Symbols or icons in gay-themed ads: How to target gay audience

This study examines the characteristics of gay-themed ads, focusing on culturally meaningful symbols or iconographies, in gay magazines (specifically Out and Curve). In recent years, advertising scholars and practitioners have grown more interested in how gay-themed ads influence gay consumers and nongay consumers. In gay-themed ads, advertisers employ culturally meaningful symbols or iconographies as part of an effort to not alienate nongay consumers. Gay-themed advertising, however, has yet to be deeply analyzed in terms of creativity or consumer reactions. We go on to clarify the findings' implications, discuss some concerns raised over gay-themed ads, and suggest directions for future research.     

Female images in advertising: the implications of social comparison for marketing

Does advertising create insecurities and dissatisfaction with the self? This exploratory study investigated how British women consumers, aged 24–50, responded to a range of ideal images presented in fashion magazines. Congruent with previous research, British women compared themselves with idealised advertising images. However, consumers actively and selectively interpreted the meanings of idealised images represented in advertising stimuli. Although some women raised their standards of comparisons and lowered their own self-assessments after viewing the ideal images, there was also evidence that women employed a variety of strategies when consuming the idealised images portrayed in fashion advertising, depending on the goal of the social comparison process. These strategies are interpreted in the context of social comparison theory, and the implications for integrated marketing communication strategies are discussed.     

Political issues in advertising polysemy: the case of gay window advertising

This study draws on minority consumers’ interpretations of purposefully polysemic commercials to explore political issues in the consumption of advertising, and highlights the sociopolitical role of niche-targeted advertising as a powerful cultural institution in informing and defining identities. The study focusses on how lesbian, gay male, and bisexual consumers make sense of gay-oriented, yet strategically polysemic, gay window commercials. Findings suggest that participants understood these messages through the lens of their unique subcultural sensitivity and in relation to their closeted experience and consciousness of marginalization. The political meanings of niche-targeted advertising are accentuated as these minority consumers negotiate the cultural tensions of their subcultural identity and their struggle between seeking subcultural validation and seeking mainstream assimilation.     

Consumer myths and the gay men and women who believe them: a qualitative look at movements and markets

Using focus group data from six different conversations in two U.S. cities, this study examines how advertising, corporate policies toward sexual minority employees, and sponsorship of events and charities central to the gay and lesbian community affect the perceived “gay‐friendly” status of brands and companies. This study also explores how gay and lesbian respondents understand their role as distinct consumers in relation to gay social movements. In contrast to cultural critiques that argue that constructions of gay consumer markets are antithetical to gay social movements, this study shows how actual gay and lesbian consumers not only understand this dialectic, but also use it as both self‐validation and as leverage in achieving social gains. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The impact of advertising on consumer price sensitivity in experience goods markets

In this paper we use Nielsen scanner panel data on four categories of consumer goods to examine how TV advertising and other marketing activities affect the demand curve facing a brand. Advertising can affect consumer demand in many different ways. Becker and Murphy (Quarterly Journal of Economics 108:941–964, 1993) have argued that the “presumptive case” should be that advertising works by raising marginal consumers’ willingness to pay for a brand. This has the effect of flattening the demand curve, thus increasing the equilibrium price elasticity of demand and the lowering the equilibrium price. Thus, “advertising is profitable not because it lowers the elasticity of demand for the advertised good, but because it raises the level of demand.” Our empirical results support this conjecture on how advertising shifts the demand curve for 17 of the 18 brands we examine. There have been many prior studies of how advertising affects two equilibrium quantities: the price elasticity of demand and/or the price level. Our work is differentiated from previous work primarily by our focus on how advertising shifts demand curves as a whole. As Becker and Murphy pointed out, a focus on equilibrium prices or elasticities alone can be quite misleading. Indeed, in many instances, the observation that advertising causes prices to fall and/or demand elasticities to increase, has misled authors into concluding that consumer “price sensitivity” must have increased, meaning the number of consumers’ willing to pay any particular price for a brand was reduced—perhaps because advertising makes consumers more aware of substitutes. But, in fact, a decrease in the equilibrium price is perfectly consistent with a scenario where advertising actually raises each individual consumer’s willingness to pay for a brand. Thus, we argue that to understand how advertising affects consumer price sensitivity one needs to estimate how it shifts the whole distribution of willingness to pay in the population. This means estimating how it shifts the shape of the demand curve as a whole, which in turn means estimating a complete demand system for all brands in a category—as we do here. We estimate demand systems for toothpaste, toothbrushes, detergent and ketchup. Across these categories, we find one important exception to conjecture that advertising should primarily increase the willingness to pay of marginal consumers. The exception is the case of Heinz ketchup. Heinz advertising has a greater positive effect on the WTP of infra-marginal consumers. This is not surprising, because Heinz advertising focuses on differentiating the brand on the “thickness” dimension. This is a horizontal dimension that may be highly valued by some consumers and not others. The consumers who most value this dimension have the highest WTP for Heinz, and, by focusing on this dimension; Heinz advertising raises the WTP of these infra-marginal consumers further. In such a case, advertising is profitable because it reduces the market share loss that the brand would suffer from any given price increase. In contrast, in the other categories we examine, advertising tends to focus more on vertical attributes.

