The Media and Their Advertisers: Exploring Ethical Dilemmas in Product Coverage Decisions

Marketers are increasingly relying on promotional practices (variously labeled as stealth marketing, hybrid messages, covert advertising) based on the diffusion of product information by third parties that appear to be independent of advertisers. In this paper, we examine to what extent the media treat their advertisers favorably, providing these advertisers’ products extra visibility in supposedly neutral editorial content. Empirically, we model the determinant of media coverage of Italian fashion products in an extended dataset of consumer magazines in Italy, France, Germany, UK, and the USA. Research findings show that advertising is an important determinant of product placements in editorial content, and this result is consistent across countries and publishers. Our results imply that resource-rich advertisers engaging in compensatory advertising (that is, advertising investments that compensate poor product quality) might bias media coverage in their favor. Consumers will consequently be exposed twice to favorable messages about those products, in both advertisements and media content, resulting in higher purchases and reduced consumer welfare.     

Thinking and feeling on the World Wide Web: the impact of product type and time on World Wide Web advertising effectiveness

This article focuses on the effectiveness of banner advertisements.Drawing from theory on functional versus expressive products and wear in versus wear out it argues that product type and time are important factors in World Wide Web (WWW) advertising. The results from a large empirical study are reported and show that responses to banner advertisements differ between functional and expressive products and over time. Functional product banner advertisements have higher initial click-throughs that quickly deteriorate and they have no effect through advertisement impressions. Expressive products need time to wear in as both click-through rates and positive brand attitudes from advertisement impressions increase with repeated exposures. These differences in consumer response are conceptualized as thinking and feeling on the WWW,thereby providing important implications for advertisers.     

Offensive Advertising

Abstract

Prior literature regarding offensive advertising relates mainly to western cultures. No work has been done on this area in an Asian context. The research in this article reports on a survey of Singaporean consumers. The survey aimed to identify what types of products and appeals consumers find offensive in advertising, the reasons why they find the advertisements offensive, and how this offensive advertising may affect their purchase intentions. The results found that advertisements relating to chat-line services and sexual diseases were the most offensive, followed by advertisements for dating services. Levels of offensiveness were clearly related to demographic variables such as gender and age. In terms of reasons for offensiveness, consumers were most concerned by advertisements that had a sexual connotation or evoked unnecessary fear.Levels of offensiveness also affected purchase intentions. Based on the results, the article recommends that advertisers and their agencies should think more carefully about the demographic profile of their audiences, how this profile might impact their audiences ?sensitivity“ to potentially offensive advertising, and how this sensitivity should be used as a guide when making media and message decisions     

Estimating the Half-life of Advertisements

The effectiveness of an advertisement wears out over time; eventually, it becomes totally ineffective. The author proposes a concept for measuring the lifetime of an advertisement and derives closed-form expressions for it under certain conditions. In addition, the author distinguishes the proposed concept, the half-life of an advertisement, from the prevalent notion of the duration of advertising effects. More importantly, the information on the half-life of ads is actionable from a managerial standpoint, whereas that on the duration of advertising effect is hypothetical. To enable advertisers to estimate the half-life of their ads, the author describes an estimation approach and illustrates its use by applying it to the advertising of the Dockers® brand of Levi Strauss and Company. Substantively, the lifetime of advertisements for the Dockers® brand is about three months. Thus, advertisers are well-advised to periodically estimate the half-life of their ads, so that they can plan the timing to replace worn out advertisements.     

Investigating the Drivers of Consumer Acceptance and Response of SMS Advertising

This study tests five potential drivers underlying the acceptance of SMS advertising. After developing a scale to measure behavioral responses to SMS advertising, the relationships between the acceptance of SMS advertising, intention to receive SMS advertising and behavioral responses to SMS advertising are tested. A convenience sampling method was employed. Survey questionnaires were distributed across Western Australia. The return yielded 203 usable questionnaires from the respondents. Several factors emerge as significant drivers of acceptance of SMS advertising including utility of SMS advertisements, context of SMS advertisements and attitudes to advertising in general. Contrary to expectation, control over SMS advertisements did not emerge as a significant driver for acceptance of SMS advertising. Trust in advertisers and laws did not emerge as a significant driver of the acceptance of SMS advertising among Australian respondents. Advertisers who pursue consumer acceptance should strive to build utility and context considerations into their SMS campaigns. Future research opportunities include testing the drivers of SMS advertising to further investigate the impact of control and trust on acceptance of SMS advertising in other countries where the SMS advertising has not been explored yet.     

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.     

