The impact of corrective advertising upon consumers' attitudes,beliefs, and behavior

Laboratory experiments regarding the effectiveness of corrective advertising have produced mixed and somewhat inconsistent results. These findings, as well as previous conceptual contributions to the literature, are reviewed and briefly discussed. An alternate basis upon which to predict the impact of corrective advertising on consumers is proposed and supporting literature from social psychology is reviewed. The authors conclude that corrective advertising is not likely to achieve the goals of FTC policy makers.     

Is conventional debriefing adequate? An ethical issue in consumer research

Issues relating to ethics are infrequently addressed in the marketing literature. One area in which there might be ethical concerns is debriefing. In an experiment, when false information is provided by the researcher to subjects, those false beliefs can persist despite conventional debriefing. The persistence of false beliefs has ethical implications, of which consumer researchers should be aware. Anexplicit debriefing involving a formal discussion of the belief perseverance phenomenon is proposed as an alternative to conventional approaches. This is tested in three separate studies, including a partial replication of Ross, Lepper, and Hubbard (1975) as well as two extensions to marketing situations. Implications for corrective advertising are also discussed.     

Humor in advertising: A behavioral perspective

Humorous appeals are used extensively in television, radio, and print advertising. This article examines the effectiveness of humor in accomplishing specific communications and sales objectives. A brief review of the literature on humorous advertising research is presented. The author argues that previous unsuccessful applications of light-hearted messages are attributable, in part, to our incomplete knowledge of how consumers process humorously conveyed information. The discussion focuses on the importance of recognizing and managing variables which mediate the impact of humor on audience response and on the need for further development and testing of behavioral theory as keys to the effective utilization of humor in advertising. The author wishes to thank Dr. Phillip D. White for his helpful comments and critical review of an earlier draft of this paper.     

Empirical research in selective communications

Selective communications are messages designed to be perceived differently by members of different market segments. This paper summarizes the results of an empirical study which suggests that codes may be highly effective selective messages which are perceived by interested consumers and not by others.     

Does advertising create sustained firm value? The capitalization of brand intangible

This research inquires into the nature and degree of advertising effects on firm intangible values. Based on marketing research on consumer based brand equity, this paper challenges the prevailing decaying assumption employed in the accounting/finance disciplines to model the advertising-firm value relationship. Meanwhile, using financial data and methods, we provide new measures for the marketing discipline to evaluate the effectiveness of advertising to create brand intangible. Results indicate that advertising effects on firm intangible assets are sustainable and accumulative and support the asset/investment-like characteristics of advertising expenditures. The research provides an empirical method to assess long-term advertising performance and suggests firms’ varying effectiveness in creating brand equity through advertising. This study is the first to report negative persistence effects of advertising to firm intangible values.

广告经济学的实证研究述评

本文在回顾相关文献的基础上,从广告投入与销售量、广告投入与品牌忠诚度和市场份额的稳定性以及广告投入的规模经济性三个方面对广告的经验研究进行了评述,认为目前广告经验研究的不足在于研究的对象上缺乏厂商层面的经验研究,以及对于广告的内生化处理方面存在缺陷。     

Claim recall and irritation in television commercials: An advertising effectiveness study

The purpose of this research was to measure the relationship between advertising effectiveness and the levels of irritation possessed by the advertisements. A set of television commercials was first assigned to an empirically-derived irritation continuum. Subjects were exposed to the commercials and claim-recall measures were taken immediately after exposure and 48 hours later. Results indicate that both highly irritating and relatively pleasant advertising messages generated higher claim recall than did advertising which was neutral in this dimension. Acknowledgements: The author would like to thank Professor Edwin C. Hackleman for his guidance and assistance in the preparation of this paper.     

Confidence interval for the total advertising impact and its mean duration under Koyck models

The estimates of total advertising impact and of its mean duration in distributed lag models are important in budgeting and planning decisions. The typical approach to assessing the short and long term impact of advertising is to perform a sequential test, one on the short term coefficient and one on the lag parameter. However, estimate of the effect of advertising on sales involves the ratio of estimated regression parameters. The estimates of these parameters are known to be correlated. Generation of confidence intervals on such key estimates is possible, using information that is typically discarded. This paper develops and illustrates a method for developing these confidence intervals which specifically accounts for the correlation between the standard regression estimates. Examples are used to illustrate that the conclusion from standard sequential testing procedures can be erroneous. An empirical application then demonstrates the application of the suggested procedure. Finally, we provide insights on the length of this interval as the sample size and other characteristics are varied.     

