and low ATAVS scores groups. People with high ATAVS scores tended to have a more positive image of veterinarians, were more likely to use the services of a veterinarian when needed, and were more approving of veterinarians using television, radio, newspaper, billboard, direct mail, professional magazines, and popular magazines to advertise than those with median or low ATAVS scores. In general, veterinarians enjoy a positive image among the surveyed consumers, who equally disapproved of the idea of veterinarian advertising through telemarketing.     

The Information Content of Magazine Advertising in Market and Transition Economies

This study examines differences in the information content of magazine advertisements across market and transition economies in Europe. Content analyses are performed on 396 advertisements that appeared in women's magazines in the Russian Federation, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. Results of statistical analyses reveal marked differences between economies with respect to the information content of advertisements. Compared to market economies, advertisements in transition economies contain significantly more product-related information, and focus less on consumers' life style. In addition, they contain more prize winning contests and their glossy magazines contain more availability information. The study also explores reasons for these differences and discusses their implications.     

Effects of foreign product names and country-of-origin attributions on advertisement evaluations

In an effort to correct methodological problems with previous research on effects of country-of-origin attributions, two experiments examined college students' reactions to brief oral or written ads for products with English, French, German, or Spanish names. Subjects rated how much they liked the ad and liked the product name and rated their likelihood of purchasing the product. Results showed that, overall, English names were generally favored over the foreign names. This finding, however, varied tremendously with the product; for several products one or more of the foreign names was preferred. Country of origin also frequently interacted with either sex or modality of the ad. In general, written ads were preferred over oral ones. Results were interpreted as arguing for great care and caution in interpreting country-of-origin effects. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

A Comparison of Print Advertisements from the United States and France

Abstract

This study extends the research on cross-cultural advertising by comparing print advertisements from the United States and France in terms of emotional appeals, information content, and use of humor and sex. A content analysis of advertisements from two types of magazines from the United States and France revealed that French advertisements make greater use of emotional appeals, humor, and sex appeals. Advertisements from the United States were found to contain more information cues.     

Differences in ethical perceptions between male and female managers: Myth or reality?

This study sought to identify whether or not differences exist between the ethical decisions of male and female managers; and, if they do exist, to identify the areas in which differences occurred. An additional evaluation was conducted to determine how each perceived their counterpart would respond to the same ethical decision making situations.Data were collected from 50 male managers and 50 female managers by means of a self-administered questionnaire. Distinctive demographic characteristics were noted among the segments.The results showed only one area where a significant difference existed between males and females on what they considered to be ethical. However, there were significant differences in 16 out of 17 situations when they rated the ethical behavior of their male/female counterparts, i.e., males rated females as being significantly less ethical than themselves and vice versa.Jeaneen M. Kidwell is Corporate Sales Trainer of Avon Products, Inc. Robert E. Stevens is Professor of Marketing at Northeast Louisiana University. He is the author of five books and over thirty articles have appeared in Journal of Purchasing, Journal of Retailing, Business Horizons, and Supervising Management. Art L. Bethke is Associate Professor of Management at Northeast Louisiana University. He has been awarded Senior Professional in Human Resources 1982 and 1985. His articles have been published in Supervisory Management, Personnel Administrator, and Review of Business and Economic Research.     

A Hong Kong view of offensive advertising

Considerable research has been conducted on offensive advertising in Western countries. However, not much is known about consumers' views of offensive advertising in an Asian context. This research, which was conducted in Hong Kong, aimed at identifying what product/service advertisements consumers find offensive, what executional styles consumers find offensive, consumers' tolerance of offensive advertisements in different media and the effects of offensive advertisements on consumers' purchase intentions. The results from a survey of 200 consumers showed that chat-line services and funeral services were considered the most offensive products or services to be advertised. When looking at the manner of advertising, sexist themes, indecent language and nudity were found to be the major reasons for the respondents finding advertisements offensive. In general, direct mail was considered to be a medium that prompts lower tolerance by consumers to potentially offensive advertisements while men and women's magazines were considered to be media that prompt higher tolerance to potentially offensive advertisements. Finally, it was found that levels of advertising offensiveness had an effect on purchase intentions.     

Book Reviews

This study applies data envelopment analysis to evaluate the financial efficiency of a sample of 63 top US pharmaceutical advertisers, based on their sales and media advertising expenditures in 11 key media outlets (i.e. network TV, cable TV, syndicated TV, spot TV, magazines, Sunday magazines, national newspapers, newspapers, network radio, national spot radio, and outdoor). The analyses reveal that, on average, 35% of a pharmaceutical advertising budget is wasted, the largest portion of which is on network TV. In addition, the results of tobit regression indicate that magazines and Sunday magazines significantly contribute to the advertising inefficiency.     

The fashion engagement grid: understanding men's responses to fashion advertising

This study examines how men who are interested in fashion interpret fashion advertisements. Data are garnered from interviews with adult men who regularly read fashion magazines and buy fashion clothing. Findings reveal that men process fashion advertisements through the same five modes as women. The current study also demonstrates that men's responses to fashion advertisements can be categorized through the Fashion Engagement Grid which examines men's characterizations of and motivations for fashion behavior. This study expands theoretical understandings of gender in advertising research and recommends advertising elements to attract male consumers.     

Skin Tones in Magazine Advertising

Abstract

Although African Americans enjoy greater quantitative representation in American advertising than ever before, it is questionable if this representation is a true picture of African Americans. Because of the “what is beautiful is good” syndrome in advertising, advertisers have been criticized by some groups for using models who may present body images and facial features considered too idealistic. These unrealistic portrayals of attractiveness and beauty “likely reflect involuntary responses to subconscious cultural constraints” (Strutton and Lumpkin, 1993, p. 509). Thus a “myth of beauty” that generally favors Eurocentric features such as light-colored skin, narrow noses and thin lips is perpetuated. The exception to this rule, however, may be found in the use of Black athletes as spokespersons and models. To determine if there is a difference in the skin tones of models used in sports magazines and fashion magazines, this study is a content analysis of the models used in Sports Illustrated and Vogue. The results indicate that there were significant differences in the skin tones of the models used in these magazines.     

Viewers' processing of Actor's race and message claims in advertising stimuli

This study examines the impact of white and black actors' race and viewers' racial attitudes on advertisement evaluation, A total of 160 white and 140 black participants rated an advertisement featuring a white or black actor promoting a portable word processor or a liquid laundry detergent. An assessment of racial attitudes (i.e., whites' racial prejudice and blacks' identification with black culture) followed product, advertisement, and actor ratings. The findings indicated that, when the black actor promoted the relatively inexpensive liquid detergent, viewers with stronger racial attitudes were more likely to employ racially focused heuristics than viewers with weaker racial attitudes. The data did not support the notion that viewers with less defined racial attitudes would be more likely to consider the message claims than viewers with firmly established racial attitudes. These findings provided partial support for the heuristic versus systematic processing distinction.