Advertising 2002 Abstracts
Advertising Division
RESEARCH
Stripes and Stars and Selling Cars: An Analysis of Consumer Attitudes Toward Patriotic Themes in Advertising • Shannon L. Bichard, Texas Tech University • The use of patriotism in advertising has become increasingly popular. The current study specifically addresses consumer attitudes toward patriotic advertising in the wake of America’s war on terrorism. Multiple variables were statistically assessed for their relationship to consumer attitude formation and purchase intent. A telephone survey was conducted as a method to procure items for analysis. The findings suggest overall favorability toward the use of patriotic frames in advertising.
Contextual Effects of Advertising on the WWW • Chang-Hoan Cho, Florida • The current study was designed to understand task-induced contextual effects on congruent and incongruent banner ads embedded on two-task websites (information vs. entertainment). As predicted, it was found that a task-congruent banner ad was remembered better and yielded a more favorable attitude toward the ad and the brand, higher purchase intention and click-through, compared to a task-incongruent banner ad (H1). This task-congruency effect was the same for both information (H1.1) and entertainment situations (H1.2).
Reactions, Perceptions and Evaluations of Local Television Advertising • Ron Elcombe, Winona State University • Answers to three general research questions about viewers’ reactions to local retail television advertising were sought in this study: 1) What reactions do viewers have to centrally processed and peripherally processed cues within local retail television advertising? 2) How do consumers evaluate the information they perceive as being contained in local retail television advertising? and 3) What information is reported as missing and worthy of inclusion in local retail television advertising? A sample of local retail television commercials was shown to 18 subjects and qualitative data collected during in-depth, open-ended interviews.
Advertising Agency Web Sites: Presence of Branding Content & Capabilities • Daniel Marshall Haygood, North Carolina – Chapel Hill • Many large advertising agencies offer specialized services in brand development, creation, and stewardship to clients. This research looks at how agencies are presenting their branding capabilities on their web sites, the extent to which this is being done, and whether there are significant differences in presentations of branding capabilities between the larger and smaller agencies. The research shows that the presence of branding capabilities on web sites is high, particularly among larger advertising agencies.
The Use of Relationship Marketing in Media Advertising Sales • Karie Hollerbach • Southeast Missouri State University • Customer relationship marketing and management is a business strategy designed to assist in the development and maintenance of mutually satisfying relationships between an organization and its customer base. It differs markedly from earlier customer contact strategies in that it focuses on the share of customer mindset, rather than on the share of market mindset; it produces unique learning relationships that get more intelligent with every transaction; it utilizes these learning relationships as a barrier to entry by other competitors; and it advances the idea that the level of customer investment should correlate with the measure of customer worth to the organization. Relationship marketing is currently being practiced in both the business-to-consumer and business-to-business environments. The level of relationship marketing strategy integration in the media advertising sales function has been qualitatively examined, and an initial base of support and execution has been found to exist. However, there are unexploited opportunities for relationship marketing strategy growth, development, and deployment in this organizational sector.
Athlete Endorsements in Advertising: Effects of Celebrity Endorsement, Sponsorship and Ethnicity of Endorser • Kihan Kim, Texas at Austin and Jongmin Park, Pusan National University • This study investigates the effects of three advertising cues: 1) sponsorship, 2) celebrity endorsement, and 3) the endorser’s ethnicity. Through the use of a three-factor experimental design, attitude toward the brand, purchase intention and identification are measured as dependent variables. The results revealed that adding sponsorship and celebrity cues and using an endorser of the same ethnicity as the target market generated more positive attitude towards a brand.
A Content Analysis of Corporate Advertising Claims in Magazine Advertisements: A Longitudinal Approach • Jung-Gyo Lee, Jae-Jin Park and Fritz Cropp, Missouri-Columbia • This study documents advertisers’ application of corporate advertising in popular magazines over time. A content analysis of 773 corporate advertisements in Time magazine revealed that there were significant differences in the usage of corporate advertisements among different industry groups across four time periods. The results indicated that corporate advertisements appearing in Time magazine between 1970 and 2000 were overwhelmingly dominated by image advertisements rather than advocacy advertisements.
