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.     

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.     

Marketing images of gender: A visual analysis

An interpretive method drawing from social psychology, feminist theory and art criticism is developed to analyze contemporary images of gender. Utilizing and expanding upon visual research techniques, a selection of ads from contemporary fashion magazines and catalogs was assembled to illustrate particular themes suggested by research on the representation of gender in advertising. The body‐and what it expresses‐is a site of central concern, and discussion focuses on how female and male bodies are represented in advertising. The conventions of art history, when framed within a social science perspective, offer unique contributions to the study of advertising and gender, well suited for researchers interested in the culture of consumption.     

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.     

The Role of Commodified Celebrities in Children’s Moral Development: The Case of David Beckham

This paper presents an existentialist interpretation of the identity constituting meanings that middle‐class men and women ascribe to their bodies and their related motivations to engage in consumption activities that seek to transform their embodied selves. We begin by describing the relevance of the existential conceptualization of the embodied self to the postmodern condition of consumer culture. We apply this existential perspective to discern three dialectically structured themes drawn from phenomenological interviews with men and women across a broad age range. One emergent and unexpected finding is the extent to which these men and women expressed a constellation of common body image anxieties, thematic meanings, and self‐critical, objectifying interpretations of their bodies. Based on these findings and historical considerations, we propose that men's embodied selves are, like women's, fully inscribed in the patriarchal discourses that circulate throughout postmodern consumer culture. However, men occupy a distinct social space and, accordingly, we argue that their embodied selves are uniquely situated in a cultural model of hegemonic masculinity. We conclude that the postmodern ideal of the plastic, transformable body has become a resonant cultural metaphor through which middle‐class consumers enact their identity projects of creating a desired embodied self.     

Consumer Responses to Sexual Magazine Covers on a Men's Magazine

SUMMARY

Competing men's magazines often use sexually attractive cover models to enhance circulation. This investigation tested the efficacy of sexual cover models on consumer outcome variables including magazine interest and purchase intention, as well as on psychological variables such as sexual arousal and social comparison. Overall, magazine interest-value and purchase intention were significantly higher in the sexual condition, as were sexual arousal and tendency for upward social comparison. Discussions on sexual information processing and implications for management and future research are offered.     

Custom Publishing

Abstract

The field of “custom communications” is a growing multi-billion dollar market. Custom publishing of magazines and books is a significant segment of the pie, proving the continuing value of print for creating stronger bonds with customers. This article describes a variety of applications for custom publishing in marketing products and services, with important implications for the promotional products industry. The author, who has ghost-written a book for a small advertising agency, focuses on the high potential for specialized magazines and well-written books that target an audience accurately. Included is cogent advice to promotional products professionals on how to go about creating an effective custom publication.     

Gender portrayals revisited: searching for explicit and implicit stereotypes in Cypriot magazine advertisements

The study pursues a line of inquiry into contemporary gender stereotypes drawn from print advertisements in Cyprus. The investigation of implicit modes of stereotyping suggested by Goffman across explicit gender roles yield novel and interesting insights that broaden existing knowledge on male and female advertising depictions. Through a content analysis of 3.729 characters, the study reveals the existence of gender clichés in Cypriot magazine advertisements. Neither male nor female evolving roles are adequately reflected in advertisements, as men tend to be portrayed in traditional masculine stereotypes while women lean towards decorative portrayals. Implicit stereotyping is more likely to suggest the subordination and lower status of women compared to men. The study indicates that advertising in Cyprus reinforces the diffusion of hostile sexism by the underrepresentation of professional women and their commonplace portrayal in body revealing attires. At the same time, the high proportion of women's implicit subordination signifies benevolent sexism. The distorted representation of both genders raises key public policy concerns, as diminishing portrayals hold sway upon men's and women's psychological well-being and professional development.     

Intrafamilial Homogeneity for Perceived Risk and Opinion Leadership

In recent years, attention has been focused on examining the implications of changing women's roles for advertising strategy. The study reported in this paper compares magazine readership habits of two small matched samples of working and non-working wives in the U.S. and France. No major differences emerge in the frequency and type of magazines read by working and non-working wives in either country. Thus emphasis on magazines as the major advertising vehicle does not necessarily imply a lopsided emphasis on non-working wives, as might have been expected, due to potentially greater time pressures as a working wife.     

Marketing hedonics: Toward a psychoanalysis of advertising response

The author advances a psychoanalytic theory of advertising response to theorize the intersection of brand positioning, the semiotics of gender, and consumer desire in advertising discourse. Researchers traditionally focus on the iconic representation of desire in advertising imagery. However, by drawing upon Lacan's theory of scopophelia, the author focuses on the dialectical implication of the spectator/consumer's psychic drives in the visual semiotics of advertising discourse. The consumer identifies with the brand discourse primarily by means of projective identification with the voyeuristic gaze of the camera referenced in the image, and only secondarily because of perceived parallels between consumer lifestyle and the content of the advertisement. By way of illustration, the author analyzes the positioning of consumer desire in homoerotic advertising for Calvin Klein and Dolce & Gabbana, which draws upon resistance discourses in contemporary art to hold the consumer in a passion play of alternative sexualities and subject positions. Though these campaigns deconstruct the conventional binary opposition of male voyeur/female object of the gaze, they have contributed to the broad popularity of these brands because the brand discourse – logo, product placement, and rhetoric – restores a conventional logic to these advertisements that would have been censored from the worlds of popular culture and fine art.     

