The effectiveness of advertising appeals: A culturally-derived power perspective

Based on the perspective of culturally-derived power, we explore the influence of advertising appeals on attitudes towards advertisement, as well as their psychological mechanisms and boundary conditions through three experiments. The results indicate that individuals primed with personalized (vs. socialized) power have a better advertising attitude towards self-benefiting (vs. other-benefiting) appeal advertising via processing fluency. In addition, we find that consumption situations moderate the interaction effect between culturally-derived power and advertising appeals on advertising attitudes. The research findings enrich the theoretical research on advertising appeals and provide practical implications for companies to improve the effectiveness of their advertisements.     

Storytelling,the scale of persuasion and retention: A neuromarketing approach

Persuasive storytelling is an essential tool for propagandists, publicists, and corporations. In this research, storytelling styles have been examined for their effectiveness in terms of attitude change and retention. Two groups of respondents were asked to read two short, fictional texts about a chosen corporation’s positive action toward the environment. One story was written using words from the Micro-WNOp corpus to elicit positive emotions (Story 1), while the other was written with a more cognitive approach (Story 2). Biometrics data, eye tracking, facial expression analysis, and galvanic skin responses (GSR) were recorded while respondents read the texts. Heat maps and area of interest analysis show that although the affective story was faster and more effective at changing respondents’ attitudes, the cognitive approach resulted in longer-lasting attitudinal change. As such, affective stories may lead to more immediate shifts in attitude, but cognitive stories result in deeper elaboration and subsequently better retention.     

A comparative analysis of advertising characteristics,strategy, style and form in global and national brand advertising

This paper considers the differences and similarities between national brand and global brand advertising through the use of three analytical frameworks – creative strategies, advertising styles and advertising form. It seeks to identify any differences between national and global brand advertising in terms of creative strategy, advertising style and advertising form. The structural elements of advertisements, such as the length of a commercial, number of camera shots and number or type of characters present, are also examined for a total of 551 television advertisements. A number of significant differences between the advertising of global and national brands have been recorded. In addition, the study identifies a discriminant function, which successfully predicts the advertising strategies, styles and formats for global brands.     

When luxury advertising adds the identitary values of luxury: A semiotic analysis

The majority of researches on luxury focus on the behaviour and opinions of consumers and let drop the important role that advertising produces on them, as is done in this work and shown with a relational model. In addition to their commercial message, some remarkable and artistic advertisings convey the identitary values of luxury (IVL) characterizing luxury parent Houses. We list and analyze these IVL: craft production, raw materials, respect of craftsmen, their knowledge, know-how, gestures and traits of artistic genius. A semiotic and rhetoric analysis of two selected advertisings (Louis Vuitton, Hermès) allow to identify the semic richness of discursive content of symbolic images and identitary narratives of each luxury brand (“griffe”), revealing the implicit IVL. We conclude that strength and power of major luxury Houses lie in the global coherence they apply everywhere (creation, products, narratives and advertisings), reinforcing their brand image and attracting more loyal consumers.     

Marketing avatars revisited: A commentary on facial recognition and embodied representations in consumer profiling

In this Executive Digest, we review and extend our original Business Horizons article (May 2013) addressing marketing avatars (i.e., mavatars ¹): digital embodied, biometric profiles. In the original article we offered our marketing avatar framework, which classified existing and predicted types of mavatar applications according to data collection and application domains. However, because of the quick pace of change in this domain, we must review newly introduced mavatar applications that complete the original framework. These new applications—as well as industry and regulatory actions—paint a picture of where and how mavatars will be used, and where opportunities exist for application development. For that reason, we discuss current applications and additional predictions for future use.     

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.     