Queer eye for a gay guy: Using market‐specific symbols in advertising to attract gay consumers without alienating the mainstream

Although advertisers have flooded gay and lesbian print media in recent years, it is estimated that more than half of the gay and lesbian population does not read gay media. Hence, this study addresses the question: How may marketers target gays and lesbians in mainstream media without alienating heterosexual consumers? As such, this study assesses responses of both heterosexual and homosexual consumers to advertising content that includes mainstream imagery, implicit gay and lesbian imagery, and explicit gay or lesbian imagery to provide advertisers with a better understanding of how to effectively crossover into mainstream media with gay‐targeted advertisements. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Consumer Responses to Homosexual Imagery in Advertising: A Meta-Analysis

Rising support for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community, paired with the considerable buying power of this group, has triggered increasing interest from marketers in the gay and lesbian market. Many companies have developed advertising with homosexual imagery to better target this group as well as the mainstream market. The findings on the persuasive effects of homosexual imagery are mixed and do not provide insights on whether and when homosexual imagery in advertising supports persuasion. To resolve the inconsistencies in findings of prior research, this article presents a meta-analysis on the effects of homosexual imagery. The integrated effect size suggests that the net persuasive effect between homosexual and heterosexual imagery does not differ. We find, however, that homosexual consumers show negative responses to heterosexual imagery. Furthermore, the moderator analysis suggests that incongruence between imagery, consumer characteristics, cultural values, explicitness of imagery, endorser gender, and product type results in unfavorable responses to homosexual advertising imagery. These findings provide guidelines for future research and implications for advertisers who intend to address consumers of various sexual orientations.     

Targeted advertising as a signal

This study presents a signaling model of advertising for horizontally differentiated products. The central ingredients of the model are two important characteristics of advertising—targeting, and noisy information content. The theory yields interesting results about the informational role of targeted advertising, and its consequences. First, targeting can itself serve as a signal on product attributes. Second, the effectiveness of targeting depends not only on firms knowing consumer preferences, but on consumers knowing that firms know this. This creates a distinction between strategies of targeting and personalization. Third, the effectiveness of targeting in equilibrium may (far) exceed the information contained directly in the targeted message. Fourth, information content is not, however, superfluous. Specifically, when ads contain no information, a targeting equilibrium does not exist. Together, these results reveal how advertising conveys information both through the content of the message and the firm’s choice of advertising medium. Furthermore, the model is robust to the various critiques of prior work on ads-as-signals: namely, that ad content is irrelevant, ad exposure is unnecessary, and the choice of ads as signals is inherently arbitrary.

Understanding gay consumers’ clothing involvement and fashion consciousness

This study’s primary objective was to provide a better understanding of gay consumers’ clothing involvement and fashion consciousness. Personal in‐depth interviews were conducted with 13 gay professionals in Canada. One hundred and forty‐five usable survey questionnaires were also collected from gay consumers. The Fashion Involvement Index Scale (FII scale) was adapted for this study. Interview participants indicated that, in general, gay men tend to be more fashion conscious than heterosexual men. Survey results also indicated two dimensions, fashion interest and fashion awareness that were found to be stronger for this group of gay consumers than for heterosexual men. The FII value for the survey participants also resulted in a sum score mean value of 11.2, a medium level of fashion involvement that is a slightly higher level than has been found for heterosexual consumers. Interestingly, this study does not provide strong evidence of gay consumers’ involvement in cutting‐edge fashion trends.     

