Cross-Cultural Meanings of Healthy and Beautiful in Words,Beauty Types,and Products

Abstract

The debate about standardized versus localized advertising strategy is a long-standing one, and fraught with human and organizational complexities that argue for the cultural uniqueness of a national market versus the desire for a unified global image. A key issue is whether the same meaning in a specific advertising message will be transferred across cultures. This study deals with cross-cultural comparisons across five European cities (Madrid, Milan, Paris, London, and Hamburg) and focuses on the perceived differences of the meaning of two words (healthy and beautiful), two beauty types (women' faces), and two products (water and perfume). The results show that it is difficult to achieve sameness of meaning for even international products and beauty types. Suggestions for a conceptual match-up model for advertising components are made and implications are drawn for future practice and research.     

The Impact of Brand Equity and the Company's Reputation on Revenues

Abstract

This paper intends to establish the relationships among variables in corporate communications, especially between advertising and public relations, and to form an evaluation model for integrating the effects of brand equity and the company's reputation in the context of integrated marketing communications (IMC). A new approach for integrating the effects of brand equity and the company's reputation was introduced and the IMC evaluation model was specified for testing. The proposed model was tested with existing secondary data. The outcomes indicated that both brand equity and the company's reputation have significant impact on revenues and showed the positive relationship between brand equity and the company's reputation in the proposed model to justify the need of IMC in overall corporate communications.     

It’s time to close the experimentation gap in advertising: Confronting myths surrounding ad testing

Marketers know that running experiments is a proven way to improve results and gain competitive advantage against rivals. Despite this knowledge—and the fact that experiments are now easier to conduct than ever before—data shows that marketers consistently under-experiment. In this article, we examine why this gap exists and what can be done to close it. We do so by connecting with senior-level marketing professionals representing seven consumer-facing industries in two phases. First, through a series of interviews, we gain initial understanding of the concerns, challenges, and realities of those working in the industry. Following this phase, we surveyed a larger group to corroborate and extend our initial findings, comparing cases to identify challenges and the strategies used to overcome them. We present our findings as a series of experimentation myths before closing with a broader perspective on how organizations can infuse experimentation into their culture.     

Advertising spending patterns and competitor impact

In most industries, brand managers do not advertise continuously. Instead, advertising is switched on and off systematically, a phenomenon often referred to as pulsing. Moreover, spending levels vary considerably across periods when brands do advertise. Surprisingly, this variety in advertising spending patterns as observed in practice, as well as competitor impact on these patterns and their sales outcomes, have received relatively little empirical attention. In this paper we focus on two core aspects of observed advertising patterns: incidence and magnitude. Insights are based on the analysis of advertising spending for 370 CPG brands in 71 product categories over a four-year period. We also collected feedback from practitioners dealing with advertising across a wide range of firms. We first empirically establish that pulsing is the dominant form of advertising scheduling. Observed patterns, in turn, are largely driven by television and print advertising. Next, we show that, after accounting for a wide range of other possible drivers, advertising in-sync with competitors is more common than out-of-sync. However, the results suggest that competitive reasoning plays only a relatively minor role in advertising decisions. Finally, we show that, across a wide range of real-world scenarios, investing in top-of-mind awareness through maintenance advertising insulates brands from competitors' actions and boosts sales.     

Perception of Sex Appeal in Print Advertising by Young Female Anglo-Saxon and Second Generation Asian-Islamic British

Abstract

The aim of this research is to provide empirical data to either support or challenge the view that subculture has an impact on how sex appeal in advertising is perceived. The study looks at young females of two specific British subcultural groups, Anglo-Saxon and Asian-Islamic British. It reveals that there are differences in the perception of sex appeal, since the Asian-Islamic British have a rather more negative attitude towards this particular appeal, while the Anglo-Saxon have a much more positive attitude towards it.     

Televised Consumption: Women,Advertisers and the Early Daytime Television Industry

This article looks at ways in which the US broadcasting and advertising industries conceptualized the female consumer in the immediate Post War period. It explores the emergence of daytime television and discusses broadcasters' views of their predominantly female audience. The article argues that by grasping the underlying principles that were developed in the early daytime television industry, one can gain a better understanding, not only of the manner in which female audience members were addressed in the 1950s, but also, to some extent, of the ways mass media address women today.     

Ambush Marketing Revisited

Corporate sponso~ship of events has become a multi-bil- lion War promotional enteqnise. Some companies have sought methods of gaining the benefits of official spansorship while subvdng the esca- lating s m h i p fees charged by most major events. This approach has come to be known as ambush marketing. One event that is a traditional target for ambushers is the Olympic Games. Ambush marketers have found that by purchasing large amounts of advertising during these events they enjoy as much (or more) brand awareness as official sponsors incur- ring much greater costs. The results of this experimental study shed light on existing sponsorship questions, partic+rly ambush marketing in the Olympic context. Among the key finbgs are that coIlsumers seem unable to distinguish between official and ambush sponciors. This confu- sion has implications in terms of attibdinal measures, as study data indicate that sponsors rarely gain oompetitive advantage here, either. Measures of purchase intention also indicate that ambushers consistently do as well, or ktlw, than official sponsors.     

Social Cause versus Profit Oriented Advertisements

Abstract

A common theme in social marketing research has been that for a social cause message to be effective and encourage behavioral change it must be perceived as different from other advertising messages. This article evaluated over 500 magazine print advertisements via content analysis to reveal social cause versus profit oriented advertisements. Upon identification of these two advertisement types, further analysis explored information content and emotional appeal strategies. The results significantly indicate that social cause advertisements elicited more emotional appeals than profit oriented advertisements, while profit oriented advertisements conveyed more information content. Specifically, profit oriented advertisements contained more information regarding price, quality, performance, content, availability, offers, packaging, guarantees, company research, new ideas and taste than social cause advertisements. In comparison, only safety, research, and nutritional information were revealed more frequently with social cause than profit oriented advertisements. Social cause advertisements evoked more fear, anger, sadness, disgust, interest, and surprise. Profit oriented advertisements were deemed more pleasant and happier.     

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.     

Race and attitude formation in HIV/Aids fear advertising

The study on which this article is based, examined whether fear appeal advertising increases the likelihood of adopting appropriate behavior and whether different racial groups perceive fear appeals pertaining to HIV/Aids communication differently. The extent of fear, attitude towards the advertisements, as well as threat and efficacy were also investigated to ascertain the influence of different levels of fear appeals.Social marketing programs address various pandemics and anti-social behavior, where citizens act in conflict with accepted social conduct. The use of fear as a motivation in advertising places emphasis on the severity of the threat. Marketing practitioners, believing the message is too difficult to implement, have questioned the use of fear appeal advertising messages.The findings of this study indicate differences among racial groups pertaining to levels of fear and attitude towards advertisements, as well as differences in threat and efficacy experienced after exposure to high fear appeals compared to other appeals.