A comparison of parents' and children's knowledge of brands and advertising slogans in the United States: implications for consumer socialization

Research in the area of consumer socialization suggests that parents act in an agent–learner relationship with their preadolescent children and have the greatest influence on their young children's purchase behaviour. The present study examines this assumption in light of changes in family roles and composition, media exposure and marketing efforts aimed at children. A cognitive recognition test of advertising slogans drawn from recent television commercials is used to determine knowledge levels of a sample of preadolescent children and their parents. Results suggest that children, beginning at age nine, have as much knowledge of advertising slogans as do their parents, even in product categories targeted at adults.     

Social commerce advertising avoidance and shopping cart abandonment: A fs/QCA analysis of German consumers

In recent years, due to the extensive use of social media advertisement and the development of social commerce tools, scholars and practitioners pay more attention to interaction with the digital channel, shopping intention, satisfaction, and retention. The objective of this study is to understand the shopping cart abandonment behavior as an outcome condition of ad avoidance on social media platforms. This research takes into consideration of cognitive, affective, and behavioral ad avoidance; alongside its antecedent conditions of perceived goal impediment, perceived add clutter, and prior negative experiences on social media. The research is conducted in Germany and Fuzzy sets/Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fs/QCA) is applied to understand the outcome condition of shopping cart abandonment. The findings imply that ad avoidance can create a learning mechanism for consumers about shopping cart abandonment of a brand or product if interrupted by a futile message or content. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

新中国前30年广告研究的格局及其基本面向——1949-1979年间中国的广告学术论著的历史与分析

当今治中国广告史的研究者，常常以1979年丁允朋在《文汇报》上发表的《为广告正名》一文以及唐忠朴等《实用广告学》一书的出版作为新中国广告学术研究的开端。然而，1949—1978年这段时间中的广告学研究，并非是人们所想象的一片空白。在新中国成立后前30个年头中，广告研究零散地分散在文史研完、商业美术、对外贸易系统等多个领域中．在那个特殊的历史时期的文化政治背景中取得了一些独特的学术成果。如果忽略中国广告学在这三十年间所关照的一些研究主题，我们就无法建立起一个关于二十世纪中国广告学学术史完整的脉络，也无法从根源上理解八十年代广告学研究中的某些时代性主题。     

Comparing advertising effectiveness in South-American and North-American contexts: testing Hofstede's and Inglehart's cultural dimensions in the higher education sector

ABSTRACT

This research compares the effectiveness of advertising and relational marketing in two countries characterized by varying levels of both Hofstede's and Inglehart's cultural dimensions – Peru (high-power distance, high collectivism, survival and traditional values) and Canada (low-power distance, high individualism, self-expression and secular-rational values). Survey data from a high credence service sector (higher education) in both countries is used for the analysis. The results indicate that advertising and relational marketing have direct effects on choice in Peru, but do not have significant direct effects on choice in Canada. Advertising does, however, affect positively perceptual outcome measures (perceived marketing effectiveness) in Canada. Additionally, we find that advertising and relational marketing have an indirect impact on choice and perceived marketing effectiveness through the mediation of perceived informativeness and influencers in both countries. These results point to the need to account for mechanisms and mediating variables when building theoretical frameworks in cross-country studies.     

To smile or not to smile: The role of facial expression valence on mundane and luxury products premiumness

A smile is an essential professional requirement for sales assistant and endorser as a means to give a stunning impression and to please customers. However, luxury brands, engrained as consumption symbols to create social distance, tend to act oppositely: they prefer endorsers and sales assistants in a neutral face rather than a smiley face. The purpose of this study is to investigate how and why facial expressions valence impact luxury product price estimation. A pilot study and three studies were conducted to test the hypotheses. We first test whether neutral faces combined with luxury goods can make the customer feel distant. Then we conducted an imagination task to assess whether the interaction between the facial expressions of sales assistants and product type affects product valuations. Further, we adopted an experiment to explore the proposed mechanism, social distance. The results show that commercial models and sales assistants' neutral facial expressions increase perceived social distance, further enhancing the valuations of luxury goods. In contrast, they estimated mundane products higher when they saw a smiley face than a neutral or a negative face. These findings contribute to the literature on the impact of facial expressions in advertising and services for luxury and mundane products. Our findings have potential implications for brands to manage their images and convey their value through employees’ facial expressions according to brand positioning.     

