An Empirical Investigation of the Differential Effects of Personal,Historical, and Non-Nostalgic Advertising on Consumer Responses

Using a theory-driven approach, this study investigates whether and/or to what extent consumers' informationprocessing tendencies and ad-based responses are differentially influenced by the introduction of nostalgic cues (either "personal" or "historical" in nature) embedded in an advertisement. The results support hypothesized expectations that personal nostalgia (a yearning for one's past) generally outperforms both historical and non-nostalgic advertising when measures of self-directed thoughts, positive affect, and attitude toward the ad are considered. However, when cognitive measures (i.e., brand/message-related cognitive responses and message recall) are considered, a personally nostalgic ad is shown to be comparable to a historical nostalgic ad, but inferior to a non-nostalgic ad. Regression results utilizing cognitive response data further indicate that individuals' brand attitudes are differentially influenced by the type of nostalgia evoked. Practical and theoretical implications for the study's findings are discussed, and future research directions are presented.     

Remembering the Good Old Days: The Moderating Role of Consumer Affective State on the Effectiveness of Nostalgic Advertising

Employing different experimental priming procedures and advertising treatments across two studies, we examine the moderating role of consumer affective state on individuals’ responses to nostalgic and nonnostalgic advertising. Consistent with hypothesized expectations, our findings indicate that when consumers are in a positive affective state they respond more favorably (i.e., report more positive memories and favorable brand-related responses) to nostalgic (versus nonnostalgic) ads. In contrast, one's negative affective state appears to play a limited role in affecting responses between ad types. The theoretical implications of these findings as they relate to nostalgic advertising effects are discussed, and recommendations for advertising practitioners are offered.     

The relative influence of advertising-evoked personal and historical nostalgic thoughts on consumers' brand attitudes

Although researchers' conceptualizations of nostalgia (a yearning for the past) often acknowledge that it may be comprised of various types and forms, few studies to date have attempted to empirically investigate any of these differences in an advertising context. The study reported here examines two prevalent types of nostalgia reported in the literature and appearing in the media today – personal and historical nostalgia – and explores the relative influence each type may have on the formation of consumer brand attitudes. Findings suggest that, irrespective of whether individuals are exposed to a personally nostalgic or historically nostalgic ad, responses of a personally nostalgic nature tend to predominate and are more influential in shaping brand attitudes. Attitudes toward the ad were shown to mediate this relationship for both nostalgia ad types. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed, and future research directions are offered.     

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.     

Bygone eras vs. the good Ol' days: how consumption context and self-construal influence nostalgic appeal selection

This research compares historical and personal nostalgic appeals with potential influences of consumption context and consumer self-construal. Results from two experiments indicate that, regardless of nostalgia type, a nostalgic ad is more effective than a non-nostalgic ad with similar visuals. Personal nostalgia is more effective than historical nostalgia in ads for private consumption contexts. In contrast, historical nostalgia is more effective than personal nostalgia for public consumption contexts. The above-mentioned results hold for those whose self-construal is interdependent self-construal, not for those with independent self-construal. Based on the findings, managerial implications for advertising practitioners are provided.     

Green Demarketing in Advertisements: Comparing “Buy Green” and “Buy Less” Appeals in Product and Institutional Advertising Contexts

This research compares consumer response to traditional green advertising appeals to that of less conventional, “green demarketing” (GD) appeals—messages by for-profit companies encouraging reduced category consumption for the sake of the environment. Rather than encouraging greener consumption, modern environmentalism calls for decreased consumption overall, a trend reflected in recent advertising campaigns (e.g., Patagonia's “Don't Buy This Jacket”). Despite its potential impact and unconventionality, research on GD in general is sparse, and no empirical research has examined consumer response to GD appeals relative to traditional green appeals. In three experiments, we find that, in the context of product advertising, consumers' attitudes for green ads are more favorable than those for GD ads, mediated by greater inferences of genuine environmental concern. However, we find the reverse pattern in the context of institutional ads. Further, an “anti-consumption amplifier” message embedded in the ad—espousing the potential harm of overconsumption—further boosts favorable consumer attitudes for the GD institutional ad relative to its traditional green counterpart. Importantly, we assess all effects while controlling for consumers' individual levels of green consumerism, such that implications may be applied more generally rather than to a specific segment of green consumers.     

Personalized ads on Facebook: An effective marketing tool for online marketers

A growing number of researchers have examined the effects of personalized advertising in traditional media, however, little has been known about personalized advertising on Facebook. The primary objectives of this research are threefold: (1) Develop a comprehensive model that captures the effects of perceived personalized ads on Facebook on customer attitudinal and behavioral reactions (ad credibility, ad avoidance, ad skepticism, ad attitude, and behavioral intention) to the ad; (2) Test hypothesized relationships using two data sets collected through an online survey; and (3) Develop appropriate customer segments based on personal views of personalized ads on Facebook. The paper reveals that eleven out of thirteen hypotheses are supported and that three market segments are identified including Ad Lovers, Ad Accommodators, and Ad Haters. The paper concludes with conclusion and discussions highlighting managerial and research implications.     