This ad’s for you: the indirect effect of advertising perceptions on salesperson effort and performance

Considerable research explores advertising’s role in influencing consumer perceptions and behavior. However, advertising’s impact on another key audience—the sales force—has been largely overlooked. Drawing from social identity and expectancy theories, and using survey and objective performance data across multiple wholesalers, the authors demonstrate that a salesperson’s perception of brand advertising has a significant effect on salesperson effort and performance by positively influencing the extent to which the salesperson identifies with the brand and his or her expectancy that such effort will generate results. These effects are moderated by internal communications and brand size. Model results suggest that advertising’s role may extend beyond “pull” to “push” by motivating salespeople to exert more effort on behalf of a brand. As a result, firms should take steps to proactively manage salesperson perceptions of brand advertising while also considering this dual role when assessing advertising effectiveness and efficiency.     

Consumer response to advertisements for legal services: An empirial analysis

In the near future, advertisement of professional services will become a reality. This is especially true of the legal profession. On June, 27, 1977, in a historic though confusing decision, the Supreme Court lifted a ban on the advertising of legal fees and routine services. While several theoretical arguments may be advanced favoring professional advertising, there is a scarity of empirical studies supporting these claims. This study represents one modest attempt to rectify this lack of empirical research regarding the impact of advertising upon the demand for legal services.     

Activation of country stereotypes: automaticity, consonance, and impact

Country-of-origin (COO) research typically regards COO cue usage as a conscious and controlled process dependent on consumers’ intention to use COO information. However, emerging evidence indicates that country stereotypes can affect consumers’ brand evaluations regardless of intention. In three complementary experiments, this study investigates how the mere presence of country cues can trigger different kinds of country stereotypes (functional vs. emotional) which subsequently automatically influence consumers’ cognitive and affective brand evaluations as well as brand-related behavior. Findings confirm the automatic influence of country stereotypes and suggest that brand evaluations and brand-related behavior are enhanced when the underlying country stereotype matches the advertising execution format. On the other hand, mismatches can result in adverse effects. A follow-up study further reveals that cognitive and affective brand evaluations mediate COO effects on brand-related behavior. Theoretical and managerial implications of the findings are considered and future research directions identified.     

Cross-cultural research in advertising: An assessment of methodologies

The volume of scholarly work in cross-cultural advertising has been increasing in recent years. This study examines empirical studies in this area from a methodological perspective. Cross-cultural research designs should include many critical facets that do not surface in studies involving single cultures. These facets are discussed within the context of cross-cultural advertising literature. It is apparent from this review that a sharper focus on cross-cultural research tools and considerations can strengthen studies of advertising, lead to more robust results, and increase validity and reliability. Both students and practitioners need meaningful and generalizable findings that will emerge only when strict methodological considerations are adhered to. His articles have appeared in theJournal of Marketing, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and others. His areas of interest include global new product development, entrepreneurship, and exporting.     

The effectiveness of publicity versus advertising: a meta-analytic investigation of its moderators

This study provides an answer to the question whether and under which conditions publicity is more or less effective than advertising. Advertising refers to paid communication that identifies the message sponsor, whereas publicity is communication that secures editorial space in media for promotion purposes and does not have an identifiable sponsor. The primary advantage of advertising over publicity is the sponsor’s control over message content; its disadvantages are audience skepticism and lack of credibility. We investigate this trade-off between credibility effects and effects of recipients’ processing and evaluation of message content. Results of a meta-analytic structural equation model show that the positive credibility effect of publicity is on average about three times as strong as the information evaluation effect, supporting the overall superiority of publicity over advertising. This effect, however, is moderated by prior knowledge and only holds for products about which recipients lack prior knowledge. The effects change for known products when advertising becomes superior. The effectiveness of publicity depends on further moderating variables. In particular, academic studies tend to underestimate the true effects of publicity over advertising due to experimental manipulations. Campaigns that combine publicity and advertising weaken the effects of publicity, whereas advertorials (i.e., advertisements disguised as editorial material) are more effective, since they combine the advantages of both publicity and advertising. The results have theoretical and practical implications.     

Effects of appeal type and involvement on product disconfirmation: A cognitive response approach through product trial

Research on consumer cognitive response has focused primarily on the issue of persuasiveness of advertising communications. Involvement states have been frequently proposed as mediators of cognitive responses. This article proposes extending cognitive responses and their interaction with involvement to the measurement of disconfirmation resulting from a product trial experience which is designed to be inconsistent with prior expectations derived from advertising exposure. Such expectations are manipulated by varying levels of exaggeration in one and two-sided advertisements. High and low involvement with the response task is also introduced, and hypotheses are presented as to the effects of involvement, exaggeration, and two-sided presentations on disconfirmation and cognitive responses. The findings suggest that exaggeration increases disconfirmation and counterar gumentation, especially in high involvement conditions, and that two-sided refutational ads tend to moderate these effects. More broadly, the article suggests that examination of cognitive responses should be extended beyound evaluation of advertising stimuli and should be used to evaluate the post-trial experience.     

