Schema strength,processing opportunity,and the rewarding nature of incongruity resolution in advertising

Extant literature calls for more research to identify the boundary conditions as well as the process underlying the effects of ad messages that violate specific brand beliefs. This paper examines different levels of ad–brand incongruity, considering brand schema strength and processing opportunity as factors that influence the perception and the resolution of incongruity. Moreover, it provides empirical evidence for the process mediating attitudinal responses to ad–brand incongruity. Experiment 1 shows superiority for moderately incongruent ads over congruent and extremely incongruent ads which is eliminated when participants have a weak, as opposed to a strong, brand schema. Experiment 2 replicates the nonmonotonic pattern for strong, real brands but further shows that low processing opportunity favors congruent ads. Mediation analysis reveals that the psychological satisfaction experienced during the ad interpretation process has an asymmetric mediating effect, such that moderate levels of ad–brand incongruity generate highest levels of satisfaction which then leads to more positive responses.     

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.     

Music-brand congruency in highand low-cognition radio advertising

Many radio commercials use background music to accompany a message. This research examines how brand-congruent music (i.e. music that ‘fits’ the brand) will affect ‘Attitude towards the Ad’ (AAd) and ‘Attitude towards the Brand’ (ABrand), specifically when used with different types of ad copy that are more or less demanding of cognitive resources (high-cognition vs low-cognition advertising copy). In high-cognition ads, congruent music results in a more positive AAd and ABrand compared to incongruent music or no music. However, this effect is not found with low-cognition ads, where AAd (and ABrand) are similar for all three conditions of congruent music, incongruent music and no music.     

Thinking pink? Consumer reactions to pink ribbons and vague messages in advertising

Many brands partner with causes in their advertising campaigns. Consumers appreciate that the brands they purchase participate in activities that contribute to a society’s well-being. This study uses copy-testing techniques to evaluate the number and types of thoughts and brand attitudes in the presence and absence of cause-related messages. Individuals saw an ad for one of two products. None of the ads stated the brand’s financial support to the cause, which is representative of many messages today. People viewing the Dansko ads with the pink ribbon generated significantly fewer thoughts than those viewing the ad without the pink ribbon. For the Fitbit ads, more thoughts were generated for the ad with the pink ribbon than the ad without the pink ribbon. The Fitbit ad with the pink ribbon and support message generated fewer positive and negative thoughts but more neutral thoughts that questioned the brand/cause relationship. Attitudes toward the brand did not vary based on the presence or absence of the pink ribbon. People who saw ads with the pink ribbon displayed more positive attitudes toward the brands’ commitment to society and misestimated the brands’ contributions to the cause.     

The Degree of Ad–Brand Incongruity and the Distinction Between Schema-Driven and Stimulus-Driven Attitudes

Drawing on schema theory and advertising rhetoric, this article contributes to research on incongruent communication with three studies exploring consumer responses across different degrees of ad–brand incongruity. Study 1 reveals an inverted U-shaped pattern, indicating the superiority of moderate incongruity on ad processing time, recall, and attitude toward the ad (A_ad) and the brand (A_b). Studies 2A and 2B replicate this pattern and further demonstrate that the affect already stored in the brand schema drives brand attitude formation for congruent and extremely incongruent ads, whereas both schema- and stimulus-based affect determine brand attitude for moderately incongruent ads. Study 2B also shows that participants are able to resolve ad–brand incongruity and comprehend the ad unless discrepancies are extreme. Finally, it is revealed that comprehension of more cognitively challenging ads mediates the effect of incongruity on both A_ad and A_b.     

Self-concept and advertising effectiveness: The influence of congruency,conspicuousness, and response mode

It was hypothesized in this study that advertising appeals congruent with viewers' self-concept would be superior to incongruent appeals in terms of enhancing advertising effectiveness. Advertising effectiveness was operationalized as: brand memory, brand attitude, and purchase intentions. The sample consisted of 165 subjects who were exposed to four test stimuli (ads), two for automobiles and two for shampoos. One ad within a product class used an introvert appeal, and the other used an extrovert appeal. Congruence between self-concept and the brand image was determined by subjects' evaluations of themselves and the advertised brand. Ad-related tasks included remembering brand names and indicating preference and buying intention for each brand. The study results indicate that brand memory is not mediated by the extent to which advertising expressions are congruent with viewers' self-concept. However, brand preference and purchase intention were shown to be influenced by the self-congruency of an ad. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

The Power of Creative Advertising and Consumers’ Perceived Risk

Despite the growing importance of creative advertising as an effective marketing tool, little is known about the process through which it influences preexisting attitudes for familiar brands and factors that moderate its effectiveness. To fill this gap, A 2 advertising type (creative vs. normal) by 2 product category (high risk vs. low risk) experiment was conducted. Four creative ads and four normal ads were developed for some familiar brands and were exhibited for participants. Results indicate that creative ads significantly lead to more favorable ad credibility, ad attitude, brand attitude, and purchase intention than normal ads. Perceived product risk was found to moderate the effectiveness of creative ads.     

