Qualitative Research in Advertising

In spite of the rise of big data and the ease with which online experiments and surveys may be conducted, there is more need than ever for qualitative advertising research. This review considers both the methods and findings of such research. It focuses on the role of qualitative analyses in revealing how ads are “read” by consumers. Methodological approaches considered include observation, depth interviews, projective methods, focus groups, netnography, and videography. Theoretical approaches reviewed include semiotics, reader response, and co-optation theory. Because cultural analyses are a strength of qualitative research, global and cross-cultural advertising research is also examined. The article concludes with an evaluation of the ways in which qualitative advertising research can be combined with data analytics to produce richer and more complete understandings of consumer behavior in response to advertising.     

论广告风格

广告风格是一个品牌独特的特征和标志,是广告创作的一个重要部分,也是一个长期被业界、学术界忽视的课题。什么是广告风格?它怎样分类?如何确立广告风格?应当确立什么样的广告风格?广告风格对于广告的意义体现在哪里?本文将在对国内外经典广告案例进行综合分析的基础上,回答以上问题,并对当今存在的广告风格相关问题进行讨论。     

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.     

Advertising and Alcohol Demand in the UK: Further Results

Johnson (1985) presents a system-wide analysis on the effects of advertising on the demand for beer, wine and spirits in the UK. However, his results are not consistent with other studies in the area. This paper shows that his results can be improved by using a different demand equation for the alcoholic beverages group. Furthermore, this paper also considers the analysis of treating advertising as a stock rather than a flow. This analysis reveals that advertising on beer, wine and spirits depreciates in consumers' minds fully within a year.     

Product Placement: The UK and the New Rules

This article considers product placement as an advertising vehicle. The topic has been the subject of debate, consultation and policy making in the United Kingdom for several years, both as a matter of principle and as a requirement of EU Directive implementation. Product placement had been banned since 1954. It is now legal but limited. The article begins with a brief, historical and transatlantic view of this promotional activity. Despite resolute government statements about preserving the ban, the same administration later reversed its view. It is suggested that the change is not to obtain commercial advantage, but to avoid commercial disadvantage. It is submitted that despite the uproar these changes caused, they will only marginally affect audiences and revenues and that they amount to a reversal rather than a revolution.     

Advertising in the Professions

The issue of self-promotional advertising has been under active consideration by most of the professional bodies in the UK, and, generally, the reaction has been hostile. From a position where advertising was anathema to the professional, however, the rising tide of consumerism on the one side and government dedication to free competition on the other have weakened the professions' protective barriers. This review of the literature on regulation and de-regulation of advertising draws on studies which have relevance to, or have been concerned with, the professions of medicine, law and accountancy. The study begins with a brief section on how advertising might work and its relevance to the professions. There is then a discussion of the studies, mainly from the USA, which have looked at individual advertising in the professions and attempts at blanket suppression of advertising. A wide range of studies are cited which have been used either by those who oppose professional advertising or by those who support it. The former group is generally made up of studies from professional groups themselves. By contrast, there is a growing body of evidence showing that, with the de-regulation of advertising in the professions in the USA far from this increasing the prices of goods, as was assumed previously, the absence of advertising actually increases the price of goods above the levels that prevail where advertising is allowed. The final section considers a number of recent attitudinal studies of both professionals and consumers.     

Aspects of visual metaphor: an operational typology of visual rhetoric for research in advertising

Metaphor is routinely expressed through pictures in contemporary advertising. Earlier work on visual rhetoric in advertising sought direct analogues for the tropes and schemes specific to verbal rhetoric. More recently, theory has developed out of characteristics particular to pictures, culminating in a typology of visual rhetoric by Phillips and McQuarrie. Subsequent work by ?orm and Steen considers processing stages in metaphorical interpretation. Phillips and McQuarrie's typology is adapted and expanded here in order to better describe the variation found in ads that utilize visual metaphor and its allies, thus identifying a range of examples that confound the original. A new processing model that directly addresses visual features described in the expanded typology is outlined, which builds on ideas from ?orm and Steen, but represents a distinct framework. Additional variables are identified that advertising researchers should either investigate or control in experimental studies of visual metaphor.     

The Impact of Price Advertising: The California Eyewear Market After One Year

Recent judicial decisions and regulatory actions have reversed advertising restrictions enforced in the professions. This study examined the degree to which such regulatory reform has in its first year resulted in increased advertising competition among California eyewear practitioners. It also analyzed price differences between advertising and nonadvertising ophthalmologists, optometrists, and opticians. The study found that while relatively few practitioners engaged in advertising, those that did charged 17 percent less than nonadvertisers.     

