Trends in disposable income among teenage boys and girls in Finland from 1977 to 2003

This article explores changes in the money Finnish young people aged 12–18 years have at their disposal, over a 26‐year period 1977–2003. Previous studies suggest that the amount of money young people have is not necessarily dependent on traditional socio‐economic variables, but there are no systematic studies on the development of the disposable income of the teenagers. The analyses of this study are based on a series of 14 biannual nationally representative surveys of 12‐, 14‐, 16‐ and 18‐year‐olds in Finland from 1977 to 2003, with a total of 84 404 respondents. Time‐trends are shown and analysed by gender, family structure, place of residence and socio‐economic status of family using analysis of variance and linear regression modelling. The results show that teenagers’ disposable money has increased little between 1977 and 2003 in comparison with the general income development. Economic booms and depressions can be seen in rising and falling amounts of disposal money, particularly among 16‐ to 18‐year‐old respondents. There were also significant differences between the genders. Young boys clearly had more money at their disposal than young girls. Children of single parents had more money than their peers from nuclear families. Urban youth had more money than those living in the countryside and the difference increased during the period under examination. The socio‐economic position of the family had little impact.     

Consumers’ everyday food choice strategies in Finland

In developed countries, choosing and purchasing food is today perhaps more complex than ever. In recent years, European consumers have experienced several food crises. We face a rapidly expanding range of novel food products, the food chain has become longer, and the origin of food more anonymous. At the same time, consumers confront increasing amounts of information on food every day. Consumers build their conceptions of modern food‐related risks on the basis of their everyday knowledge and coping strategies. Hence, the focus of this paper is on consumers’ food choices and everyday practices in relation to food safety and quality as well as food‐related risks. The paper is based on a Finnish study 1 examining consumers’ food choices. The data for the study were collected in September 2004 using an Internet‐based food diary accompanied by open‐ended questions on food‐related views and strategies. Altogether, 92 consumers completed the diary. The method combining the tradition of dietary intake and food consumption surveys with open‐ended questions was developed in order to gain an insight both on the types of foods purchased and on consumers’ conceptions of food‐related issues. In this paper, we focus on the key findings of the study as regards to consumers’ notions on food quality and safety issues and the practices they use in their everyday lives. We found eight everyday strategies consumers use. We suggest, first, that the strategies are important in simplifying food choice and making daily life easier, and second, that consumers use food‐related information flexibly in creating these strategies.     

Taste and nutrition: the uses and effectiveness of different advertising claims in women's magazine food advertisements

A multi-method study was conducted to examine different advertising claims in current food advertising and to determine the effectiveness of different advertising claims on females’ evaluative judgments of food advertisements. Content analysis results of 678 women's magazine food ads indicated functional food ads appeared to adopt nutrition appeals without taste claims and a combined use of nutrition appeals and taste claims, whereas hedonic food ads tended to use taste claims without nutrition appeals. Nevertheless, these food advertising practices were called into question by the results of two experiments, showing the combined use of nutrition appeals and taste claims was the most effective strategy for both hedonic and functional foods. However, for hedonic foods, advertisers need to include more congruent than extremely incongruent claims. Implications for food advertisers and policy-makers were discussed.     

Contextual priming of visual information in advertisements

Can the program context significantly influence the perception of an ad? Past advertising research has demonstrated contextual priming effects on the verbal part of an ad. Using public service and clothing advertisements, the present two experiments provide evidence for priming effects on visual components. Moreover, in extensive debriefing sessions, participants reported that they were not consciously aware of the influence of the contextual prime-suggesting the presence of implicit memory effects. Future research should focus on advertisements containing both verbal and visual information to better understand context influences on advertisements. 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

The effect of concentration and market power on food prices: evidence from Finland

This research examines empirically the relationship between economies of scale, concentration, and market power in food retailing. With unique, local market data available Finland, the analysis could investigate the impact of both local concentration and industry-wide concentration (which can be interpreted as multimarket contact) are taken into account in the evaluation of grocery retail competitiveness. The results show that the main factor affecting market power is the size of the retail firm. Larger share grocery retailers, for both the local and the national markets, carried higher mark-ups. At the same time, no firm-level scale economies were found from these larger firms. I conclude from these findings that the main purpose of large grocery retail mergers is to gain market power not efficiency.     