Television ad-skipping,consumption complementarities and the consumer demand for advertising

Endogenous consumption of advertising is common. Consumers choose to change channels to avoid TV ads, click away from paid online video ads, or discard direct mail without reading advertised details. As technological advances give firms improved abilities to target individual consumers through various media, it is becoming increasingly important for models to reflect the endogenous nature of ad consumption and to consider the implications that ad choice has for firms’ targeting strategies. With this motivation, we develop an empirical model of consumer demand for advertising in which demand for ads is jointly determined with demand for the advertised products. Building on Becker and Murphy (The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 108(4), 941–964 1993)’s ideas, the model treats advertising as a good over which consumers have utility and obtains demands as the outcome of a joint utility maximization problem. Leveraging new data that links household-level TV ad-viewing with product purchases, we provide empirical evidence that is consistent with the model: ad-skipping is found to be lower when a household has purchased more of the advertised brand, and purchases are higher when more ads have been watched recently, suggesting that advertising and product consumption are jointly determined. Fitting a structural model of joint demand to the data, we evaluate consumer welfare and advertiser profitability in advertising targeting counterfactuals motivated by an “addressable” future of TV. We find that targeting on the predicted ad-skip probability is an attractive strategy, as it indirectly selects consumers that value the product. Reflecting the positive view of advertising in the model, we also find that net consumer welfare may increase in several targeting scenarios. This occurs because under improved targeting, firms shift advertising to those who are likely to value it. At the same time, consumers that do not value the ads end up skipping them, mitigating possible welfare losses. Both forces are relevant to assessing advertising effects in a world with improved targeting and ad-skipping technology.     

Negative Consequences of Storytelling in Native Advertising

Native advertising and storytelling are both increasingly popular advertising strategies. This research explores the effectiveness of storytelling in a native advertising context on social media. While most research recommends the use of stories as a way to build trust and relationships with consumers, the current research suggests that in the form of native ads on social media, narratives may be less effective when compared to informational native ads. Two studies find that even when advertising cues such as disclosure labels and brand presence are prominently located, consumers are less likely to recognize the advertising nature of narrative native ads when compared to informational native ads. Lower levels of advertising recognition are associated with increased perceptions of manipulative intentions by the advertiser, which has a negative influence on consumers' attitudes toward the ad. The findings suggest that native ads that clearly communicate their advertising nature through cues such as an informational execution, high brand presence, and prominent disclosure labeling are more effective than a narrative execution style.     

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.     

Culture,cognitive style and consumer response to informational vs. transformational advertising among East Asians: Evidence from the PRC

Existing literature suggests that people's cognitive styles vary significantly across nations and cultures, and that East Asians emphasize holistic information processing and are more receptive to transformational advertising than people in the West. Yet, both theoretical rationale and empirical evidence of the effect of cognitive style on consumers' advertising responses are lacking. This study proposes a congruency-activation model and adopts a three by two experimental design to examine Chinese consumers' attitude towards different advertisements. The results indicate that Chinese consumers prefer transformational and integrated ads to informational ads under both low and high involvement conditions. Protocol analysis shows that Chinese consumers engage in more affective processing than cognitive thoughts. Thus, marketers should consider the effect of the cognitive style of indigenous consumers when devising international advertising strategies.     

Marketing and advertising practices of Turkish entrepreneurs in transition economies: Evidence from Georgia

As a transition economy, Georgia has an uncertain, complex, and immature business environment, typical of transition economies in the Eurasian region. In an effort to provide insights into marketing and advertising practices in the Eurasian transition economies, this study empirically examines the marketing and advertising practices in Georgia through two surveys conducted with Turkish entrepreneurs in Georgia and Georgian consumers. On the one hand, the findings of the survey of the Turkish entrepreneurs indicated that an overall adaptation strategy is needed in Georgia; in addition, foreign entrepreneurs willing to enter the Georgian market are advised to offer a variety of products by collaborating with local distributors and agents. Although Georgian consumers do not have high income, low-price strategy does not always work as consumers equate low price with inferior quality. Marketing of prestigious products are to be sold at higher prices and appropriate product positioning strategies must be developed for each target market segment. Merchandising strategies must be congruent with the target market served as well as retail stores/outlets utilized. On the other hand, the Georgian consumers demand better customer service and increased variety of products; advertising is welcomed to a certain extent as long as advertising provides useful product/brand and company information.     