Consistency and commonality in advertising content: Helping or Hurting?

Scholars and practitioners widely argue that strong, successful brands are built on consistent and unique positioning, which should be reflected in the brands’ advertising. Surprisingly, however, little empirical evidence supports this claim, especially with regard to advertising content. The authors investigate whether and to what extent brands’ advertising content consistency—the similarity in the firm’s own advertising content over time—and commonality—the similarity between the firm’s and competitors’ advertising content—affect brands’ sales. Insights emerge from the analysis of the impact on sales of the content of 247 television ads aired by 33 brands in six consumer packaged goods categories over a four-year period. Results indicate that more than advertising spending, both consistency and commonality in advertising content affect sales, especially with respect to long-term cumulative sales. However, brands differ considerably regarding the direction of the effects. While small brands tend to benefit from increased consistency and commonality in advertising content, large brands tend to suffer from increased consistency. Thus, whether consistency and commonality in advertising content will help or hurt depends on the size of the brand.     

Effects of culturally verbal and visual congruency/incongruency across cultures in a competitive advertising context

Existing consumer behavior theories suggest that consumers tend to recognize, better comprehend, and respond favorably to information that is both relevant and consistent with their beliefs and values. This study extends these theories by employing cultural arguments and pictures to examine the effects of culturally verbal and visual congruency/incongruency on consumer ad and brand attitudes in multiple-ad and multiple-brand environments. The studies were conducted with subjects in Canada and China. The results suggest that, when the contrast ad is culturally incongruent, an ad containing a culturally congruent argument and congruent picture elicits the most positive responses, compared to other ads with different combinations of arguments and pictures. However, an ad containing a culturally incongruent argument and incongruent picture also elicits more positive responses than an ad with a culturally congruent argument and incongruent picture or a culturally incongruent argument and congruent picture.     

Does gay-themed advertising haunt your brand?

This study is designed to investigate the effect of gay-themed advertising as well as consumers’ gender, tolerance towards homosexuality (low vs high tolerance) and consumers’ brand commitment (low vs high commitment) on attitude towards ad and attitude towards brand. The study result suggests that people exposed to non-gay-themed ads had more positive attitudes towards the brand than did people exposed to gay-themed ads. The study findings suggest that ads featuring homosexual imagery could lead to negative brand evaluation. The study finds that heterosexual males exposed to such ads had less favourable attitudes towards the advertising and brand as well. The study finds that subjects with high tolerance towards homosexuality have more positive attitudes towards the ad and brand, and have higher purchase intention than do subjects with low tolerance. Furthermore, the results suggest that people with high brand commitment had more favourable attitudes towards ad and brand. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.     

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.     

External Brand Placement: The Effects on Game Players’ Processing of an In-Game Brand

Video games are now a venue for branded messages. Hence, game players may be exposed to brands in and outside game environments. This study focuses on the latter, that is, external brand placement. Drawing upon the literature on involvement and on the limited capacity model (LCM) of information processing, this study explores the mechanism by which external brand placement influences game players’ processing of a brand placed within a game, known as an in-game brand. The results show that players exposed to an external brand identical to an in-game brand showed greater in-game brand recall than those not so exposed. Players exposed to a competing external brand—whether congruent or not—showed lower in-game brand recall. When the brand was incongruent, however, they showed a preference for the in-game brand.     

The Effects of Humor on Ad Processing: Mediating Role of Brand Familiarity

The effect of humorous advertisement on memory and attitude has been an important topic among advertising scholars. However, scholars have used fake brands to test the effects of humor. Since the possibility for consumers to be exposed to the commercial for a completely new brand is very low, using a fake brand to test humor effects is not realistic. Hence, this study examined the role of brand familiarity on the effects of humor on memory and attitude by using existing brands in a laboratory experiment. This study suggests a different structural model for familiar and unfamiliar brands based on the previous studies in consumer behavior. Results revealed different effects of humorous advertisements for the familiar or unfamiliar brands. The structural model proposed for this study revealed a mediating role of brand familiarity on humor effects. Humorous ads worked better for the unfamiliar brands. For the familiar brands, the effects were mediated by the subjects’ brand familiarity and prior brand attitude.     

Ad framing effects for consumption products: An affect priming process

This research examines why positively framed messages work more effectively than negatively framed messages in product advertising by establishing an affect priming process model. Findings from Experiment 1 showed that positively framed ad messages evoked higher levels of positive affect and lower levels of negative affect than did negatively framed ad messages. Accordingly, positively framed ad messages generated more favorable ratings on ad believability, ad liking, and brand attitudes. Most importantly, this research demonstrated the process by which frame‐evoked affect exerted influence on brand attitudes via its impacts on priming affect‐congruent cognitive responses. Experiment 1 also found that positively framed ads encouraged participants to be attentive to and elaborate on messages more so than negatively framed ads. Findings from Experiment 2 further showed that ad framing effects were moderated by the type of product attributes being featured. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Effects of Ethnic Identity on Perceived Advertisers’ Motives in Values Advocacy Advertising