The Advertising–price Relationship: Theory and Evidence

The relationship between advertising and price is important because the welfare effect of advertising depends upon the price effect of advertising. We attempt to provide a better understanding of the theoretical relationship between advertising and price. We establish theoretical conditions sufficient for advertising to raise prices. This will occur, for example, when firms play a supermodular game – a structure that considers the type of advertising (i.e., persuasive, image creating, or informative) and the effect that advertising has on a firm’s demand and costs. We also compare results from two simple duopoly models, one with horizontal and the other with vertical differentiation, and find that only the model with horizontal differentiation is supermodular for the forms of advertising that are thought to raise price (e.g., persuasive advertising). In consideration of these theoretical issues, we then develop an empirical model to determine whether advertising raises prices in the US brewing and cigarette industries.     

Ad scepticism and retouch-free disclaimers: Are they worth it?

Abstract

The present study analyses the impact of ad scepticism on the way consumers perceive advertising and process its effects, and considers the influence of ad disclaimers. We conduct an experiment that explores three different contexts, namely (1) the total absence of ad disclaimers, (2) the presence of a retouch-free disclaimer and (3) the presence of a retouched disclaimer. By showing how ad scepticism fits in the advertising attitudinal approach, and how new digital developments affect consumers’ processing of advertisements, the results of this experiment can contribute to the marketing literature and clarify relevant topics for practitioners. This paper shows the significant influence played by ad believability and attitude towards the ad on behavioural intentions. This underlines, particularly for marketing practitioners, the importance of an ad’s believability and the credibility of its claims in the sales outcome. Most importantly, the framework offered by this paper shifts the attention towards the believability of advertising disclaimers aimed at clarifying the use of digitally enhanced images.     

Response to advertising on online social networks: the role of social capital

The objective of this study is to analyse the marketing value obtained from developing and maintaining social relationships through online social networks (OSNs). We propose and test a structural model that considers a number of antecedents to response to advertising, namely social capital, social status and sociability. Data was gathered through the administration of a structured online questionnaire to a sample of 274 OSN users. Results show that social capital derived from participating in OSNs has a positive impact on social status and sociability; in turn this has a positive impact in response to advertising. This study advances theory by analysing the impact of bonding and bridging social capital on both social status and sociability. Additionally, it examines the impact of both of these constructs on response to advertising. The confirmation of the significance of social capital gained through participation in OSNs and its impact on response to ads provides support for the notion that the relationally oriented and marketing‐oriented management of OSNs are compatible. These findings are of great relevance for the appropriate management of company presence on OSNs.     

An Empirical Model of Advertising Dynamics

This paper develops a model of dynamic advertising competition, and applies it to the problem of optimal advertising scheduling through time. In many industries we observe advertising “pulsing”, whereby firms systematically switch advertising on and off at a high-frequency. Hence, we observe periods of zero and non-zero advertising, as opposed to a steady level of positive advertising. Previous research has rationalized pulsing through two features of the sale response function: an S-shaped response to advertising, and long-run effects of current advertising on demand. Despite considerable evidence for advertising carry-over, existing evidence for non-convexities in the shape of the sales-response to advertising has been limited and, often, mixed. We show how both features can be included in a discrete choice based demand system and estimated using a simple partial maximum likelihood estimator. The demand estimates are then taken to the supply side, where we simulate the outcome of a dynamic game using the Markov perfect equilibrium (MPE) concept. Our objective is not to test for the specific game generating observed advertising levels. Rather, we wish to verify whether the use of pulsing (on and off) can be justified as an equilibrium advertising practice. We solve for the equilibrium using numerical dynamic programming methods. The flexibility provided by the numerical solution method allows us to improve on the existing literature, which typically considers only two competitors, and places strong restrictions on the demand models for which the supply side policies can be obtained. We estimate the demand model using data from the Frozen Entree product category. We find evidence for a threshold effect, which is qualitatively similar to the aforementioned S-shaped advertising response. We also show that the threshold is robust to functional form assumptions for the marginal impact of advertising on demand. Our estimates, which are obtained without imposing any supply side restrictions, imply that firms should indeed pulse in equilibrium. Predicted advertising in the MPE is higher, on average, than observed advertising. On average, the optimal advertising policies yield a moderate profit improvement over the profits under observed advertising.JEL Classification: L11, L66, M30 M37 R12     

Women “in motion”: the kinaesthetic viewing experience in Chinese viral advertising films

ABSTRACT

Visual imagery provides aesthetic experiences for viewers, and viral advertising films address viewers’ experience of movement which has not been analysed. Developing visual analyses, this study uses phenomenological approaches and the concept of kinaesthetic empathy, defined as the ability of viewers to react to movements, also in film. It considers Chinese Wei movies (“microfilms” or viral advertising films) with reference to examples by Audi and Swarovski as representatives of China's post-socialist marketing culture. Women in these films are presented as “in motion,” yet still are often delimited by traditional gender stereotypes. These films are potentially ambivalent ideological carriers that encourage women to reinvent themselves through consumption within traditional gender roles but may also suggest the pursuit of different experiences as movement is abstract, transitory and cannot be commodified.     