Humor and cognitive responses to advertising stimuli: A trace consolidation approach

Despite the predictions of several attitude change theories, most empirical research suggests that humorous communications are no more persuasive than their serious counterparts. The present study adopted a trace consolidation theory approach and tested the hypothesis that humorous appeals are more persuasive than serious appeals when time for trace consolidation is allowed. The trace consolidation theory hypothesis was supported most directly by shifts in cognitive responses. On some measures, sex differences were also observed. Specifically, males were found to be more susceptible than females to the humorous persuasive appeal.     

Measuring the road safety performance of Iranian provinces: a double-frontier DEA model and evidential reasoning approach

Abstract

Road traffic accidents are critical public issue in developing countries, and they annually waste a significant amount of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In order to urgently consider how this problem is related to the current policies, a proper safety evaluation of regional programmes in crash reduction is fundamental to the governments. The current research aims to employ a double-frontier Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model to assess the productivity of Iranian regional safety programmes in reducing the number of road fatalities. The safety efficiencies of Iranian provinces are simultaneously estimated using the double frontier DEA to reflect both the optimistic and pessimistic points of view. Then, the Evidential Reasoning (ER) approach is applied to aggregate the obtained efficiency values. These provinces are ranked based on the data panel for 2014–2016. Finally, a double-frontier Malmquist productivity index (MPI) is used to comprehensively measure the safety performance of Iranian roads over a period of time.     

A content analysis of television food advertising to children: comparing low and general‐nutrition food

Television food advertisements targeted at children were content analysed. Data were collected on four major children's cable television channels in the United States aired during the hours of 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. over the period of 23 August to 5 September 2012. Based on the Elaboration Likelihood Model of persuasion, the study identified a variety of persuasive appeals with central and peripheral cues in the child‐targeted food commercials. Further, it investigated how the central and peripheral cues in the appeals were differently associated with low‐nutrition and general‐nutrition food commercials. Overall, the findings showed that general‐nutrition food commercials used persuasive appeals with central cues more frequently than low‐nutrition food commercials. Theoretical, practical and regulatory implications are discussed.     

Modelling driver propensity for traffic accidents: a comparison of multiple regression analysis and fuzzy approach

Abstract

This research proposes an assessment and decision support model to use when a driver should be examined about their propensity for traffic accidents, based on an estimation of the driver’s psychological traits. The proposed model was tested on a sample of 305 drivers. Each participant completed four psychological tests: the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11), the Aggressive Driving Behaviour Questionnaire (ADBQ), the Manchester Driver Attitude Questionnaire (DAQ) and the Questionnaire for Self-assessment of Driving Ability. In addition, participants completed an extensive demographic and driving survey. Various fuzzy inference systems were tested and each was defined using the well-known Wang-Mendel method for rule-base definition based on empirical data. For this purpose, a programming code was designed and utilized. Based on the obtained results, it was determined which combination of the considered psychological tests provides the best prediction of a driver’s propensity for traffic accidents. The best of the considered fuzzy inference systems might be used as a decision support tool in various situations, such as in recruitment procedures for professional drivers. The validity of the proposed fuzzy approach was confirmed as its implementation provided better results than from statistics, in this case multiple regression analysis.     

Measuring the financial and social performance of French mutual funds: A data envelopment analysis approach

Socially responsible investors pursue both financial and non-financial goals. In this paper, we attempt to assess the performance of French socially responsible mutual funds (SRMFs). We consider the data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach, which allows us to assign a unique efficiency score while combining financial and social characteristics, using various combinations within different types of risk (total risk, market risk, and downside risk). We report the list of funds found to be DEA efficient using various output-oriented models. We also compare our obtained results with the traditional and modern measures used in the literature (Sharpe, Treynor, and the information ratio). We contribute to the literature by testing the validity of the DEA methodology in the financial context. The findings have important implications for fund selection processes and would be mainly of interest to investors and fund managers who integrate environmental, social, and governance criteria into their investment choices.     