Advertising as Unfavorable Self-Presentation: The Dirty Laundry Effect

Identity appeals—marketing communications that invoke one of the target market's identities—are typically well liked by consumers. In contrast with this notion, this research examines a situation when consumers respond negatively to identity appeals in advertising. Through three studies, we find that identity appeals fail when consumers judge an identity-congruent ad as portraying information about them that they would rather not have widely broadcast. In these cases, self-presentation concerns arise, leading to ad dislike. Thus, although identity-congruent ads resonate with consumers, such ads may lead to negative responses if consumers believe the ad airs their “dirty laundry.” We discuss implications for targeted advertising and identity marketing strategies.     

A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: How Humanized,Retargeted Ads Intrude in Social Contexts

A great deal of past work has demonstrated that ads that “fit” or blend into their context evoke favorable responses because consumers perceive such ads as less intrusive. The current work posits that when aspects of the ad make persuasive intent salient—such as exposure to retargeted ads, which are generated based on consumers' past online browsing behavior—this relationship reverses such that fit between an ad and its context elicits higher perceptions of intrusiveness. Specifically, ads that present ad copy in a conversational style “fit” with a social media context on the dimension of social presence. Across three studies, we show that retargeted ads that “fit” the context on the dimension of social presence evoke higher levels of perceived intrusiveness, which, in turn, influence downstream responses such as attitudes toward the ad.     

Social Information in Facebook News Feed Ads: Effects of Personal Relevance and Brand Familiarity

The current research examined effects of the “social information” feature in Facebook news feed ads, in relation to personal relevance and brand familiarity. Ads with social information did not always lead to more favorable advertising and brand perceptions. However, interaction effects were found among social information, personal relevance, and brand familiarity, in terms of attitude-toward-the-ad and purchase intention. Social information could help create more favorable advertising responses for unfamiliar and low-relevance brands.     

Narrative Transportation and Paratextual Features of Social Media in Viral Advertising

This study establishes that the experience of narrative transportation has a positive influence on viral advertising. The relative strength of this relationship, however, depends on several boundary conditions associated with the paratextual features of social networking service (SNS) environments. Specifically, it is stronger if the senders and intended receivers have personal ties. Moreover, the influence of narrative transportation is negatively moderated by advertising disclosure that elicits persuasion knowledge. Finally, the negative effect of persuasion knowledge is reduced if the ad appears with a higher number of “likes,” which increases social proof for viral ads. Implications regarding viral advertising and social media behaviors are discussed.     

An Investigation of Consumers' Responses to Comparative “Attack” Ads

The current study contributes to the ever-expanding literature pertaining to comparative advertising by focusing specifically on comparative “attack” ads. Using the persuasion resistance process as a theoretical foundation, our findings indicate that users committed to the comparative referent are much more likely to resist persuasive attempts than are less-committed users, and hold brand attitudes with greater confidence. However, commitment of the consumers to the comparative referent has little impact on their reactions to positively- versus negatively-framed comparative ads. This pattern of effects was observed in both immediate and delayed (two-week) ad exposure conditions.     

The Effect of Media Involvement on Print Advertising Effectiveness

Abstract

There is less than full agreement in the advertising research community over the relationship between involvement and advertising effectiveness. The purpose of this research is to extend that investigation into print. In a pre-post between-subjects design, 926 adults were exposed to test advertisements “tipped” (i.e., inserted) into a publication that they read regularly. Readers' attitudes and purchase intentions for the advertised products were collected before and after exposure to the ads. The results indicated that higher involvement with a publication leads to more favorable perceptions of embedded ads, and higher levels of advertising persuasion, while not impacting recall. Analyses of specialized effects indicated that, for the most part, main-effects results were robust across two types of advertisements, two print publication types, and two classes of products studied. The research has implications for how publishers set, and media planners evaluate, advertising rates, which are calculated predominantly according to the size of a publication's reader base. Based on our results, they should consider involvement when making these decisions.     

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.     

“Unprecedented,” “extraordinary,” and “we're all in this together”: Does advertising really need to be so tedious in challenging times?

As government-mandated lockdowns and steep declines in trade set in because of the COVID-19 pandemic, a common theme became apparent in the advertising of the time: It was all the same. Regardless of the product category or brand personality, many ads were remarkably similar. They began with melancholy music, voiceovers reminding the audience that the brand is here for them, and referred to these times as “unprecedented” and “extraordinary.” Ads reassured viewers that “together, we can get through this.” In this installment of Marketing & Technology, we articulate the problem of advertising sameness and explore how and why it likely arises during a time of crisis. We then discuss why advertising uniformity is a problem and present a series of strategic, media, and creative considerations—taking into account the constraints of a crisis— to help marketing professionals produce more effective advertising in the context of a disaster.     