Combating deceptive advertisements and labelling on food products – an exploratory study on the perceptions of teachers

People are becoming more health conscious nowadays, but most of them are not able to adopt a lifestyle with adequate physical exercise and a healthier eating pattern. Many attempt to compensate by taking ‘health foods’. Despite the recent economic recession, the functional food market is expanding rapidly in Asian countries. Recent statistics indicate a huge increase in weight loss and functional food product advertising expenditure in Hong Kong and other Asian countries. In a large scale survey conducted by the Hong Kong Consumer Council on advertisements, it was found that 85% of the medicines, health food and therapies sampled contain questionable claims and misleading messages, which was the second most problematic category of the survey. In addition, young people do not understand much about modern food processing, in particular with regard to low energy and functional foods, and they know very little about modern food marketing strategies. The situation is potentially detrimental to consumer welfare, especially to the younger generation. This study was conducted to reflect critically on implications of the issue on the health and well‐being of young people in Hong Kong. Attempts are made to explore directions for designing relevant and effective education programmes to empower young people's abilities in understanding food advertising strategies and making informed decisions on food choice. This paper begins with a critical review of the current situation with regard to Hong Kong. Then, the results of an interview survey and a questionnaire survey on pre‐service and in‐service teachers’ perception towards misleading food advertising and labelling are reported. The situations at schools are defined and problems faced by teachers in providing relevant consumer education programmes to students are identified. Finally, some prospective foci for further investigation of this important issue, with a view to developing students’ critical skills in evaluating claims offered in food advertisements, will be considered.     

Combating deceptive advertisements and labelling on food products – an exploratory study on the perceptions of teachers

People are becoming more health conscious nowadays, but most of them are not able to adopt a lifestyle with adequate physical exercise and a healthier eating pattern. Many attempt to compensate by taking ‘health foods’. Despite the recent economic recession, the functional food market expands rapidly in Asian countries. Recent statistics indicate a huge increase in weight loss and functional food product advertising expenditure in Hong Kong and other Asian countries. In a massive survey conducted by the Hong Kong Consumer Council, it was found that 85% of the medicines, health food and therapies sampled contain questionable claims and misleading messages (Consumer Council, 1999). In fact, young people do not understand much about modern food processing, in particular those present in low energy and functional foods, and they know very little about the modern food marketing strategies. The situation is detrimental to consumer welfare especially to the younger generation. This study attempts to reflect critically on the implications of these issues for the health and well‐being of young people in Hong Kong. It explores directions for designing relevant and effective education programmes to empower young people in understanding food advertising strategies and making informed decisions on food choice. The paper will begin with a critical review on the current situation in Hong Kong. An interview survey on preservice and in‐service teachers’ perception towards misleading food advertising and labelling will then be reported. The situations at schools will be defined and problems faced by teachers in providing relevant consumer education programmes to students will be identified. Finally, the study will look to the future, with a view to developing students’ critical skills in evaluating claims offered in food advertisements.     

电视广告中男性形象建构分析

男色在审美多元化的时代只要善加利用，就能转化为无限商机。[1]于是，越来越多的男性开始出现在电视广告中。这些形象的建构在贯穿广告主促进销售意图的同时，也极力为消费者带来一种审美的享受。本文试图总结电视广告中所建构的男性形象的类型，分析存在的问题并提出相应的应对措施。     

Cross-national standardisation of advertisements: a study of the effectiveness of TV advertisements targeted at Chinese Canadians in Canada

Within the UK, party election broadcasts (PEBs) and party political broadcasts (PPBs) continue to be the only means through which parties can communicate directly with the electorate through TV and radio – as such, they are an important part of the political communication process. In 2003 the Electoral Commission made strong recommendations for the continuation of PEBs rather than opt for paid-for ad spots. The Commission called on all interested parties to ensure future PEBs fulfilled their potential as a mechanism to engage the electorate. It is in this context that this paper presents the results of a content analysis of all 14 British PEBs aired during the 2001 British General Election by the three main political parties: Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat. We also compare our findings with previous research on the PEBs used in the 1992 and 1997 British General Elections. While similarities emerge in terms of demonstrating a dominance of issues over image, the tone of the PEBs indicates that advertising in the 2001 General Election was far less negative than in those of 1992 and 1997. In conclusion we offer some pertinent thoughts on why British political parties currently use their allotted PEB airtime in ways that do not necessarily exploit their electoral engagement potential, and how both audience viewing and engagement of the electorate might be enhanced with judicious use of PEBs in the future.     

A model of teenage labor supply

This paper develops a model of teenage labor supply and school participation which stresses the teenager's use of time in a family context. The family is viewed as imposing constraints on the teenager's allocation of time. The teenager maximizes his utility subject to these constraints which differ with his age, sex, and family type. Simultaneous equation estimation is used with market level (SMSA) data on teenage labor supply. Overall, we find well-behaved labor supply equations for teenage age, sex, and family-type groups. Moreover, different groups react differently to variables representing family-imposed constraints.     