Comparative Television Advertising: Examining its Nature and Frequency

Despite the frequent discussion and usage of comparative advertising, very few studies have empirically examined the phenomenon. This article reports the findings of a content analysis of 896 nationally televised advertisements. Results on the types of products compared, the competitive advantages stressed, the extent to which competition is noted, and the frequency of comparative advertising are reported. The study showed that strictly defined comparative advertisements are a relatively small percentage of total national television advertisements. Results also suggest that certain product types are more likely to utilize comparisons. Furthermore, quality is clearly the most common attribute stressed in comparative advertisements.     

Broadcasts for a billion: the growth of commercial television in China

At present, Chinese television reaches 35% of the population (80-90% in urban areas) and is used by the government as a source of education and information. In recognition of the potential market represented by 1.1 billions consumers, Western advertisers have commissioned elaborate market research studies. Drama, sports, news, and movies are consistently identified as the favorite type of programming among Chinese television viewers. About 75% of Beijing adults watch television daily, making the medium both an important target for advertising campaigns and a way for Westerners to influence Chinese business and government leaders. Western advertisers have tended to concentrate their investments in the more urban, affluent regions where products have the greatest likelihood of being sold. There has been a recent trend, however, toward industrial commercials, with British and French companies buying television time to promote their image as partners in China's modernization. Key to the future of commercial advertising on Chinese Television. In many provinces, local television stations have developed a unique character and portray different sociocultural values than the national channel. Outside advertisers have sometimes experienced problems with local networks that substitute local advertising without informing the network. To correct this situation, the government is enacting pro-sponsor regulations that forbid the preemption of the national channel and its advertisements. At the same time, efforts are being made to improve relationships with local television stations by either paying them a fee or airing local commercials on the national network.     

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.     

Advertisers' Responses to Requests for Substantiation of Product Claims: Differences by Product Category,Type of Claim and Advertising Medium

A sample of major advertisers of durable and nondurable consumer products were asked to provide substantiation of scientific and puffery product claims made in television and magazine advertising. The companies were asked to respond directly to an interested consumer and the responses were evaluated on an “average man” basis. The results indicated that many advertisers cannot or will not successfully substantiate their product claims despite the efforts of the Federal Trade Commission's advertising substantiation program. One proposed remedy is to require advertisers to substantiate claims directly to consumers, on request.     

Professionals' views of comparative advertising and the scholarly research literature: A review and synthesis

Comparative advertisements that contrast identifiable, competing products or services may be among advertising's most important tactical weapons. Despite nearly a century of use in the USA, growing use by advertisers in many other countries, and decades of scholarly research, some researchers continue to argue that the status of empirical knowledge regarding comparative advertising's effectiveness remains equivocal. This study addresses this equivocality with a review of the research literature and comparisons with the findings of a recent survey of US advertising creative executives. The findings reveal substantial agreement among the beliefs of academic researchers and advertising professionals in regard to when and how comparative advertising will likely be effective. In addition to offering confirming evidence that academic researchers and advertising professionals do sometimes arrive at the same destination in regard to their shared understandings of advertising effects, the findings also point the way toward important directions for future research on comparative advertising.     

Is Your Product Facing the Ad's Center? Facing Direction Affects Processing Fluency and Ad Evaluation

This research investigates a frequently encountered and important decision faced by advertisers: how to face profile images of products in advertisements. Three empirical studies find support for a profile-fluency effect: Profile images of products facing inward (versus outward) toward the center (versus edge) of an ad are easier for consumers to process and result in more positive consumer evaluations. In addition, there is evidence that this effect depends on the shopping goal of the consumer. The results have clear implications for current practices in advertising and offer opportunities for future research.     

Offensiveness of Advertising with Violent Image Appeal: A Cross-Cultural Study

Violent images are often used in advertisements to gain attention and sell products, resulting in complaints to regulatory bodies and concern regarding the effects of these potentially offensive advertisements on society. This paper presents the results of a survey of 930 university students from six countries to determine which personal and attitudinal variables have a significant influence on their attitudes toward advertisements with violent images. The results indicate that gender, country, intensity of religious beliefs, economic inclination, and products (social/political groups) produced the strongest reaction. These factors should be considered when advertisers run local or global campaigns with violent images.     

A Proposed Response Model for Controversial Advertising

Abstract

A number of advertisers have used the strategy of controversial images (fear, sexual), or promoted their controversial product (alcohol, underwear), in a way to get the audiences' attention and a positive reaction. However, the use of controversial advertising can also potentially offend people and create a negative reaction. This article discusses controversial advertising and proposes a conceptual model of responses to controversial advertising.     