Customer pre-participatory social media drivers and their influence on attitudinal loyalty within the retail banking industry: A multi-group analysis utilizing social exchange theory

Social media pervades everyday life and firms need to understand what consumer traits antedate participation over these channels. Utilizing social exchange theory (SET), this study seeks to determine what factors precede SET's cost-benefit analysis of social media participation along with these factors' influence on attitudinal loyalty. Important antecedents to this cost-benefit analysis for social media participation are online interaction propensity (OIP), participation attitude and trust. Further, demographic (age, gender, income) and social media page factors (perceived page size and page visit frequency) are identified as potential precursors to customers' cost-benefit analysis towards social media participation. A sample of 482 U.S. banking customers was collected via an online survey. The results found that OIP and trust had direct statistically significant effects on attitudinal loyalty and participation attitude's effect was fully mediated by trust. Age, gender and page visit frequency facets exhibited no differences between groups whilst income (with higher income groups displaying higher levels of loyalty) and page size groups (smaller page sizes demonstrated greater loyalty) demonstrated differing effects on attitudinal loyalty. The study contributes to knowledge and practice by extending particular pre-SET traits in social media to a U.S. retail banking context. The study also furthers academic and managerial capabilities for segmentation analysis' and explicating connections between pre-participatory influences and attitudinal loyalty.     

Qualitative analysis of customer behavior in the retail industry during the COVID-19 pandemic: A word-cloud and sentiment analysis approach

The COVID-19 pandemic caused a paradigm shift in customer behavior within the retail industry. Pandemic-induced restrictions and fear of product scarcity led to a change in purchasing frequency, with customers stockpiling non-perishable products such as basic foods and hygiene items. Media and social networks also played a significant role in fueling panic-buying behavior. Although sales decreased, consumption in all food categories increased due to the closure of restaurants and the need to prepare meals at home. The pandemic had a significant impact on both customers and retailers, resulting in staff reductions and a change in business strategies.To explore how Romanian food retailers’ representatives responded to the COVID-19 pandemic and adjusted to changing consumer behavior, the authors employed a qualitative research approach based on an interview guide. The data collected were analyzed using the statistical software R. In data analysis with R, the choice of functions used depends on various factors, such as the type of data, research questions, and analysis methods. Generally, commonly used functions in R for data analysis include data cleaning and manipulation functions such as subset, merge, and transform, data visualization functions such as ggplot2, and statistical modeling functions such as lm and glm, resulting in world clouds and a sentiment analysis.The results show that to develop effective business strategies, qualitative analysis helps identify the root causes of these changes. Sentiment analysis can reveal how retail chains representatives perceived the safety measures implemented in stores, such as social distancing and mask-wearing mandates, and how these measures affected customers’ shopping behavior. It also sheds light on how customers shopped and whether they planned to continue using these methods post-pandemic. Understanding these insights is crucial for retail companies to adapt their operations and better serve their customers in the post-pandemic world.     

A qualitative analysis of factors associated with user acceptance and rejection of a new workplace information system in the public sector: a conceptual model

This study examines the factors that lead employees to endorse or resist the introduction of a new information system (IS). Findings suggest that attitudes toward adopting IS are related to psychological characteristics of the potential adopters, including, open‐mindedness, self‐efficacy, interest in the information and communication technology, and time remaining before retirement. Also figuring prominently in influencing attitudes are the end‐users' perceptions and expectations with respect to project management, IS quality, IS usefulness, and its effects on organizational positions, work organization, performance, skills, jobs, and worker health. Finally, user attitudes also relate to features of change management practices, including leadership, training, support, recognition, communication, and participation. An integrative conceptual model of IS user adoption is proposed and suggestions for future research are offered. Copyright © 2008 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.