文化环境生态失衡与虚假广告的产生

文化环境生态是社会环境生态的重要组成部分。虚假广告的产生和传播与其所处的文化环境生态有着紧密的联系。我国正处于社会发展的转型时期,文化环境生态也处于发展的过渡时期,呈现出不稳定、不平衡的特点。广告传播处于这种文化环境生态中,极容易失真、失实,演变成虚假广告,侵害社会公众利益,破坏社会生态系统的正常运行。     

Applying evolutionary psychology in understanding the representation of women in advertisements

One of the most ubiquitous creative copy decisions in advertising is to use young attractive women in decorative roles. Contrary to the mantra chanted by some staunch feminists, advertisers are not involved in a patriarchal white‐male‐dominated conspiracy to derogate, exploit, subjugate, and dominate women. Advertisers are concerned with providing messages that are maximally effective to their relevant target audience. Accordingly, they are well aware that in certain situations the use of decorative female models will appeal to a particular group of their constituency. Using evolutionary psychology as the explicative framework, it is argued that the greater use of young and attractive women in decorative roles in advertising is steeped in the differential mating strategies of the two sexes. An analysis of several content‐analytic studies demonstrates that the more frequent use of women as young and attractive decorative models is longitudinally stable and culturally invariant further attesting to the Darwinian roots of this phenomenon. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

中国报纸广告西方化程度研究

The purpose of this study is, by means of studying the changes in Chinese advertisements’ contents and forms over a decade, to evaluate the advertising westernization in China and to provide suggestions for Chinese companies in selecting proper advertising strategies. If relatively typical Western cultural characteristics are presented in Chinese advertisements, it indicates that the cultural distance between East and West is reduced, and standardization strategies may be a better choice for foreign enterprises. Otherwise, they should adopt specialization or combined strategies.      

Signaling trust in print advertisements: An empirical investigation

Trust is a key component of many successful businesses, and while there are many factors in advertising that can aid in establishing trust, this paper focuses on business tenure and local ownership as potential cues of trustworthiness. Additionally we consider industry type as a potential moderating variable. Two studies were conducted. Study 1 examined the use of the statement ‘locally owned and operated’ while Study 2 looked at the length of time in business. Dependent variables were trustworthiness, brand attitude and purchase intent. Ads were created promoting consumer services from both high-trust and low-trust industries. Study 1 found the claim ‘locally owned and operated’ has no impact on attitudes and intentions as compared to relevant control. Study 2, however, shows that length of time in business accounts for differences in consumers' perception of the company and subsequent purchase intent. Consumers use trust as the foundation for making purchase decisions through the reduction of uncertainty. We examine several possible candidates for how businesses might signal trustworthiness. This paper attempts to answer this question by taking two very prevalent phrases in advertising and testing their ability to encourage a higher level of trust in the advertised service and purchase intent among consumers.     

性别、道德观念在性诉求广告评价中的影响

性诉求是广告中重要的诉求手段之一,对性诉求广告的评价受到广告受众的性别和道德观念的影响。使用含蓄性诉求广告和明显性诉求广告为刺激,发现不同性别的消费者对两个广告的态度没有显著差异,但不同道德观类型的消费者对两者的评价有显著的差异。     

Exploring attractive messages in group package tour newspaper advertisements

The group package tour (GPT) is one of the main modes of outbound travel in many Asian countries and areas. In practice, most of the travel agencies utilise the newspaper to promote their GPTs. Although prior newspaper travel advertisements provided useful information, only single or a number of advertising messages were considered. In order to fill this gap, the primary objective of this study was to find out what types of message are attractive to the customers in the GPT advertisement from a holistic perspective. Both qualitative and quantitative methods, with 400 usable samples, were conducted for data analysis. Attractive messages for three different destinations (China, Japan and Thailand) with six clusters were profiled at component level. The findings reveal that messages of appeal, text, size and format design represent over 78% of the total percentage. Further implications for designing attractive messages in terms of a destination or cluster perspective are discussed.     

Business Ethics in Finland:

Dramatic economic developments have served to highlight ethical questions and responses within business life in Finland, particularly regarding the crisis of the Finnish banking system. Other issues which have aroused public discussion are maintaining the natural biodiversity in the Northern hemisphere forests, and Finland's trade with Russia. The authors, listed alphabetically, are all research fellows at the School of Business Administration in the University of Tampere, PO Box 607, 33101 Tampere,Finland.     

Consumers’ responses to price presentation formats in rebate advertisements

Although rebates offer an important and popular promotion tool in retailing, little research has investigated whether their presentation format can influence consumers’ evaluations of and purchase intentions toward products featured in rebate ads. Retailers generally use two different rebate ad formats: one that transparently shows both before- and after-rebate prices and the other that displays the after-rebate price in relatively large print and the before-rebate price in small print. Three experimental studies attempt to determine which format is more effective for eliciting favorable consumers’ responses, and the results show that the format emphasizing only after-rebate prices generally leads to lower purchase intentions because of the negative affect it elicits. Furthermore, the effect of a rebate presentation format is moderated by the rebate amount, consumers’ price knowledge, and rebate processing time. The results show that consumers’ responses to different rebate presentation formats entail both emotional responses and rational evaluations.