Information diffusion and new product consumption: A bass model application to tourism facility management

This article applies models to measure and to understand how information diffusion influences tourists' consumption patterns. The study uses administrative data on a new festival's attendance and advertising. Bass's [Bass FM. A new product growth for model consumer durables. Manage Sci 1969;15(5):215-227] model and a modified version [Horsky D, Simon LS. Advertising and the diffusion of new products. Mark Sci 1983;2(1):1-18] to allow for advertising's effect. Results imply effectiveness of front loaded advertising. This result is due to increasing purchases that result from word-of-mouth information diffusion. However, a model with an effect of advertising is accepted as well as a model with no consideration of advertising budget. Examination of consistency and conceptual issues with models raises the need for models that are more realistic for the tourism product. A specific concern is developing models appropriate to analysis of attendance at a limited-duration innovative event (e.g., new product) held at a host to impact longer-term attendance of the host.     

Evolution of Corporate Social Responsibility: A Content Analysis of United States Magazine Advertising, 1980–2009

There has been widespread and growing interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR). This study examines how CSR practices have changed, corresponding to the changes in social issues by tracking back to the prevalence of CSR advertising in print magazines from 1980 to 2009 when CSR had thrived. Our findings from content analyses of print CSR advertising with Time Magazine and Better Home and Garden suggest that there are significant relationships between social issues and CSR practices by year, target audiences, and industry types. With recent increasing needs for CSR practices in society, this study lays the theoretical and practical groundwork for strategic CSR communication by documenting historical data on CSR advertising.     

Food advertising targeting children in India: Analysis and implications

In spite of advertising being severely critiqued for planting erroneous behavioral patterns in young children, there is limited research on advertising aimed at children in the Indian context. This study explores issues like gender representations, stereotypical portrayals, deployment of various appeals, persuasion tactics, and Indian advertising policies in the food commercials targeting Indian children. Hypotheses were developed based on socio-economic and cultural aspects specific to Indian ethos. Content analysis was carried out on commercials appearing on five major children's television channels in India. Results indicate that ads depict boys significantly more than girls, and demonstrate mother as the primary approver for choice of food. Additionally, results reveal that ads use familial settings more than other contexts. Emotional appeal is found to be more prevalent. However, unlike hypothesized, ads were not found to use scholastic or fantasy cues more than athletic or non-fantasy cues. The findings are examined through an ethical lens, and implications for various stakeholders are presented. The study provides advertising policy makers and executioners insights into ethically congruent communication strategies to be used for advertising to children.     

Advertising Self-Regulation in a Broader Context

Abstract

As the world braces itself for a unified European marketplace, it is critical that we look at the industries likely to be influenced by, and in turn shape, European integration. The advertising industry and its handling of unification are particularly important given that advertising is the voice of the marketplace and a major communications force, shaping cultural norms and values. In order to ensure the free movement of goods, communications about those goods must also move freely. At this time, however, each European country has its own rules and regulations for advertising. One of the major issues facing European advertising as the European Union (EU) comes together is the regulation of cross-border advertising. In 1991 the European Commission issued a call to action for the European advertising industry and almost immediately the industry began work on a trans-border complaints system. Since then the European Advertising Standards Alliance has worked diligently to iron out issues resulting from international advertising disputes. As this article shows, European regulators must determine how advertising will fit into the larger scheme of European law; who will be responsible for controlling advertising; and whether it should be monitored at the national or pan-European level. Certainly the advertising industry is not the only one struggling to determine which controls can remain at the national level and which should be raised to the European rank. But this analysis of how advertising self-regulation fits into the European legal scheme does provide a useful case study of the hurdles ahead. It will be interesting to watch as Europe works to find the proper balance between free trade and national autonomy to control industries.     