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.     

Advertising in the Large-Four Institutional Views

Broad assumptions about how advertising does-and should-function in society influence the thinking and actions of critics and supporters alike. Carey, Norris, Potter, and Sandage have analyzed advertising as an institution in American society. Here their “macro” perspectives are first described and then analyzed for their implications. Carey sees advertising linked with “market information,” and Norris with producers' quest for market power. Potter is wary of advertising's social control in an abundant society, while Sandage views advertising as serving the best interests of citizen and society. Their reasoning-and implications-are intriguing.     

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.     

Seeing the market: performative sensemaking and the case of advertising agencies and their clients

ABSTRACT

How do market intermediaries help other market actors see the market and their opportunities for action within it? This article introduces a theoretical framework of performative sensemaking to explore this question using the case of advertising agencies and their clients. Drawing on 12 months of participant observation and 81 interviews conducted across four general market American advertising agencies, the article illustrates how advertising practitioners provide their clients with visions of what the market is and what opportunities for action lie within it, developing advertising campaigns to match that vision. These performed accounts of the market are dynamically negotiated and socially embedded, reflecting the identities of the clients, their target audiences, and the intermediaries themselves. Because intermediaries dramaturgically perform these interpretations of the market for their client in micro-level interactions, they must also deal with contestation and negotiation over their visions of the market.     

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.     

Phenomenology of Aesthetic Organising--Ways Towards Aesthetically Responsive Organizations

Through explication of a visual research method, this paper theorizes how masculine identity interacts with consumption—of imagery, products, desires, and passions in advertising and consumer culture. We analyze the male body as a discursive “effect” created at the intersection of consumption and several marketing discourses such as advertising, market segmentation, and visual communication, balancing between brand strategy—what the marketer intends—and brand community—the free appropriation of meaning by the market. The paper’s contribution rests in extending previous work on male representation into historical, ontological, and photographic realms, providing a necessary complement between understanding advertising meaning as residing within managerial strategy or wholly subsumed by consumer response. We argue that greater awareness of the connections between the traditions and conventions of visual culture and their impact on the production and consumption of advertising images leads to enhanced ability to understand how advertising works as a representational system and signifying practice.     

Influences of motivations and lifestyles on intentions to use smartphone applications

Mobile advertising, influenced by the current growth in smartphone applications, creates new opportunities for the advertising industry. This study identified motivations for the use of smartphone applications as well as lifestyle clusters of users and examined their influences on the relationships between perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, attitude and intentions to use. This research used a face-to-face survey and empirical analyses to investigate key questions about how and why consumers use smartphone applications, illustrating the imperative roles that motivations and lifestyle clusters play in an important advertising context. This study represents a step toward clarifying how different lifestyle clusters influence different relationships between motivations, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, attitude and intentions to use applications as advertising media, offering implications for advertising academics and practitioners.     

Risky behaviours of males and females in a Spanish suburban community

Health is determined by an accumulative process, so a perspective on life cycle is crucial in any health prevention programme. As a consequence of this accumulative dimension, lifestyles are a key determinant of the state of health of older people. The main contribution of this paper is to explain gender differences in lifestyle and the implications of lifestyle in men's and women's states of health. We have implemented our empirical analysis into Spanish society through the use of a self‐elaborated survey. From this survey, we have drawn a subsample of 938 people older than 14 years old who live in the Spanish neighbourhood of Casablanca, Zaragoza (452 men and 486 women). We conclude that men tend to consume more substances that may negatively affect their state of health (alcoholic beverages, tobacco products and coffee), and they are also less careful in keeping an adequate weight and dental hygiene. On the other hand, women tend to be more sedentary. These results are decisive for policy makers that strive to improve the citizens’ state of health, because it is not only important to improve the quality and extension of healthy goods and services, but also to promote healthy lifestyles.     

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.     

Perceptions of Offensive Advertising Elements: A China–U.S. Comparison

ABSTRACT

As China continues to rapidly expand and further open itself to market forces, the People's Republic arouses significant interest as a new mega-market. Consequently, the influx of new business opportunities and advertising has resulted in Chinese consumers increasingly exposed to potentially offensive advertising. While some products and images may seem acceptable when advertised in the West, there are some that may offend Chinese cultural sensitivities. The purpose of this study is to better understand similarities and differences that exist between American and Chinese perceptions surrounding offensive advertising. The results highlight a number of statistical cultural differences that have business implications for international marketers.