Differential Effects of Chinese Women's Sexual Self-Schema on Responses to Sex Appeal in Advertising

Despite the increased use of sex appeal in advertising, little is known about the influence of individual personality differences on responses to sexual information. This study examines the effects of the “sexual self-schema” personality trait on Chinese women's responses to advertisements using sex appeal. Regardless of the type of sexual information used, attitudes toward these advertisements mediate the effect of sexual self-schema on the purchase intentions of women with lower sexual self-schema while this mediating effect was not observed in women with higher sexual self-schema. The theoretical and practical implications of sex appeal in advertising for Chinese women are discussed.     

Does Sex Sell in a Chinese Society

Sexual appeal was once was regarded as panacea in advertising. Research findings in western countries regarding sexu- ally explicit advertising generally have divergent views-positive and negative advertising effects. Published findings indicate advertise- ments that employ sex appeals are attention-getting and result in better brand recall, while on the contrary, these advertisements are viewed as offensive and creating negative attitudes and behavioural intentions. The use of sex in advertising is a complex issue. The gender of the model, the gender of the receivers, the product adver- tised, the culture background of the market etc. will have an impact on the effectiveness of advertising. The present study focuses on the relationship between sexually explicit advertisements in Hong Kong and the advertising effectiveness, in the form of recall, attitude and purchase intention.     

Regulation of sex discrimination in advertising: An empirical inquiry into the Norwegian case

Norway is one of the few countries in the world which expressly prohibits sex discrimination in advertising. In this article, particular attention is paid to the experiences of the Norwegian Consumer Ombud, and to how advertisements, which have given rise to complaints of sex discrimination, are assessed by both the Ombud itself and the Norwegian population. Article 1.2 of the Norwegian Marketing Control Act, which regulates sex-discriminatory advertising, appears to have had some success. Certain kinds of portrayals of women have disappeared from Norwegian advertisements. There seems, however, to be a disagreement between the Ombud and the general population when it comes to the assessment of whether certain advertisements have a sex-discriminatory content. The Ombud takes a more radical stance than the population at large.     

Impacts of advertisements that are unfriendly to women and men

Taking Belgium as a case in point, this study analyses, first, tolerance for advertisements unfriendly to women and men as expressed by advertising and marketing professionals, consumers and gender equal opportunity workers. Second, it compares which types of unequal gender portrayal raise concerns with which sector of respondents. Finally, it analyses the differences in adherence of the three sectors to the two main policy solution paradigms proposed in the 2008 European Parliament Resolution on ‘How marketing and advertising affect equality between women and men’. Results suggest a degree of tolerance that varies significantly according to sector, language, gender and age. Overall, respondents express more concerns regarding traditional sex roles in advertising than regarding nudity, unattainable beauty standards or gender stereotypes, and prefer gender-and-advertising literacy programmes and awards for advertisements that break through gender stereotypes over stricter ethical and/or legal regulations. These findings should prove useful to advertising and marketing professionals, national advertising regulatory bodies and policy makers.     

A Comparison of Print Advertisements from the United States and France

Abstract

This study extends the research on cross-cultural advertising by comparing print advertisements from the United States and France in terms of emotional appeals, information content, and use of humor and sex. A content analysis of advertisements from two types of magazines from the United States and France revealed that French advertisements make greater use of emotional appeals, humor, and sex appeals. Advertisements from the United States were found to contain more information cues.     

The Role of the Advertising Agency in the Cultural Message Content of Advertisements: A Comparison of the Middle East and the United States

ABSTRACT

This study compared responses of advertising agencies located in the Middle East and the United States to an email survey examining their approach in designing advertisements. The survey examined whether the advertising agency incorporated area-specific cultural values and advertising appeals in the execution of their advertisements. Results indicate that indeed advertising agencies do use, or at least report to use, different cultural values and advertising appeals. Advertising agencies in the Middle East tend to focus more on filial obedience, customs and traditions, loyalty to one's group, honor, and patience. In addition, agencies in the Middle East reported that they tended to portray women in a more modest fashion than their counterparts in the United States.     

An experimental investigation of the Egyptian consumers’ attitudes towards surrealism in advertising

This study investigates Egyptian consumers’ attitudes towards surrealism in advertising held by a sample of 976 participants. An experimental approach was taken to establish the interaction between Surreal advertisements and product category attitudes. This interaction was found to be statistically significant. A 2 × 2 anova was conducted to evaluate the effect of sex on attitudes towards surrealism in advertising. The results indicated a significant interaction between advertisement type and sex. However, the impact of surrealism in advertisements on persuasion, as measured by consumers’ attitudes towards the advertisement and brand, was not found to be moderated by consumers’ social class/income. These results lend strong support to the advertisement adaptation hypothesis and suggest that advertisements produced in one country cannot be standardized or directly translated for use in another, particularly if they are culturally different.     

