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.     

Pie in the Sky? Real Versus Perceived Values of Air Miles

Over 20 million people in the Britain and the US collect air miles – many significantly distorting their consumption patterns to increase the rate of accumulation. You can now earn and spend air miles without ever stepping foot on an airplane, and air miles from the more popular scheme have begun to take on the status of a "pseudo-currency." The importance has attracted the widespread attention of governments (worried about how they should most appropriately be incorporated into the tax base) and financial regulators (worried about how the associated liabilities should be dealt with under accounting and financial reporting legislation). To both groups a key hurdle has been knowing how to value an air mile. The paper outlines the characteristics of air miles that make them peculiarly well suited to use as a "shadow" currency. The perceived value of air miles in a panel of UK consumers is assessed (using the contingent valuation method) and compared to the actual value. The former is shown to be substantially larger than the latter – consumers systematically overestimate the purchasing power of air miles. These findings explain why air mile programmes are, and are likely to continue to be, popular promotional tools with businesses but are potentially harmful to consumers.     

Using Social Identity Theory to Predict Managers’ Emphases on Ethical and Legal Values in Judging Business Issues

The need to fill three gaps in ethics research in a business context sparked the current study. First, the distinction between the concepts of “ethical” and “legal” needs to be incorporated into theory building and empiricism. Second, a unifying theory is needed that can explain the variables that influence managers to emphasize ethics and legality in their judgments. Third, empirical evidence is needed to confirm the predictive power of the unifying theory, the discernable influence of personal and organizational variables, and the importance of the issue to the managers in determining their emphasis on the ethical and legal values of their judgments. Focused on these needs, the current research combines social identity theory with empirical findings from business ethics research. This theory building initiative framed hypothesis-driven research to investigate the influences on managers’ emphasis on ethical and legal values in making business judgments. An empirical research study was conducted involving 252 practicing managers who judged 12 newsworthy business events. Data was collected on the managers’ individual factors, on the groups that influence their judgments, and on the importance that the managers place on ethics and legality in judging the 12 scenarios. The research findings contribute to theory development (1) By successfully utilizing a blended extension of social identity and issue-contingent theories to understand managers’ judgments, and (2) By providing evidence on the relationships between the perceived importance of an issue and the emphases managers place on ethical and legal values in their judgments. The analysis of the data was extended to provide insights on the needs of employers to tailor management training on legal and ethical decision-making. The participating managers were clustered according to their emphases on Ethical Importance and Legal Importance in judging business situations. Analysis of Variance was then combined with Scheffé Multiple Comparison Tests to assess whether the factors derived from a blended extension of social identity and issue-contingent theories were significantly different across the clusters. The product of this analysis is unique sets of attributes that describe each cluster of managers, and provide an empirical basis for determining training priorities. Finally, the carefully constructed and thoroughly tested 12 research scenarios that form the core of the survey instrument enable their redeployment in subsequent research and their use by practicing executives who wish to compare data provided by their managers to results from the study participants.     

Do Farmers' Market and Specialty Food Store Customers Differ in the Effects of Perceived Utilitarian and Hedonic Shopping Values?

This study explored differences in the effects of perceived utilitarian and hedonic shopping values on customer satisfaction for the two separate groups of the agricultural product marketing channel: farmers' markets and specialty food stores. Empirical data were collected from customers of agricultural product retailers located in Taiwan (N = 412). The results show that different agricultural product marketing channels provide different values to their customers. Farmers' market customers experience a greater hedonic value, and specialty food store customers experience a greater utilitarian value. In addition, the perceived utilitarian and hedonic shopping values of farmers' market customers are more highly positively associated with customer satisfaction than are those of specialty food store customers.     