Creating an effective code-switched ad for monolinguals: the influence of brand origin and foreign language familiarity

This study investigates the influence of brand origin and foreign language familiarity in code-switched (CS) ad effectiveness for monolingual consumers. CS ads refer to ads containing foreign words or phrases in an advertising copy (e.g., headline and slogan), resulting in a mixture of native and foreign languages. In this research, we conducted a pilot study to show the increasing trend of using code-switching in ads, regardless of whether the brands are local or foreign, in a monolingual market. We further examine if the effectiveness of CS ads is contingent on the brand origin among monolinguals. Study 1 showed that non-CS ads were perceived more favorably than CS ads for advertising a local brand. However, not all of the CS ads were perceived more favorably than non-CS ads when a foreign brand was advertized. The results of Study 2 showed that when a foreign brand was advertized, CS ads using a high-exposure foreign language were evaluated more favorably than CS ads using a low-exposure foreign language. Foreign language familiarity played a mediating role in the observed effects. We provide evidence that the research findings on CS ads among bilinguals cannot be applied to monolinguals. We discuss implications for international marketing and suggest advertising strategies for practitioners.     

Development and validation of an emic scale to measure ad-evoked nostalgia in France

The practice of imbuing marketing communications with nostalgic reverie is prevalent in numerous countries. However, scholarly research investigating consumer response to such communication across cultures is lacking. This inquiry follows an emic approach examining and measuring ad-evoked personal nostalgia in France. Findings from five studies (N = 699) reveal significant differences in consumer reactions in France, as compared to earlier research based on American samples. Among the French, nostalgic advertising evokes personal memories and cultural nostalgia, contrasted to reports of past imagery, physiological and positive and negative emotional reactions in the United States. Furthermore, while cultural nostalgia is an important component of the French personal nostalgic experience, it is the personal memories that are the key to the creation of positive impressions about the ad and brand (brand heritage, brand bonds, and attitudes), and driving behavioral intentions. The emic French scale was found to be superior to an etic ad-nostalgia measure, in terms of fit and variance explained of the endogenous variables. The findings contribute to cross-cultural advertising and marketing research, and can be instructive for advertisers targeting the French market.     

Disentangling location-based advertising: the effects of location congruency and medium type on consumers' ad attention and brand choice

Research on location-based advertising (LBA) suggests that the merits of LBA lie in the fact that consumers can be targeted with location-congruent ads on their personal mobile devices. However, LBA consists of two underlying constructs: a mobile (vs. point-of-sales) advertising medium and location congruency (vs. location incongruency). This study aims to disentangle these underlying constructs by showing that they differentially affect the efficacy of an ad. Using a virtual reality lab experiment, this study shows that location-congruent ads result in increased choice for the target brand as compared to location-incongruent ads, independent of medium type. However, in location-incongruent situations, mobile ads attracted more attention than point-of-sales display ads. The advantages of LBA thus do not seem to emanate from medium type, but rather from the congruency between the ad and product location. When the ad is received at a different location than the product, the mobile medium is able to enhance consumers' ad attention.     

Why Narrative Ads Work: An Integrated Process Explanation

We propose and test an integrated process explanation for why narrative ads in general are more persuasive than non-narrative ads. A study involving a random sample of 25 narrative and 25 non-narrative TV commercials and 484 nonstudent research participants confirmed that a set of four process variables—emotive response, ad hedonic value, ad credibility, and perceived goal facilitation—collectively mediate the positive effects of narrative (versus non-narrative) ads on attitude toward the ad (A_ad) and brand attitudes. The results also supported moderated mediation processes, with type of featured product and product involvement as important moderators. Implications for theory as well as practice are discussed.     

Do you want me to watch this ad on social media?: The effects of norms on online video ad watching

This study examines the influences of norms on consumers’ intentions to watch online video ads on social media. The social norms approach and the theory of reasoned action (TRA) were adopted as theoretical frameworks. In addition, the effects of interpersonal and social influences on the three personal-level norms were examined as the antecedents of normative perceptions. To test the hypothesized model, an online survey was conducted with 313 undergraduate students. A confirmatory factor analysis was used to validate the measurement constructs of the model, and a structural equation modeling was used to identify the relationships among constructs in the model. Findings indicate that personal injunctive norms and subjective norms were positively related to consumers’ intention to watch online video ads. Interpersonal and social influences were positively related to three normative perceptions regarding online video ad watching. The findings of this study contribute to the research stream on social norms approach and TRA and provide practical implications for advertising and marketing practitioners.