Hidden persuasions in soap operas: damaged heroines and negative consumer effects

Sex and death, subjects traditionally considered taboo, are now presented in advertisements. Focusing on the French cultural context, this paper analyses whether these topics are still considered taboo in our society. We use the concept of taboo as studied in ethnology and psychoanalysis, which makes the reticence of consumers easier to understand and aids the study of taboos in relation to cultural context. We analyse the use of taboos in advertising, reviewing the literature on the impact of the use of death and sex in advertising, and relating it to ethical issues and cultural aspects. We then present a survey analysing whether French consumers find it acceptable to present taboos in advertising and identifying which individual characteristics affect attitudes towards taboos in advertising. Women and seniors are particularly hostile to sex and death in advertising, while young people find these themes more acceptable. The general attitude towards advertising also appears to have a strong impact on attitudes. We draw managerial implications from these results.     

Practitioners’ perceptions of advertising strategies for digital media

Digital advertising is set to become a serious challenger within the rapidly changing media landscape. Today there are concerns that advertising strategies based on models and experiences developed with traditional media may need to be reviewed in the digital market. To provide insights into how online advertising strategies might need modification, 21 in-depth interviews were conducted across organisations representing key stakeholders in the digital advertising market. findings identified five key trends relevant to advertisers including: a move towards permission-based advertising; higher levels of personalised advertisements; more three screen advertising campaigns; increased levels of interactivity and the development of performance-based metrics. In the context of these trends, nine propositions are posited concerning the effective formulation and management of digital advertising strategies.     

Informational/Transformational Appeals in Political Advertising: An Analysis of the Advertising Strategies of 2010 U.S. Gubernatorial Campaigns

This study addressed four gaps in political advertising research: (a) a better framework to replace the issue–image dichotomy, (b) differences in advertising strategies between incumbents and challengers, (c) influence of party positioning on candidate positioning in advertising, and (d) political advertising in state elections. Through a content analysis of 210 advertisements from the 2010 U.S. gubernatorial elections, it was revealed that (a) the concept of information/transformation was similar to the notion of issue/image, and the typology of informational/transformational advertising, after modification, adequately captured the complexity of political advertising; (b) the use of advertising appeals did differ between incumbents and challengers—incumbents used more transformational appeals and positive advertisements, whereas challengers used more informational appeals and negative advertisements; and (c) while the informational advertisements of the Republican candidates appeared to be substantially impacted by issues owned by their party, the influence of party positioning on candidate positioning was quite limited.     

The fashion engagement grid: understanding men's responses to fashion advertising

This study examines how men who are interested in fashion interpret fashion advertisements. Data are garnered from interviews with adult men who regularly read fashion magazines and buy fashion clothing. Findings reveal that men process fashion advertisements through the same five modes as women. The current study also demonstrates that men's responses to fashion advertisements can be categorized through the Fashion Engagement Grid which examines men's characterizations of and motivations for fashion behavior. This study expands theoretical understandings of gender in advertising research and recommends advertising elements to attract male consumers.     

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.     

Professionals' views of comparative advertising and the scholarly research literature: A review and synthesis

Comparative advertisements that contrast identifiable, competing products or services may be among advertising's most important tactical weapons. Despite nearly a century of use in the USA, growing use by advertisers in many other countries, and decades of scholarly research, some researchers continue to argue that the status of empirical knowledge regarding comparative advertising's effectiveness remains equivocal. This study addresses this equivocality with a review of the research literature and comparisons with the findings of a recent survey of US advertising creative executives. The findings reveal substantial agreement among the beliefs of academic researchers and advertising professionals in regard to when and how comparative advertising will likely be effective. In addition to offering confirming evidence that academic researchers and advertising professionals do sometimes arrive at the same destination in regard to their shared understandings of advertising effects, the findings also point the way toward important directions for future research on comparative advertising.     

Book Reviews

This study examines community attitudes of Australians towards gender portrayal in advertising. Despite some well-publicised cases involving sexually provocative billboards, we find that gender portrayal in advertising is not of major concern to many Australians. We also examined the relationship between attitudes to gender portrayal and Arnott's (1972) Female Autonomy Inventory, a measure of feminist consciousness. Ford and LaTour (1996) tested a model of attitudes toward gender portrayal in advertising that found an unambiguous relationship between attitudes to female autonomy and the perceived offensiveness of the portrayal of women in advertisements. Our study, in contrast, suggests that the relationship is more complex. While one group of high female autonomy respondents (that we labeled "Feminist Pessimists") rated the offensiveness of the portrayal of women in advertising very highly, another high female autonomy group (labeled "Feminist Optimists") did not. Hence regulatory bodies may treat complaints on stereotyping in advertisements from these groups in different ways and advertisers may modify their messages for maximum effect. Differences in the findings between this study and Ford and LaTour's are discussed.     