Smoke Gets in Their Eyes? Third-Person Effects of Electronic Cigarette Advertising

This study examined the relationship between smoker status and attitudes toward e-cigarette usage, third-person perceptions of e-cigarette advertising, and support for regulation of e-cigarette advertising within the context of a media-saturated environment. Survey results (n = 615) indicated that participants perceived e-cigarette advertisements as having a more powerful effect on others than on themselves and that nonsmokers perceived this more strongly than did smokers. Nonsmokers were found to have more negative attitudes toward e-cigarette use than smokers. Mediation analysis indicated support for a serial indirect effect of smoker status on support for regulation through attitudes toward e-cigarettes and third-person perceptions.     

Korean Advertising Practitioners’ Perspectives on Celebrity Endorsement

Practitioners’ perspectives have been neglected to some extent. Research on practitioners’ perspectives is important because it will provide valuable information, especially on how theories have been reflected in practice. The study investigates Korean advertising practitioners’ perspectives on celebrity endorsement in advertising campaigns. By comparing the perspective between advertising practitioners and that from their counterparts on the client side, this study may provide insights into their respective roles in advertising campaigns. This study finding suggests that Korean advertising practitioners consider a celebrity's likeability as the most important criterion when selecting a celebrity endorser. The most important reason why they employ a celebrity endorser is that celebrity endorsement helps generate awareness of the brand. In addition, concerns over celebrity endorsement as well as limitations and suggestions for future research have been discussed.     

The Effects of Comparative Advertising on Young Consumers’ Perceptions: Cross-Cultural Comparison Between the United States and Taiwan

This study aims to examine the effectiveness of comparative advertising of a high involvement product in two countries, the United States and Taiwan. The results show that different types of comparative advertising moderate the relationship in the proposed model and exert different levels of influences on consumers. The United States and Taiwanese consumers are significantly different in attitudes toward the ad, attitudes toward the sponsored brand, and purchase intention. The results show that direct comparative advertising might be suitable for promoting a new brand in countries with individualistic cultures. However, global marketers should be cautious when employing comparative advertising formats in collectivist cultures.     

Congruence Effects in Post-crisis CSR Communication: The Mediating Role of Attribution of Corporate Motives

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has grown on the corporate agenda and is at the heart of today’s corporate culture. While much research has examined CSR strategies and effects, the effects of post-crisis CSR communication have received relatively little academic attention. Therefore, this paper uses two experimental studies to examine several key contingency factors that influence consumers’ responses to post-crisis CSR initiatives. Results suggest that consumers demonstrate more favorable responses when a company launches a CSR initiative congruent with the crisis issue, or when the crisis is the result of an accident rather than a transgression. Further, the congruence between the crisis issue and the pre-crisis CSR initiative moderates the consistency effects between pre- and post-crisis initiatives. Such findings should be understood by considering the mediating role of corporate CSR motives’ consumer attributions, which was evidenced in this study. This study theoretically contributes to an improved understanding of the underlying mechanism of the post-crisis CSR information process and managerially contributes to the strategic development of effective post-crisis CSR initiatives given a particular situation.     

Changes in Concentration of Advertising Expenditures Among the Leading National Advertisers in the United States 1970–1988: A Note

This paper investigates the change of advertising concentration between 1970 and 1988. Using six measures of concentration and based on the advertising expenditures of the one hundred leading advertisers in the US reported by Advertising Age, this paper finds that the level of advertising concentration varies in the 1970s and has been steadily increasing since the early 1980s. However, the change of advertising concentration between all of the two-year periods examined is not significant. The findings also suggest that the nature of industry and the country of origin of advertisers do not exhibit significant impact on the level of advertising concentration.     

