Think Outside the Ad: Can Advertising Creativity Benefit More Than the Advertiser?

This article adds to the literature on advertising creativity as well as the growing body of research on the unintended effects of advertising. In three experimental studies we “think outside the ad” and test whether there could be unintended, positive effects of advertising creativity. The results show advertising creativity to have a positive influence on consumers’ own creativity as well as their perceptions of media vehicle value. The effects are mediated by processing and perceived creativity. In discussing the results we encourage advertisers not only to take responsibility for avoiding unintended negative effects on consumers but also to explore and factor in potential positive effects that benefit consumers.     

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.     

Advertising in social media: a review of empirical evidence

This article presents an up-to-date review of academic and empirical research on advertising in social media. Two international databases from business and communication studies were searched, identifying 51 relevant studies. The findings of the identified studies were organized by seven emerging themes: use of advertising in social media, attitudes about and exposure to advertising, targeting, user-generated content in advertising, electronic word-of-mouth in advertising, consumer-generated advertising, and further advertising effects. Besides researched topics and major results, year of publication, journal, theoretical framework, research method, sample, measured constructs, and way of analysis were examined regarding each article. The review concludes by providing an agenda for future research.     

Positive versus negative comparison in advertisements: the affect priming perspective

Abstract

Comparison valence is an important element in comparative advertising. In this research, we investigated how comparison valence influences advertising effectiveness and explored the role of affect underlying such effects. The results of two studies consistently confirmed that a positive comparison elicited more favorable ad attitude and brand attitude than a negative comparison and consumers’ affective states accounted for their preference for the positive comparison. Moreover, we found some preliminary evidence suggesting that the preference for a positive message may be more remarkable in comparative advertisements than noncomparative advertisements. However, this proposition needs further validation in future research.     

Communion-over-Agency Effects on Advertising Effectiveness

Gender-stereotypical portrayals of communal women and agentic men are highly common in advertising. But past research indicates that advertising effectiveness is higher when endorsers are portrayed as communal – irrespective of their gender. The aim of the current research is to explore this communion-over-agency effect on advertising effectiveness and its underlying mechanism. Two studies provide evidence for a communion-over-agency effect on advertising effectiveness (i.e., attitude toward the ad and brand). These studies show that the communion-over-agency effect on attitude toward the ad is mediated by endorser likeability (simple mediation). The effect on attitude toward the brand is mediated by endorser likeability and attitude toward the ad (serial multiple mediation). In concert, this research underscores the significance of communion (and agency) on endorser evaluation and advertising effectiveness.     

Search engine advertisements: The impact of advertising statements on click-through and conversion rates

Search engine advertising has emerged as the predominant form of advertising on the Internet. Despite its increasing importance academic research on this topic is scarce. Several authors have called for more research on how the content of the ad influences its evaluation. This exploratory study builds on this call for more research and examines the impact of evidence type on click-through and conversion rates in a search engine advertising setting. We find that click-through rates are higher for advertisements involving expert evidence and statistical evidence than for advertisements involving causal evidence. On the contrary, we find that causal evidence results in higher conversion rates than other types of evidence. These findings help marketers to fine-tune their advertising in search engines. In particular, if their aim is to attract people to the website, expert evidence and statistical evidence should be used, while causal evidence works best if the main objective is to generate conversions.     

Social Comparison Goals and the Consumption of Advertising: Towards a More Contingent View of Young Women’s Consumption of Advertising

In this paper we use a small-scale exploratory study to challenge current interpretations of the potential effects of the portrayals of women in print advertising on young women’s self-esteem and body image. We examine how young women’s self-perception and self-esteem may be affected depending on their goal for social comparison: self-evaluation, self-improvement and self-enhancement. The results indicate that the goal for social comparison is an important moderating influence on how advertising images are interpreted and consumed. The findings confirm and extend earlier studies; and provide support for challenging prevalent views of women, firstly as passive consumers of advertising messages; secondly, as necessarily susceptible to negative self assessment in response to ideal images in advertising; and thirdly as pursuing only one goal in their consumption of advertising.     

Investigating the Drivers of Consumer Acceptance and Response of SMS Advertising

This study tests five potential drivers underlying the acceptance of SMS advertising. After developing a scale to measure behavioral responses to SMS advertising, the relationships between the acceptance of SMS advertising, intention to receive SMS advertising and behavioral responses to SMS advertising are tested. A convenience sampling method was employed. Survey questionnaires were distributed across Western Australia. The return yielded 203 usable questionnaires from the respondents. Several factors emerge as significant drivers of acceptance of SMS advertising including utility of SMS advertisements, context of SMS advertisements and attitudes to advertising in general. Contrary to expectation, control over SMS advertisements did not emerge as a significant driver for acceptance of SMS advertising. Trust in advertisers and laws did not emerge as a significant driver of the acceptance of SMS advertising among Australian respondents. Advertisers who pursue consumer acceptance should strive to build utility and context considerations into their SMS campaigns. Future research opportunities include testing the drivers of SMS advertising to further investigate the impact of control and trust on acceptance of SMS advertising in other countries where the SMS advertising has not been explored yet.     