The current study examined Asian American consumers’ responses to values advocacy advertising through the interaction of levels of ethnic identification (weak or strong Asian ethnic identification) and culturally embedded ads (low and high in Asian/White culturally embedded ads) in evaluating altruistic motives of advertisers and purchase intention through an experimental design. The findings suggest that low Asian ethnic identifiers may identify with the advertiser employing Asian spokespersons with Asian cultural cues and in turn, perceive that the advertisers advocate social causes with altruistic motives. However, they did not feel congruent with the advertisers utilizing values advocacy ads with low Asian cultural cues (only featuring Asian spokespersons) more than with low/high White cultural cues (featuring White spokespersons with and without White cultural cues).The findings were discussed based on ethnic schema and attribution theory. Further, the present study discusses how Asian American consumers view ads through their different lenses toward meanings of race and culture based on their different levels of ethnic identification.     

Evolution in the usage of localized appeals in Japanese and American print advertising

Based on global consumer culture theory, this empirical investigation examines how the usage of local appeals in Japanese and American advertising content has shifted over a period of nearly three decades. It replicates and improves upon Mueller’s investigation (Journal of Advertising Research, 1987, 27(3)). Content analysis determined the existence or absence of five traditionally Japanese appeals vs five traditionally Western appeals in 2005 issues of women’s, general interest, business and sports magazines published in each country. A total of 899 US ads and 853 Japanese ads were collected. Japanese advertisers appear to have turned to a rather more direct and persuasive selling approach, but continue to maintain a tradition of Japanese subtlety. American ads have shifted from a hard-hitting and aggressive strategy to a more benefit-orientated strategy with a distinctly softer touch. Appeals employed, however, were found to vary with the product category promoted. Overall, findings suggest that while Japanese advertising may have become somewhat more ‘American’, American advertising appears to have become significantly more ‘Japanese’. Possible future convergence between Eastern and Western advertising has implications for international marketers as they craft messages to appeal to these audiences.     

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.     

Anti-counterfeiting advertisements for luxury brands in the post pandemic era: Roles of message type,visual presentation mode,and self-construal

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a significant increase in the demand for counterfeit luxury products, and the black market is expected to grow continuously in the post pandemic era. The present research aimed to examine how verbal and visual aspects of anti-counterfeiting advertising affect the purchase of counterfeit luxury brands. For the verbal element, we included two types of anti-counterfeiting messages: value-expressive and social-adjustive. For the visual element, two modes of visual presentation were compared; participants were presented either with images of counterfeit products only, or with images of both counterfeit and genuine products. The results from two experiments demonstrated that both variables interacted with consumers' self-construal in determining the effects of anti-counterfeiting advertising. Participants with independent self-construal expressed a lower intention to purchase counterfeit luxury products when a value-expressive message was used or when only an image of the counterfeit was included. In contrast, participants with interdependent self-construal exhibited a lower purchase intention when a social-adjustive message was utilized or when images of both the counterfeit and authentic brands were presented side-by-side. Moreover, anti-counterfeiting messages influenced participants’ purchase intentions through the perceptions of social-adjustive and value-expressive benefits, whereas the effect of presentation mode was mediated by the fluency experienced by the participants when processing the advertisement. Our research findings contribute theoretically to the literature on social motives, evaluation mode, comparative advertising, and self-construal, and will assist practitioners in developing effective communication strategies to reduce the consumption of counterfeit luxury brands.     

The multidimensionality of anthropomorphism in advertising: the moderating roles of cognitive busyness and assertive language

Anthropomorphized brands or products in advertisements are known to affect consumers’ attitudes in a positive direction. However, most research treats anthropomorphized stimuli as the same in both its design and effects. We explore the multidimensional nature of anthropomorphism in advertising by investigating two degrees of humanization (i.e. subtle vs. overt) that generate different outcomes in terms of advertising performance. For example, we find that consumers prefer ads that use overt humanization (compared to subtle and no humanization) when an ad uses assertive language (i.e. Buy NOW!); however, they prefer ads that use subtle humanization when coupled with ads that do not include assertive language. We find a similar pattern when consumers are cognitively busy. Managerial and theoretical implications are discussed.     

Culture-Based Values and Management Style of Marketing Decision Makers in Six Western Pacific Rim Countries

ABSTRACT

Given increasing advertisement clutter, advertisers are increasingly trying unconventional means to attract consumers' attention. One such method involves the use of incongruent ads, which are believed to attract viewers' attention. This research was conducted to ascertain the impact of audiovisual congruency in ads and the moderating role of product involvement on three facets of consumer response: attention to the ad, attention to the brand, and purchase intentions. Participants were shown one of eight TV ads for 30 seconds, following which they were asked to rate the ad on several dimensions. Results indicated, as expected, that congruent product and music type elicited favorable consumer responses. However, contrary to earlier findings that congruency in ads affects consumers in both high- and low-involvement conditions, we find that that the level of involvement moderated this effect on some consumer persuasion measures. In particular, participants under high-involvement conditions were found to be less influenced by congruent product–music situations. Implications for advertisers are discussed.