An efficient 0–1 integer programming algorithm for advertising media selection

Advertising is one of the important instruments in the success and continued growth of a product. Total expenditures for advertising in the United States may run into many billions of dollars. In this paper, an efficient algorithm for allocating scarce advertising resources is developed. The advertising media selection problem is formulated in terms of a 0–1 integer programming problem. An iterative solution procedure for this formulation is presented. A simple numerical example which illustrates the steps of the algorithm is also presented. The algorithm can generate efficient solutions to large media selection problems with relative computational ease, and may be of practical significance to decision makers.     

Sponsorship effect metric: assessing the financial value of sponsoring by comparisons to television advertising

Since sponsoring is an increasingly important marketing communication medium, it is important for managers to know whether their sponsorships are giving a good financial return relative to other communication alternatives. Although several “rules of thumb” are commonly used in the industry for converting sponsorship exposure time into television advertising equivalent values, this research is the first to empirically test them by means of two experiments employing realistic stimuli and representative samples. Across 6 stimuli brands, study 1 finds that an average of 127 s of sponsor logo exposure achieves the same effects as a 30 s TV ad, but variance around this figure is high and depends on a variety of factors such as communication goal, sponsor fit, type of exposure, and whether the sponsor is a known brand. Study 2 finds that combining sponsoring with television advertising does increase the effects of sponsoring, although effects vary widely depending on the context, but even in the best case the increase is not supportive of the high levels of advertising suggested by many industry experts. Overall, the findings will allow managers to more confidently assess the financial value of their sponsorship investments.     

Do disclosure attempts influence claim believability and perceived advertiser credibility?

Comparative messages, two-sided messages, and messages containing product performance test results represent several methods by which advertisers may attempt to provide greater amounts of information to buyers. The use of one or more of these methods may have positive or negative influence on several dimensions of advertisement effectiveness. The purpose of the factorial-designed laboratory study reported here was to explore the effects on these information disclosure attempts in print advertisements on a reader's confidence in product claims and on his or her perceived credibility of the advertiser.     

基于层次分析法的互联网金融中小企业信用评价体系构建

对中小企业在互联网金融中的指标设计现状进行分析和研究,利用层次分析法构造中小企业在互联网金融中的信用指标,并利用Q品牌网络直营专卖店数据进行验证,结果表明该评价体系具有可行性。这为解决目前互联网金融中小企业信用评价提供一种思路,也为政府对互联网金融中小企业信用管理和控制提供理论依据。     

An exploration of rule configuration effects on the ethical decision processes of advertising professionals

This study explores the ethical perceptions of advertising professionals regarding two child-oriented television advertising issues: deceptive messages and host selling. Differences in ethical evaluative and decision processes are investigated for both issues, using two evaluative rules. The results indicate that variations in advertisers’ ethical judgments and ethical intentions are affected by the type of rule(s) used during the evaluative process, and by the degree to which the rules are embraced. The article concludes with recommendations for advertising management and implications for future research. She graduated with honors in 1989 from Mississippi State University with a D.B.A. in marketing. She has practical experience in marketing research and her research interests are ethics and social responsibility, and professional services marketing. He received his Ph.D. in marketing from Michigan State University in 1980. He is the coauthor of two books on business ethics and has contributed numerous articles on ethics to various academic and applied business journals. He received his D.B.A. in marketing from Louisiana State University in 1969. He has coauthored two books on business ethics and has published articles on ethics in marketing journals. He is a frequent lecturer on business ethics. She graduated in 1990 from Mississippi State University with a D.B.A. in management. Her research interests are business ethics and student ethics, and corporate social responsibility.     

Does advertising spending really work? The intermediate role of analysts in the impact of advertising on firm value

Both managers and investors are increasingly concerned with the impact of advertising spending on shareholder returns. This study investigates the analyst-based processes by which advertising may create firm value. Using a large longitudinal dataset with 1,052 firms over 20 years, we find that firms decreasing from the top 20% to the bottom 20% of advertising spending group when compared to all industry competitors would experience a drop of abnormal return by 4.08% in 1 year and a cumulative total of 81.6% in 20 years. Also, analyst activities partially mediate the impact of advertising on firm return and risk. These findings indicate that analysts may act to externally validate the business logic underlying the advertising expense. The more analysts factor in firm advertising spending and reflect it in their earnings forecasts, the more likely the benefits of advertising are channeled into firm value. The results bridge research interests across marketing, accounting, and finance disciplines and help managers understand how product and financial markets are united. Main Street could better align with Wall Street via corporate disclosure of advertising spending to equity analysts.