Optimal checkout strategies for online retailers

Growth in online retailing has driven retailers to focus on optimizing the consumers’ shopping journey. One of the most important aspects of online shopping is the checkout process offered by the retailer. This paper focuses on factors influencing retailers’ choice of providing either a flexible checkout or a restricted checkout option to consumers. We define a checkout strategy as flexible when consumers can purchase items in their shopping cart either as a guest or by logging into their account. In contrast, with a restricted checkout strategy, the consumers must log in to the account to make purchases. With a game-theoretic model and duopolistic framework, the current study identifies conditions in which online retailers might adopt symmetric strategies and those in which two ex-ante symmetric retailers might prefer asymmetric strategies. The analysis suggests that the relative proportion of privacy-conscious (PC) vs. convenience-conscious consumers (CC), additional utility due to account registration, reduction in transaction cost, and additional revenue due to targetability are the crucial determinants of the strategies adopted by online retailers.Specifically, we show that retailers adopt a restricted checkout strategy when additional revenues due to targeted advertising are relatively high. Retailers adopt a flexible checkout strategy when the proportion of CC consumers and additional revenues due to targeted advertising are relatively lower. Furthermore, an asymmetric equilibrium may also exist when the proportion of CC consumers is relatively high and additional revenues due to targeted advertising are in the intermediate range. Our modeling framework provides a consumer demand-based (rather than cost-based) justification as a plausible explanation for why we observe ex-ante identical retailers offering distinct checkout strategies.     

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.     

Disentangling the impact of temperature on consumers' attitudes toward nostalgic advertising

Although the effect of temperature on consumers is ubiquitous, little is known about how temperature affects consumers' attitudes toward nostalgic advertising. Drawing on embodied cognition theory, this study explores the effect of temperature on consumers' attitudes toward nostalgic advertising through the mediator of the affective system. Based on two experiments involving personal and historical nostalgic advertising, our results show that when exposed to comfortable temperature, consumers follow the “assimilative effect” of temperature; warm temperatures trigger more positive attitudes toward nostalgic advertising when compared with cool temperatures. However, when exposed to uncomfortable temperatures, consumers follow the “complementary effect” of temperatures; cold temperatures lead to more positive attitudes toward nostalgic advertising than hot temperatures. Furthermore, the affective system plays a mediating role between temperature and consumers' attitudes toward nostalgic advertising. This study contributes to the literature on temperature in marketing and provides a practical guide for companies to implement nostalgic advertising strategies.     

Idealized images of the male body in advertising: a reader‐response exploration

This study used an interpretative methodology for exploring men's reactions to the representation of male bodies in advertising, particularly when men are portrayed in a sexual or naked pose and complemented past studies by investigating whether or not men felt that they were being objectified or exploited in advertising in the same manner as critical and feminist literature has suggested in relation to women. The extent to which men felt that the representation of idealized male images in advertising had an adverse effect on their self‐image and self‐esteem is discussed. Emergent interpretive themes include homophobia, gender stereotyping and the legitimization of the exploitation and use of sexuality in marketing. The implication for brands is explored.     

Mass Media Advertising in a Developing Country

This paper examines mass media advertising in the developing country of Morocco, with a special reference to the relevance of standardized versus localized advertising strategies. The advertising infrastructure is described, highlighting strengths and weaknesses of local advertising agencies. Advertising budgets are discussed according to size and type of company, before presenting a detailed assessment of the advertising media. Five selected campaigns serve to illustrate current advertising practices and problems. The authors conclude that knowledge of the local environment and a willingness to address consumers in their own terms are essential for advertising effectiveness in Morocco, and recommend use of localized rather than standardized marketing strategies.