Advertising and Knowledge Intermediaries: Managing the Ethical Challenges of Intangibles

In today's business environment, the knowledge-based society, globalisation, and information and communication technologies (ICT) have increased the role of "intangible" values of assets and resources for all industries. As a result there is an increased role for knowledge intermediaries; one of these, advertising, plays an important role in affecting consumer choice and knowledge. Ethical issues which arise for traditional purveyors of intangibility – cultural industries such as art, music, or film, spread to advertising. Building on our perspective of the measurement of intangibles we propose a new categorisation of types of goods or services, and a framework for identifying some future ethical challenges in today's global knowledge based society.     

Something in Adland doesn’t add up: It’s time to make female creatives count

The increased visibility of gender issues in society has inspired a trend among marketing companies: female empowerment. Marketers are working with clients and developing advertising that advocates equality for female consumers. Yet, despite this trend for femvertising, little progress has been made toward gender equality for the women working inside the creative advertising industry. This article looks at the inequality problem and considers whether it stems from women’s thwarted attempts to establish a leadership identity within the strongly-gendered cultures in which they are subject to established practices. Thirty female creatives from the U.S., U.K., and mainland Europe were interviewed and, based on these findings, I present three overarching themes: vision, voice, and visibility. Together, they represent the challenges women experience in developing a leadership identity but also inspire opportunities for agencies to increase the influence of female creatives. If the advertising industry’s claims to represent society are to be taken seriously, it must move beyond empowering female consumers to also empowering its female creatives.     

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.     

Disclosure of Vlog Advertising Targeted to Children

Influencers can disclose vlog advertising by implementing a platform-generated disclosure or by generating their own disclosure. This study aims to investigate whether and how these two types of disclosures differentially affect children's responses toward the sponsored content and the influencer. To do so, a two (platform-generated [PG] disclosure: no PG disclosure versus PG disclosure) by three (influencer-generated [IG] disclosure: no IG disclosure versus no commercial interference disclosure versus commercial interference disclosure) between-subjects experimental study was conducted among 190 children (aged ten to twelve). The results show that both types of disclosures increased children's recognition of vlog advertising; however, children's advertising literacy (i.e. their understanding of influencer marketing and skepticism toward the ad) was less activated when the influencer specifically indicated that there was no commercial interference of the brand. In addition, besides being more beneficial for influencers (by not negatively affecting children's evaluations of the influencer), an IG disclosure also showed to be more favorable for brands, as it increased brand effects among children, whereas a PG disclosure decreased these brand effects.     

Encoding Advertisements: The Creative Perspective

The role of advertising within consumer culture as an ideological force has received much attention within academic studies in the advertising and marketing disciplines, and has also been the subject of inquiry and debate in related fields within sociology and cultural studies. While many of these works approach the role of advertising in society through textual analysis of advertisements and consumer interpretations of advertising meaning, surprisingly fewer studies have approached the subject from the perspective of the producers of advertising, particularly within the advertising and marketing disciplines. This paper examines how advertisements are encoded with meanings by advertising "creatives" by exploring the practices and processes in which these cultural practitioners engage. A discourse analysis of ethnographic interviews conducted with copywriters and art directors within an Irish advertising agency forms the empirical material for this inquiry. Four central interpretative repertoires are developed from these interview texts which provide insights into the pivotal work of advertising practitioners as cultural intermediaries within consumer culture.     

The Social Reality of Depression: DTC Advertising of Antidepressants and Perceptions of the Prevalence and Lifetime Risk of Depression