Association Ambiguity in Brand Extension

A research method is developed to effectively identify associations that significantly influence the perceived fit of brand extensions. Contrary to extant brand extension studies that mainly focus on the fit of associations, the current study considers the ambiguity of associations. The proposed measure of association ambiguity, defined as the level of uncertainty based on the perceived conflict of a particular association in a brand extension indicated by the similarity and intensity level of perceived association distance to the parent brand and extension category, was tested and validated using several brand extension cases. Identifying an association's level of ambiguity and the magnitude of its impact on the perceived fit will allow advertisers to adjust their advertising messages and increase consumer receptiveness toward brand extensions. Implications for advertising practitioners and future research are discussed.     

Incorporating long-term effects in determining the effectiveness of different types of online advertising

Although online advertising has become a full member of the marketing mix and is still growing in importance, studies of long-term, or lagged, advertising effects have generally either neglected online advertising channels or have treated online advertising as one homogeneous block. We analyze the short- and long-term effectiveness of different types of online advertising channels by incorporating separate time lags for each advertising channel. We look at the sales effect of email, banner, and price comparison advertising (PCA) using a sample of 2.8 million purchases and more than 1.1 million individual costumers aggregated to 365 days. Our analysis shows that email advertising has the longest effect, followed by banner advertising and PCA. We find that the length of the effect does not always go hand in hand with its intensity since, for example, banner advertising lasts longer than PCA but performs worse in terms of actual sales. This research yields important insights for theory and practice since it shows how to model long-term advertising effects and provides meaningful insights for improving the allocation of advertising budgets.     

The Style Is the Ad

Advertising, written in the language of a movie, a celebrity, a profession or any familiar style transferred from another context, can be created more easily and can communicate more effectively than advertising written in usual advertising style. Transferred advertising style communicates on two levels at once with the impact of poetic metaphor and the immediacy of a sign. It is a cool medium with a separate meaning of its own, which, when properly handled, can engage the audience and enrich the sales message.

Ads written in a style transferred from another context are potentially easier to write and richer in meaning than conventional ads.     

环境媒体广告——户外广告创意新思路

环境媒体广告强调媒体特点是广告设计和传播的重要参与因素,它是户外广告创意的一种全新方法。本文通过研究环境媒体广告的概念和特点,探究如何运用环境媒体广告的新思路、新方法。     

刍议上海金融广告的媒介策略

金融广告在未来广告产业发展中,将日益突显出其作为新的投放增长点的趋势。然而作为广告产业发展的新领域,为避免其在发展过程中少走弯路,尝试以上海金融广告市场为例,分析目前金融广告投放的主要问题,提出未来发展的策略建议。     

The impact of online display advertising and paid search advertising relative to offline advertising on firm performance and firm value

This research examines the impact of online display advertising and paid search advertising relative to offline advertising on firm performance and firm value. Using proprietary data on annualized advertising expenditures for 1651 firms spanning seven years, we document that both display advertising and paid search advertising exhibit positive effects on firm performance (measured by sales) and firm value (measured by Tobin's q). Paid search advertising has a more positive effect on sales than offline advertising, consistent with paid search being closest to the actual purchase decision and having enhanced targeting abilities. Display advertising exhibits a relatively more positive effect on Tobin's q than offline advertising, consistent with its long-term effects. The findings suggest heterogeneous economic benefits across different types of advertising, with direct implications for managers in analyzing advertising effectiveness and external stakeholders in assessing firm performance.     

Responsibility and Brand Advertising in the Alcoholic Beverage Market: The Modeling of Normative Drinking Behavior

This review compares alcoholic beverage advertising, responsibility advertising, and media advocacy; considers their actual and desired impacts; describes and evaluates the controversy surrounding industry-sponsored responsibility campaigns; and identifies a number of issues that would benefit from additional research. Results indicate that alcoholic beverage advertising does not exert a material influence on total consumption or abuse, but models normative drinking behavior, and thus may actually inhibit alcohol misuse. Industry-sponsored responsibility efforts, like those sponsored by government and nonprofits, appear to affect desired changes, are perceived to be similar to government and nonprofit efforts, model desired drinking behaviors, and may be more effective with heavier drinkers.