Misleading Consumers with Green Advertising? An Affect–Reason–Involvement Account of Greenwashing Effects in Environmental Advertising

Drawing from the affect–reason–involvement model, we examine how misleading advertising about the environmental features of products, or greenwashing, affects how consumers perceive ads and brands. Using data from two experimental studies with quota-based samples in the United States (N = 486) and Germany (N = 300), we compare nondeceptive claims with two types of claims often used in greenwashing: vague claims and false claims. We also identify the presence of pleasant nature-evoking images and test for interaction effects with two types of environmental involvement: environmental concern and environmental knowledge. Results indicate that while vague claims do not enhance consumers' perceived greenwashing regardless of their environmental knowledge or concern, false claims do, which consequently harms consumers' attitudes toward those ads and brands. In the United States, consumers' environmental knowledge moderates that effect, whereas all consumers in Germany could identify false claims as attempts at greenwashing. Moreover, associating greenwashing claims with nature-evoking images activates an affective persuasive mechanism that appeals to consumers' affinity for nature, which not only positively influences their evaluations of ads and brands but also influences their attitudes toward ads and brands more strongly than perceived greenwashing. In closing, we discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.     

Susceptibility to Advertising and Perceived Friend Norms: A Meta-Analysis of Materialism in Youths “Meta-Analysis of Materialism in Youths”

This study presents a meta-analysis assessing the antecedents that are associated with the influence that advertising and friends' behaviours have on the formation of materialistic behaviours in youth. We carried out a systematic review in which we identified an initial 217 studies. Of these, 32 were ultimately included in the analysis. Our results revealed significant relationships for the constructs associated directly with susceptibility to advertising (advertising viewing attitudes, attention to advertising, celebrity endorsements in advertising, advertising exposure and TV viewing frequency) and for perceived friends' norms (friends' attitudes, social comparisons with friends and communication with friends) with materialism in youth.     

An Investigation of Egyptian Consumers’ Attitudes Toward Ethical Issues in Advertising

This article investigates Egyptian consumers’ attitudes toward ethical issues in advertising held by a sample of 306 participants. The subjects completed a 20-item instrument originally designed to measure respondents’ attitudes toward controversial issues in advertising. The study validates the scale in an Arab non-Western context. The results revealed that Egyptian consumers have negative attitudes toward ethical issues in advertising. There are significant differences between males’ and females’ perceptions of ethics in advertising. Finally, the study detects a significant difference between Muslims and non-Muslims in Egypt regarding their attitudes toward ethical issues in advertising. These results lend strong support to the adaptation hypothesis and suggest that ads produced in one country cannot be standardized or directly translated for use in another, particularly if they are different culturally.     

Assessing the Effects of Leadership Styles on Employees’ Outcomes in International Luxury Hotels

This study examines the effects of transformational, transactional, and non-transactional leadership on hotel employees’ outcomes including extra effort, perceived efficiency, and satisfaction with managers. Employees from eleven 4-star hotels in Spain provided the collected data. A series of statistical analyses (1) identify the elements of three leadership styles using a multi-factor leadership questionnaire (MLQ-5X); (2) examine the effect of leadership styles on employees’ outcomes. The results of this study indicate that “idealized attributes” of transformational leadership and “contingent reward” from transactional leadership are the most important factors that positively affect all three outcomes (i.e., extra effort, perceived efficiency, and satisfaction); and (3) to assess the moderating effect of different types of ownership of hotel properties on the relationship between styles of leadership and outcomes of employees’ activities other than these two elements, the significant factors indicating positive or negative relationships vary depending on the types of individual outcomes as well as ownership of hotel properties. The discussion sections indicate theoretical and practical implications of the findings.     

The Influence of Christian Identity on SME Owner–Managers’ Conceptualisations of Business Practice

This paper reports on the findings of a qualitative study to understand how active adherence to the Christian faith influences the way SME owner–managers conceptualise their business practices. The study was based on in-depth interviews with 21 Christian SME owner–managers in Germany and the UK. Using a socio-psychological approach, the data analysis yielded a range of linguistic and conceptual resources that are peculiar to Christian discourse and that have the potential to influence business activity in rather distinctive ways. This paper particularly focuses on those Christian concepts that could be regarded as distinct ‹frames’ for action. It outlines what effect these concepts had on the respondents and how they were related to business practices. The paper also discusses how this study could inform further research into the influence of other socio-cultural forms of identity on economic actors’ conceptualisations of their own practice.     