This study is rooted in the research traditions of cultivation theory, construct accessibility, and availability heuristic. Based on a survey with 221 subjects, this study finds that familiarity with direct-to-consumer (DTC) print advertisements for antidepressant brands is associated with inflated perceptions of the prevalence and lifetime risk of depression. The study concludes that DTC advertising potentially has significant effects on perceptions of depression prevalence and risk. Interpersonal experiences with depression coupled with DTC advertising appear to significantly predict individuals’ perceived lifetime risk of depression. The study ultimately demonstrates that DTC advertising may play a role in constructing social reality of diseases and medicine. The findings strongly suggest that the social cognitive effects of DTC advertising are far-reaching, impacting pharmaceutical marketing strategy as well as presenting issues regarding public health and the business ethics of advertising drugs to consumers. Jin Seong Park is a doctoral student at the University of Florida in Gainesville. He earned his MA from Marquette University and BA from Korea University in Seoul, Korea. His research interests include health communication and DTC drug advertising, mood and heuristics in consumer information processing and judgments, and international advertising. Jean M. Grow is an assistant professor at Marquette University. She earned her PhD from University of Wisconsin-Madison and her BFA from the School of Art Institute of Chicago. Her scholarly work focuses on controversial advertising case studies. She has published extensively on Nike women's advertising, and her most recent scholarship focuses on DTC advertising of pharmaceuticals and public service announcements for Hepatitis C. In 2005, she coauthoured a book on creative strategy, Advertising Strategy: Creative Tactics from Outside/In (with T. Altstiel). Prior to joining the academy, she worked in the advertising industry with agencies such as DDB Needham, Foote Cone & Belding, J. Walter Thompson, and Leo Burnett.     

Attitudes Towards Advertising Among Executives in Saudi Arabia

The executives of 65 Saudi companies were surveyed to determine their attitudes toward five issues in advertising: need for advertising; economic concerns; social concerns; ethical concerns; and regulation of advertising. The findings of the study indicated that the executives generally held mixed feelings toward advertising. While concurring with the need for advertising, they showed concern for the high costs of advertising and supported the need for regulating advertising aimed at children and for harmful products.     

An Investigation of Egyptian Consumers’ Attitudes Toward Ethical Issues in Advertising

This article investigates Egyptian consumers’ attitudes toward ethical issues in advertising held by a sample of 306 participants. The subjects completed a 20-item instrument originally designed to measure respondents’ attitudes toward controversial issues in advertising. The study validates the scale in an Arab non-Western context. The results revealed that Egyptian consumers have negative attitudes toward ethical issues in advertising. There are significant differences between males’ and females’ perceptions of ethics in advertising. Finally, the study detects a significant difference between Muslims and non-Muslims in Egypt regarding their attitudes toward ethical issues in advertising. These results lend strong support to the adaptation hypothesis and suggest that ads produced in one country cannot be standardized or directly translated for use in another, particularly if they are different culturally.     

International advertising: Developmental and implementational issues

This paper reports on a study which investigated the international advertising practices of a sample of major advertising spending multinationals, and the rationales behind their policies. The objective was to obtain insights into the efficacy of international advertising standardization options. When the rationales behind the international advertising practices of the sampled companies were examined, it was found that the executives concerned brought a wide‐ranging agenda to the decision‐making process and that factors beyond the specific benefits of standardization influenced their policies. As regards their actual policies, the practice of some form of standardization was found to be widespread, but the practice of total standardization was rare. As such, the data indicate that standardization is a flexible option, with many possible variants, i.e. it can be adapted to circumstances and is not an either/or policy. The paper concludes that the focus on whether or not multinationals should practice international advertising is misplaced, if only because, just as at the local or national level, there will be good and bad international advertising. Accordingly, more emphasis should be placed on reviewing issues relating to how to improve the quality of international advertising campaigns.     

Investment liberalization and international trade

This paper estimates the cross-price elasticity of exports with respect to investment costs for bilateral relations between 36 countries. We show that the effect of reducing foreign direct investment costs on exports depends on country characteristics and trade costs as predicted by the [Markusen, 1997] and [Markusen, 2002] model. When countries differ in relative factor endowments and trade costs are low, investment liberalization stimulates exports, whereas when countries are similar in terms of relative factor endowments and size, and trade costs are moderate to high, investment liberalization reduces exports.     