Advertising effectiveness from a consumer perspective

Communication effectiveness research is moving away from investigations of advertising’s forms, content and the degree and type of consumer involvement, to a greater focus on the process of reception and the social and cultural roles that advertising plays in society and in individual lives. This shift in emphasis has been influenced by communication and media studies, which have prioritised the psychological, social and cultural contexts within which consumers relate to commercial information and the roles that advertising media play in their lives. The focus on the ‘receiver’ as the key actor in the advertising communication process has also coincided with increasing interest in consumer culture theory, brand communities and the new service dominant logic of marketing. This paper provides a useful perspective from which to view contemporary developments in advertising effectiveness research, and has important implications for future studies.     

Productivity and impact in advertising research since the millennium: a profiling and investigation of drivers of impact

What does it take to become a top advertising scholar in productivity? What drives impact in advertising research? This article sets out to answer these two questions by assessing the productivity and impact among scholars and their work in advertising since the millennium. As a two-part study, we begin by benchmarking and profiling the top 1% scholars in the field based on their research publications in the three top advertising journals (Journal of Advertising, Journal of Advertising Research, and International Journal of Advertising). Next, we employ a three-perspective conceptual model to identify the salient drivers of impact in advertising research. By content analyzing 1443 articles in the three journals published between 2000 and 2014, we show that certain universalistic and particularistic factors (to a lesser extent) significantly predict paper citations. Our findings reveal how advertising academia is advancing and showing signs of internationalization in the new millennium, which provides implications for the field's advancement and scholarship.     

The Impact of Violent Humor on Advertising Success: A Gender Perspective

Recent academic research has focused on the use of novelty and shock in advertising executions. One manifestation of this approach in American television advertising is the use of aggressive humor; a dramatic change in the way humor has historically been employed. This investigation examines two studies of the responses of men and women to violence in humorous advertising. The results of both studies reveal differences in the responses of men and women suggesting there may be a risk in coupling humor with high physical violence in ads targeted toward female audiences. The second study examines in a path model the role of perceived violations of social norms and perceived humor on the attitudes of men and women toward the ad and the brand. The poor response of women to more violence with humor ads is closely related to their perceived violations of social norms; for men, their more positive response to such ads is related to their perception of humor in the ads with humor and stronger violence.     

Negative Consequences of Storytelling in Native Advertising

Native advertising and storytelling are both increasingly popular advertising strategies. This research explores the effectiveness of storytelling in a native advertising context on social media. While most research recommends the use of stories as a way to build trust and relationships with consumers, the current research suggests that in the form of native ads on social media, narratives may be less effective when compared to informational native ads. Two studies find that even when advertising cues such as disclosure labels and brand presence are prominently located, consumers are less likely to recognize the advertising nature of narrative native ads when compared to informational native ads. Lower levels of advertising recognition are associated with increased perceptions of manipulative intentions by the advertiser, which has a negative influence on consumers' attitudes toward the ad. The findings suggest that native ads that clearly communicate their advertising nature through cues such as an informational execution, high brand presence, and prominent disclosure labeling are more effective than a narrative execution style.     

College Student Attitudes Toward Advertising's Ethical, Economic, and Social Consequences

Little research has focused on college students' attitudes toward advertising's ethical, economic, and social consequences over the last two decades. Exploring and tracking the attitudes of college students toward advertising is important, however, for several reasons. College students represent an important segment of consumers for many marketers, negative attitudes toward advertising on the part of college students could lead to their support for restrictive regulation in the future, and there are potentially negative consequences concerning the effects of advertising that college students uniquely share with other youth markets. The results of this study – a differentiated replication of an earlier study of college students in the late 1970s – indicate the salience of various beliefs that help determine attitudes toward advertising and provide a useful benchmark for future studies. The implications of the study's findings for advertising practice and future regulation are discussed.     