Comment on “Speculations on the Future of Advertising Research”

Abstract

David Stewart's “Speculations…” are based on the existence of a crisis in advertising. This comment takes a contrary position, premised on the derived and cyclical nature of advertising demand.     

The Effects of Management’s Preannouncement Strategies on Investors’ Judgments of the Trustworthiness of Management

This paper examines the role of management’s earnings preannouncements on judgments about its trustworthiness by nonprofessional investors. We predict that management’s preannouncement decision and the resulting direction (e.g., favorable vs. unfavorable) of the earnings surprise influence investors’ ethical judgments about management’s trustworthiness; these judgments, in turn, are associated with investors’ other investment related judgments. We test our predictions in an experiment in which MBA students make investment-related judgments under four different preannouncement strategies. Consistent with our predictions, the results of our study show that managers’ preannouncement decisions are significantly associated with investors’ evaluations of management’s trustworthiness. Specifically, holding the size of the earnings surprise constant, we find that judgments of management’s trustworthiness are damaged more following (a) a negative as opposed to a positive earnings surprise, and (b) the release of a preannouncement compared to when management does not issue a preannouncement. Also consistent with our predictions, we find that evaluations of management’s trustworthiness are significantly and positively associated with judgments of the attractiveness of the firm’s equity as an investment. Based on our findings, we encourage further research to explore whether managers understand the trust implications associated with their preannouncement decisions and the extent to which this understanding influences their disclosure decisions. Anna M. Cianci is an Assistant Professor in the Accounting Department at Drexel University. She received her Ph.D. from Duke University in Accounting. Her primary research interests are judgement and decision making issues in financial accounting and auditing. Steve Kaplan is a Professor of Accounting at Arizona State University, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1981. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois. He␣has published widely in journals such as The Accounting Review, Journal of Accounting Research, Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Business Ethics Quarterly and Journal of Business Ethics. He is the Previous editor of Behavioral Research in Accounting, a section journal of the American Accounting Association. His primary research interests are behavioral issues, judgment and decision making, and ethics     

Effect of Consumption Values on Women’s Choice Behavior Toward Organic Foods: The Case of Organic Yogurt in Iran

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of consumption values (i.e., functional value, social value, emotional value, conditional value, epistemic value, environmental value, and health value) on women’s choice behavior toward organic yogurt. Structural equation modeling is used to assess data collected by a questionnaire survey. The results indicate that functional value–quality, functional value–taste, and functional value–price; conditional value; epistemic value; and health value have positive effects on choosing organic yogurt by women, and social value, emotional value, and environmental value have no effects on the subject. Among variables, epistemic value and health value have the highest impact on consumer choice behavior toward organic yogurt. So this study concludes that the main influence factors on choice behavior regarding organic yogurt are epistemic value and health value. In fact, consumers have high knowledge about organic yogurt benefits related to their health.     

The Influence of an Organisation’s Corporate Values on Employees Personal Buying Behaviour

This article explores the influence that an organisation’s corporate values have on employees’ behaviour and values both within and outside the work environment. In particular, it focuses on the impact of these values on the personal buying behaviour of employees. The empirical research was undertaken within a case study organisation that produces wine in Spain and involved interviews with senior management, an analysis of company documentation, as well as group discussions with employees supported by an employee survey. The article argues that an organisation’s corporate values influence not only its employees’ behaviour within the work environment, but also impacts on their global values system outside of the work environment. In particular, this was evident within the employees’ buying behaviour practices in relation to supplier loyalty and environmental concern. This has implications for business ethics as an organisation’s value system may go beyond the purely business context. Organisations need to be aware of their impact on employees’ behaviour outside of the work environment; this is particularly the case for multinational companies working across many cultures.