Paid search: The innovation that changed the Web

Search engines are key to the operation of the World Wide Web. This centrality, however, presents challenges: search engine providers face the problem of revenue generation when users expect free content, while advertisers need to attract the interest of searchers. The innovation that effectively addresses these challenges is the use of text advertisements based upon search topic, known as paid search. The method entails advertisers competing for top listing position through bidding in ongoing auctions and then paying when users click on their advertisements, making paid search a flexible and accountable form of advertising. Since its introduction in 1998, paid search has become the dominant form of online advertising and led to Google's $140 billion market capitalization in 2006. This article analyzes the emergence of paid search and the mechanics of its operation, and offers managers guidance on its effective usage.     

Health‐care product advertising: The influences of message framing and perceived product characteristics

Message framing readily lends itself to marketing communication and advertising persuasion strategies. However, past research yields contradictory and inconsistent predictions as to whether positive or negative frames are more persuasive. This study examines the most appropriate message framing to present to consumers in print advertisements for health care products. Two experimental studies are conducted to investigate the moderating effects of product functions: perceived innovativeness and perceived risk on the processing of framed advertising messages. Findings of Study 1 indicate that messages for familiar products should be framed differently depending on perceived product functions (prevention vs. detection), but gain‐framed messages are more persuasive for both new prevention and detection products. Results of Study 2 suggest that a mixed‐framed message (combining gain and loss) could enhance message effectiveness only when subjects have prior experience. Similar to the role of product function, product perceived risk is found to moderate the framing effects on message effectiveness. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Addressing the Advertising of Controversial Products in China: An Empirical Approach

China is a country that has undertaken a great transformation since the late 1970’s, and among these changes, has seen a massive growth in the advertising industry with the influx of foreign advertisers, and the development of regional and global media, such as satellite television and the Internet. This has resulted in the Chinese people of all ages having a greater opportunity of exposure to different types of advertising, including the advertising of potentially controversial products, which could clash with traditional Chinese values. Using a stakeholder theory approach, this study analyzes the responses of 630 Chinese respondents to discover who is offended by controversial advertisements and determine ways potentially offensive advertising messages can be reduced, thereby assisting marketers in being more socially responsible in their advertising messages.     

Methods of Pre-testing Advertising

Copy-testing methods must be both valid and informative if they are to assist in the selection and revision of advertising content. Current methods often fail to fulfil one or both of these requirements. Tests are likely to be valid when they measure purchase behaviour in natural settings using completed advertisements. Such market tests are valuable for choosing between alternative copy but at this stage they are often made too late to be of help in modifying advertisement content. Some tests based on responses to the advertisement appear to be informative but fail to predict purchase or purchase intention. Theories of advertising effect are reviewed. Whether advertisements work informatively, through persuasion or through post-purchase reinforcement, it is likely that intention to buy will indicate advertising effectiveness better than other subjective criteria will. A method of belief analysis is proposed, based on attitude-behaviour theory. In this procedure, intention to buy is used to predict purchase, and measures of beliefs about purchase are used to reveal the likely determinants of purchase intention. Experimental tests show which purchase-related beliefs change when potential consumers are exposed to product information via storyboards, videotapes, group discussion, product presentation or completed commercials. This method identifies the relevant factors most closely related to buying intention and measures their potential for change.     

Self-Efficacy and Stereotyping in Advertising: Should Consumers Want a Change?

Sex-role stereotyping in advertising has been a controversial issue in the past decade. While studies have shown a disproportionate use of males in authority roles, little research has been done to examine the effects on consumers' self-efficacies. Results from this research indicate that, contrary to expectations, females had higher confidence in their purchase decisions after viewing stereotypical television advertisements. Social implications for advertisers and marketers are discussed.     

Effectiveness of Outdoor Advertising of Services

Outdoor advertisements are now routinely used by marketers of products and services as they have been found to be effective in general. However, there have been no studies testing the effectiveness of outdoor advertising of services in particular nor have there been studies comparing the effectiveness of outdoor advertisements of services with that of consumer goods. In this paper we study the effectiveness of outdoor advertisements of services and investigate the influence of few billboard and consumer related fac- tors on its effectiveness. The results show that the outdoor advertise- ments of services are very effective. Further, the recall of outdoor advertisements of services may be enhanced by providing direc- tional information when applicable and by unusual executions such as having them in black and white when most other ads are in color. Recall of outdoor advertisements of services was also found to be positively associated with respondent involvement with outdoor advertising and their attitude toward advertising.