Gender Roles and Humor in Advertising: The Occurrence of Stereotyping in Humorous and Nonhumorous Advertising and Its Consequences for Advertising Effectiveness

The advertising literature includes extensive research on the occurrence and effects of gender-role portrayals in advertising. None of these studies has examined the ways in which humor affects depictions and the advertising effectiveness of these portrayals. This article reports the results of content-analytic and experimental studies that investigate the occurrence and effectiveness of gender stereotyping in humorous and nonhumorous advertising. The findings from these studies are in line with the assumptions of information processing theories. They indicate that the way women and men are stereotyped in advertising is dependent on humor; in particular, traditional male stereotypes are more prevalent in humorous ads, whereas traditional female stereotypes are more prevalent in nonhumorous ads. With respect to the influence of these stereotypes, humor improves consumers’ attitudes, particularly if nontraditional stereotyping is utilized instead of traditional stereotyping. Furthermore, humor in stereotyped advertising influences women more than men. Women evaluate gender portrayals more favorably and as more credible in humorous ads than in nonhumorous ads, particularly when nontraditional stereotyping instead of traditional stereotypes are used. These findings provide implications for gender-role and humor research in advertising and for practitioners who wish to increase the effectiveness of ads that use stereotypes.     

The Effect of Availability,Point of Purchase Advertising,and Sampling on Children's First Independent Food Purchases

The dramatic rise in childhood obesity has triggered great concern among parents, health providers and researchers, public policy makers and politicians. In a controlled experiment with 166 primary school children in Australia, this study investigates the effects of availability, point-of-purchase advertising and sampling on children's food preferences and their first independent food purchases. The results indicate that availability and point of purchase advertising has a significant effect on changing children's preferences. The effects of sampling, in the presence of other forms of promotion, are less clear. The implications of these findings for marketers and public-policy makers are discussed.     

农村电视媒体广告投放策略研究

农村电视受众分布广泛、基数庞大,如果不讲究策略地进行广告投放,会导致广告到达受众与品牌的目标受众重叠度低,造成广告资金的很大浪费。基于对8省19市3800户农村居民的抽样调查数据,本文首先从宏观层面总结了中国农村电视受众的整体特征,即高接触率、高收视时长、核心受众高端化的“三高”特点。接下来本文以企业广告投放的决策过程为主线,从人群定位、时间段选择、频道选择、节目选择等四个层面,通过实证研究数据对农村电视媒体的广告投放策略进行了具体分析。     

Children's Understanding of TV Advertising: Effects of Age, Gender, and Parental Influence

Parents, consumer organizations, and policy makers are generally concerned about effects of TV advertising directed towards children. These effects might be mediated by children's understanding of TV advertising, that is their ability to distinguish between TV programmes and commercials and their comprehension of advertising intent. In this paper, we investigate children's understanding of TV advertising, using verbal and non-verbal measurements. The sample consists of 153 Dutch children, ranging from 5 to 8 years old, and their parents. The results based on non-verbal measures suggest that most children are able to distinguish commercials from programmes and that they have some insight into advertising intent. The results based on verbal measures are not as conclusive; the percentage of children who show understanding of TV advertising is then substantially lower. Effects of age, gender, and parental influence are assessed using MURALS, a regression analysis technique for categorical and continuous variables, and CHAID, a technique for identifying homogeneous segments on the basis of the relationship between categorical dependent and explanatory variables. The age of a child turns out to have a positive effect. The effects of gender and parent- child interaction are rather small, both for verbal and for non-verbal measures of understanding of TV advertising. A high level of parental control of TV viewing may result in lower understanding of TV advertising. Implications for consumer policy and directions for future research are discussed.     

Methodological Issues in Advertising Research: Current Status,Shifts, and Trends

This article presents some self-reflective considerations on the methodology applied in advertising scholarly publications, based on a review of articles in four leading journals: Journal of Advertising, Journal of Advertising Research, International Journal of Advertising, and Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising. This article first identifies two approaches in the positivist paradigm that exert strong impacts on the development of advertising research: the message effects research tradition in the communication field and the consumer psychology research tradition in marketing. With this background, the article next introduces several research questions to explore which methods have dominated advertising research, the role of theory building in affecting the adopted methods and the number of reported studies, differences across the journals, and the degree to which researchers integrate different methods or approaches (quantitative and qualitative) in their research. A content analysis of articles published in these four advertising journals from 2001 to 2015 helps address these research questions and reveals the current status, shifts, and trends in advertising research since the turn of this century.     

Out of the Closet: When Moral Identity and Protestant Work Ethic Improve Attitudes toward Advertising Featuring Same-Sex Couples

This research examines how heterosexual consumers react to advertising featuring same-sex couples. Across three studies, we find that heterosexual consumers report higher levels of disgust in response to advertising featuring same-sex couples in comparison to mixed-sex couples, which results in more negative attitudes toward the advertisement and the advertised brand. We also find that moral-identity priming reduces disgust elicited by advertising featuring same-sex couples and improves attitudes toward the advertisement and the brand. However, we find that moral-identity priming is ineffective for consumers with high social dominance orientation. For these consumers, portraying same-sex couples as possessing Protestant work ethic traits decreases disgust and improves attitudes toward the advertisement and the brand.