Reaching Goals and Doing Good: Exploring Consumer Responses to Meaningful Advertisements

The purpose of this study is to investigate how consumers respond to meaningful advertisements, which promote products or brands by portraying moral virtues and life meaning. The authors present findings of an online survey in which participants reported their responses to two meaningful advertisements. A conceptual model was proposed and tested based on the survey data. Results demonstrated that when viewing meaningful advertisements participants' perceptions of meaningfulness positively influenced their feelings of elevation, which leaded to favorable attitudes towards the advertisement and brand. Empathy served as a moderator in the conceptual model. Participants who felt low empathy actually experienced stronger feelings of elevation. This study presents how consumers respond to portrayals of moral virtues and life meaning in advertisements. It contributes to the literature of advertising by demonstrating that the emotion of elevation benefits advertising effectiveness. It has significant implications to advertising professionals as well.     

The effectiveness of fear appeals in ‘green’ advertising: An analysis of creative,consumer, and source variables*

This study focused on the effectiveness of fear appeal messages used to arouse a threat in green advertising. An experiment recruited 175 participants to test the influence of the advertising appeal (fear vs. non-fear appeal), source (for-profit vs. non-profit organizations), and involvement with the environment on attitude toward the ad (A_ad), attitude toward the product (A_p) and purchase intention (PI). Results revealed that a fear appeal in a green ad negatively affected A_ad and A_p and that participants who were highly involved with the environment were more likely to have positive attitudes toward the green ad and advertised green product as well as a stronger intent to purchase it. The source type in the green ad did not affect ad effectiveness and involvement with the environment did not moderate the effects of either appeal or source.     

The effects of social TV on television advertising effectiveness

Social TV is the use of communication devices to connect with family and friends watching other TV screens. Plausible arguments suggest both positive and negative effects of social TV viewing on ad-effectiveness. This study contributes by providing evidence for the direction of social TV's effects. The results of a controlled laboratory experiment suggest that the benefits of social TV, principally its association with live TV and therefore less ad-avoidance, come at the cost of negative distraction effects. Like normal coviewing, social TV viewing distracts from ad-processing, reducing unaided recall and brand attitude favorability, compared to individual (solus) viewing. However, social TV messaging about ads improved brand attitude. Perceived creativity increased the likelihood of ad-related messaging. Social TV also has an additional source of distraction, multitasking, but in this study, multitasking did not further reduce ad-effectiveness compared to coviewing. The paper concludes with implications for advertisers and future research.     

Identification of Web User Segments Based on Beliefs about Online Ads

Online advertising has been one of the fastest growing industries worldwide, due to the increased number of Internet users. From the perspective of marketing management, identifying the profile of web users who click online ads will enable designers to create better online advertising campaigns. Hence, the main objectives of this article are (1) to segment web users based on their beliefs about online ads, (2) to identify personality traits of each segment, and (3) to investigate attitudinal and behavioral differences across segments about online ads. Data were collected through an online survey and by using cluster analysis, web users were segmented into three groups based on their beliefs about online ads: “Supporters,” “Neutrals,” and “Opponents.” Personality trait differences as well as attitudinal and behavioral differences among three segments were examined and significant differences were found in terms of their personality traits, such as variety seeking, market mavenism, and innovativeness.     

Mad women: gendered divisions in the Swedish advertising industry, 1930–2012

This article constitutes a first attempt to systematically map the presence of women in the greatly changing Swedish advertising industry since 1930. The overarching aim of the study is to analyse how the gendered divisions of labour and business changed in relation to both business structure and the overall labour market in Sweden. While we conclude that women constituted around 40–50% of the workforce over time, we see an increase in the shares of women in higher positions and in women who were self-employed and managers. This upturn, however, stabilised during the 1990s. We argue that the changes in gendered divisions of labour and business coincided with a fast-changing business structure. First, the old cartel broke down in the mid-1960s. Then, the number of firms increased quickly during the 1970s and 1980s, and the market share for the largest firms declined. This, in turn, meant new business opportunities for women at the same time as their overall labour market participation increased. The article stresses the importance of both acknowledging women’s presence in the industry development as well as the structures constituting gender divisions.     

Disentangling location-based advertising: the effects of location congruency and medium type on consumers' ad attention and brand choice

Research on location-based advertising (LBA) suggests that the merits of LBA lie in the fact that consumers can be targeted with location-congruent ads on their personal mobile devices. However, LBA consists of two underlying constructs: a mobile (vs. point-of-sales) advertising medium and location congruency (vs. location incongruency). This study aims to disentangle these underlying constructs by showing that they differentially affect the efficacy of an ad. Using a virtual reality lab experiment, this study shows that location-congruent ads result in increased choice for the target brand as compared to location-incongruent ads, independent of medium type. However, in location-incongruent situations, mobile ads attracted more attention than point-of-sales display ads. The advantages of LBA thus do not seem to emanate from medium type, but rather from the congruency between the ad and product location. When the ad is received at a different location than the product, the mobile medium is able to enhance consumers' ad attention.     

Consumer responses to different degrees of advertising adaptation: the moderating role of national openness to foreign markets

We investigate the moderating role of national openness to foreign markets on consumer responses (attitude to ad, brand and purchase intention) to different degrees of advertising adaptation in Belgium, Iran and India. We operationalize three levels of advertising adaptation (standardization, glocalization and adaptation) by manipulating the model (international versus local celebrity) and advertising copy (international versus local advertising copy). The results show that societies with a low openness to foreign markets respond more positively to fully adapted ads than to glocalized and standardized ads. The differences in responses decrease with national openness.     

高校广告学课程实践性教学及其模式探究

高校广告学教学必须正视市场的发展趋势及其特殊性,以学生为本,以社会需求和学生的毕业去向为导向,以培养高素质、高技能应用型专业人才为目标。广告学作为一门实践性很强的应用性学科,存在教学理念模糊、实践教学平台缺失、教师实战经验不足、教学方法落后、实践教学监管不力等问题。必须以服务社会为目的,明确教学定位;以能力培养为主线,构建教学体系;以灵活多样为手段,创新教学模式;以内涵建设为抓手,完善保障体系,在演示教学、案例教学、项目教学、研讨教学等模式上不断创新。     

技术效率暴露出的我国工业企业困境——基于研发企业的实证分析

研究筛选了2005-2007年连续三年都有研发投入的规模以上工业企业,主要采用超效率DEA模型,比较了两位数行业10项投入指标和11项产出指标对总体技术效率的贡献,发现限制行业投入产出效率的主要因素是"应收账款"和"广告费"。由于企业间欠账的普遍性和长期累积造成的高额度,严重制约了行业技术效率的提升,造成反映企业生产销售状况的主要产出指标普遍冗余,陷入即使增加投入也无助于提高产出效率的怪圈,其在行业中的普遍性和严重性已经很大程度影响了企业的创新效率,进而影响生产与销售行为,应引起政府管理部门的及早重视,并加以疏通和解决。     

电影中的“视觉理论”探析

电影电视已经成为了我们日常生活中的一部分。然而只需稍加注意就会发现年轻性感的银幕美女比比皆是。英国女性主义电影理论家劳拉.穆尔维在她的《视觉快感和叙事性电影》中把精神分析引入女性主义电影研究。她对主流好莱坞叙事电影进行了批判性解读,对视觉快感理论进行了阐释。观众通过对银幕美女的观看能够得到快感,而且这种视觉快感不自觉地分裂为主动的/男性和被动的/女性。