Advertising and Children

Abstract

This article reviews the debate regarding the issue of growing obesity in society in terms of issues and possible policy options. The issue is most focused on children though having obvious ramifications for adults in many economies around the world. Policy solutions such as advertising bans or taxes that have been proposed in several countries seem to be based on insufficient evidence—i.e., there is no empirical evidence to substantiate the claimed causal effect between marketing communication practices directed at children and nutrition. These solutions, if enacted in policy, could be both inequitable and ineffective. While the study is couched and framed from a New Zealand context, nonetheless it serves to illuminate issues and policies of wider relevance.     

Carryover effects of advertising on sales of durable goods

In a landmark paper, Clarke [Clarke, D.G., J. Marketing Res. 13 (November 1976): 345–357] addressed the question of how long the carryover effect of advertising on sales persists. Appropriate cautions are included in the conclusions reached by Clarke since the preponderance of studies that he reviewed involved mature frequently purchased low-priced products. His conclusion is that, for such products, the carryover effect of advertising lasts a matter of months rather than years. The current study examines durable goods and provides preliminary evidence that for some durables, advertising effects may have a duration interval that exceeds a year.     

Taking Advertising Risks: The Case of Clerical Medical

This paper examines the process and issues involved in the management of advertising risk by advertisers with a focus on the case of a leading UK financial company, Clerical Medical Investment Group. The idea of an advertising risk cycle is proposed given that managers are likely to adapt their risk-taking according to past successes or failures. The factors influencing the propensity of advertising risk-taking are analysed focusing on budgetary slack, media scheduling, stakeholder perspective, management practices, environment, campaign planning process and knowledge and experience. Clerical Medical's advertising experience since 1990 largely supports the hypotheses for the risk cycle and propensity to take advertising risks. It is recommended that advertisers utilise appropriate pretesting techniques along with effective and rigorous planning and advertising risk audits.     

What's Wrong with "Deceptive" Advertising?

In this paper I present a moral account of the legal notion of deceptive advertising. I argue that no harmful consequences to the consumer need follow from a deceptive advertisement as such, and I suggest instead that one should focus on the consequences of permitting the practise of deceptive advertising on society as a whole. After a brief account of deceptive advertising, I move to discuss the role of the reasonable person standard in its definition. One interpretation of this standard is empirical, aiming to objectify the quality of misleadingness in the advertisement. I offer an alternative normative interpretation which aims to draw the line between the advertiser's responsibility and that of the consumer, between misleading and miscomprehension. I then examine and reject several possible moral grounds for condemning and prohibiting deceptive advertising. These include: harm, in the sense of welfare, to the misled consumer; harm to competitors; and a violation or a reduction of the consumer's autonomy. Finally, I explain how the effect of the practise of deceptive advertising on society as a whole should inform our normative line-drawing between misleading and miscomprehension, and how it provides the basis for the moral evaluation of deceptive advertising.     

Korean Advertising Practitioners’ Perspectives on Celebrity Endorsement

Practitioners’ perspectives have been neglected to some extent. Research on practitioners’ perspectives is important because it will provide valuable information, especially on how theories have been reflected in practice. The study investigates Korean advertising practitioners’ perspectives on celebrity endorsement in advertising campaigns. By comparing the perspective between advertising practitioners and that from their counterparts on the client side, this study may provide insights into their respective roles in advertising campaigns. This study finding suggests that Korean advertising practitioners consider a celebrity's likeability as the most important criterion when selecting a celebrity endorser. The most important reason why they employ a celebrity endorser is that celebrity endorsement helps generate awareness of the brand. In addition, concerns over celebrity endorsement as well as limitations and suggestions for future research have been discussed.     

Book review

A study was undertaken to examine how Chinese advertising professionals perceive issues surrounding advertising education. Participants were solicited from advertising agencies in the cities of Beijing and Hangzhou. The findings indicate that Chinese advertising professionals hold a positive attitude towards advertising education and strongly believe that more undergraduate and graduate advertising programmes are needed in China. Degrees from advertising education programmes abroad were also seen in a favourable light and were thought to lead to faster raises and promotions. The results also established an initial picture of the individual and agency demographics of today's Chinese advertising professionals. The implications for Chinese and Western advertising education programmes are discussed.