Gender portrayals revisited: searching for explicit and implicit stereotypes in Cypriot magazine advertisements

The study pursues a line of inquiry into contemporary gender stereotypes drawn from print advertisements in Cyprus. The investigation of implicit modes of stereotyping suggested by Goffman across explicit gender roles yield novel and interesting insights that broaden existing knowledge on male and female advertising depictions. Through a content analysis of 3.729 characters, the study reveals the existence of gender clichés in Cypriot magazine advertisements. Neither male nor female evolving roles are adequately reflected in advertisements, as men tend to be portrayed in traditional masculine stereotypes while women lean towards decorative portrayals. Implicit stereotyping is more likely to suggest the subordination and lower status of women compared to men. The study indicates that advertising in Cyprus reinforces the diffusion of hostile sexism by the underrepresentation of professional women and their commonplace portrayal in body revealing attires. At the same time, the high proportion of women's implicit subordination signifies benevolent sexism. The distorted representation of both genders raises key public policy concerns, as diminishing portrayals hold sway upon men's and women's psychological well-being and professional development.     

Gender roles in advertising

This study discusses and provides a measure for the degree of stereotyping in advertisements. Applying this measure, the study shows to what degree gender stereotypes in advertising differ between public and private TV channels in Germany. The results show that gender stereotyping in advertising still prevails despite the change in the roles of men and women over the years. Contrary to their public mission, public TV channels do not show fewer gender stereotypes in advertisements compared to private TV channels. The degree of stereotyping as related to different stereotyping components differs significantly between these two types of channel. Gender stereotypes on private channels refer to role behaviour and physical characteristics and, thus, function as a means to sell a product. On the other hand, advertisements on public channels stereotype gender in terms of occupational status, and therefore interfere with the major goal of gender equality policy.     

The current practices in food advertising

A content analysis and a quasi-experiment were performed to examine the current practices in food advertising, and the usage and the effectiveness of different advertising claims across two food categories (hedonic vs functional). The content analysis revealed that taste and specific nutrition claims are the two dominating types of advertising claims in recent food advertisements. Also, a greater proportion of advertisements for functional (vs hedonic) foods appeared to use such nutrition/health claims as general health and contains nutrient claims, whereas a greater proportion of advertisements for hedonic (vs functional) foods used taste claims. However, these current practices of food advertising were called into question by the results of the quasi-experiment, which showed that the nutrition/health claims were more effective when promoting hedonic (vs functional) foods, whereas taste claims were more effective when promoting functional (vs hedonic) foods in generating favourable attitudes and purchase intention. Implications, limitations and future research directions are discussed.     

Game-Based Marketing: Inspire Customer Loyalty Through Rewards,Challenges, and Contests

In this study, we proposed an integrated model with which we suggested that perceptions of peers and interpersonal communication with peers each mediate the influence of skinlighteningadvertisements on college women in a South Asian country – Singapore. The model is built based on the influence-of-presumed-influence model. We found that college women in Singapore tended to infer their peers’ advertising exposure and the corresponding advertising influence on peers based on their own advertising exposure. Their exposure to skin-lightening advertisements also induced their discussions about fair-skinned appearance with peers. Based on their perceptions of advertising influence on peers and interpersonal communication with peers, college women inferred their peers’ favourable attitudes towards fair-skinned appearance. Finally, they aligned their personal attitudes with their female peers’ attitudes and their attitudes predicted their intention to adopt skin-lightening regimes.     

Are two brands better than one? Investigating the effects of co-branding in advertising on audience memory

Co-branded advertising, where advertisements feature two partnered brands from different categories, should ideally benefit both brands. We test this assertion by studying the effect of featuring a second brand in advertisements on ad and brand name memorability, and the role of category context on which brand is recalled. Our test covers online display advertisements for consumer-packaged brands paired with charity and retailer brands in three markets (USA, UK, and Australia). Independent sample comparisons across 54 brand pairs show that advertising two brands has a neutral effect on ad memorability and negative effect on brand memorability. Furthermore, the advertisement’s category context determines which of the brands is recalled. Our findings support a competitive interference theory of dual-brand processing, whereby the two brands compete for attention resources. The results have implications for the return on investment from advertising expenditure, which will vary substantively depending on whether the costs of advertising are shared or borne by one brand in the pair.     

A Hong Kong view of offensive advertising

Considerable research has been conducted on offensive advertising in Western countries. However, not much is known about consumers' views of offensive advertising in an Asian context. This research, which was conducted in Hong Kong, aimed at identifying what product/service advertisements consumers find offensive, what executional styles consumers find offensive, consumers' tolerance of offensive advertisements in different media and the effects of offensive advertisements on consumers' purchase intentions. The results from a survey of 200 consumers showed that chat-line services and funeral services were considered the most offensive products or services to be advertised. When looking at the manner of advertising, sexist themes, indecent language and nudity were found to be the major reasons for the respondents finding advertisements offensive. In general, direct mail was considered to be a medium that prompts lower tolerance by consumers to potentially offensive advertisements while men and women's magazines were considered to be media that prompt higher tolerance to potentially offensive advertisements. Finally, it was found that levels of advertising offensiveness had an effect on purchase intentions.