Business and Communication Programs’ Contribution to Advertising Education and Research: A Comparison • Tien-tsung Lee, Washington State University • The measurement of individual scholars’ productivity is a popular topic in all academic disciplines. Two recent influential studies on advertising researchers compare individual researchers’ employment backgrounds and publications in three leading research journals in advertising. They concluded that business professors produced more publications than communication educators. The present research expands the scope and examines three areas related to advertising education: whether business or communication scholars train more future advertising practitioners and publish more research articles, and whether business or communication students are more likely to win advertising competitions.
The Effects of Physical and Social Outcomes in Print Ads on Brand Attitude and Purchase Intention • Yulian Li, Minnesota • This experimental study, consists of two experiments on two different products, investigates the effects of vicariously experienced outcomes on consumers’ attitude toward brand and purchase intention. Applying the cardinal rule of operant conditioning that human behaviors are largely controlled by outcomes, this study finds that physical outcome is reliably effective changing subjects’ brand attitude and purchase intention. However, in certain product categories, social outcome is more influential.
Perception Theory and Interactive Advertising Brand Web Sites: Perceived versus Technical Interactivity • Wendy Macias, Georgia • This study explored the application of perceptual theory to interactive advertising brand Web sites to better understand how interactivity should be defined (technical versus perceived). Results indicate that there is a substantial difference in attitudinal responses depending on the definition of interactivity. Definitions of perceived interactivity more clearly showed attitudinal responses to high versus low interactivity Web sites, thus supporting the concept of perceived interactivity. Results also indicate a very important point — interactivity dramatically influenced persuasion.
Black Women’s Portrayals In Women’s Magazine Advertisements: The Decade Of The 1990s • Teresa Mastin, Alison Coe, Sheri Hamilton and Sheila Tarr, Middle Tennessee State • Advertisements operate as socialization forces in mainstream society. Therefore, Black women’s portrayals in women’s magazine advertisements were examined in an effort to determine how their media portrayals may influence their acceptance in society and their acceptance of themselves. This study examined Black women’s portrayals in several women’s magazines — Essence, Ladies Home Journal, and Working Woman during the last decade of the 1990s. Results indicate women’s magazine advertisements send forth more exclusive than inclusive messages regarding Black women.
The Message and the Mindset: Effects of Structural and Perceptual Factors on Attitude Toward the Web Site • Sally J. McMillan, Jang-Sun Hwang and Guiohk Lee, Tennessee • This study examined effects of structural and perceptual variables on attitude toward Web sites. Consumers reviewed four sites that had varying feature levels and differing creative strategies. Data were collected about attitude, involvement, and perceived interactivity from 311 respondents. In general, perceptual variables predicted attitude better than structural variables. In particular, involvement with the subject of a site and the sub-dimension of perceived interactivity that measured level of engagement were the best predictors of attitude.
The Integration of Account Planning in U.S. Advertising Agencies • Margaret Morrison, Tim Christy and Eric Haley, Tennessee • This article reports the results of a national survey of account planners that focuses on how account planning is integrated into U.S. advertising agencies. Findings indicate that account planning is more integrated into advertising related aspects of communications campaigns and is less than successfully integrated for areas such as the development of media, sales promotion and public relations strategies. The implications of the study are then discussed.
Is Culture Going Global? A Comparison of South Korean and U.S. Newspaper Ads in the New Millennium • Hye-Jin Paek, Michelle R. Nelson and Douglas M. McLeod, Wisconsin-Madison • This study content analyzed U.S and South Korean newspaper advertisements for the year 2000 to investigate whether previous findings about cultural differences manifested in Eastern and Western ads are still valid. While communication styles were found to be different and localized, it appears that cultural values of individualism/collectivism reflected in Eastern and Western ads might be less distinct and globalized. Findings are discussed in terms of theoretical, methodological and socio-economic considerations, along with globalization/localization implication.
The Geography of Cross-National Research in Advertising, 1990-2001 • Yorgo Pasadeos and Ignatius Fosu, Alabama • NO ABSTRACT
Anti-Drinking and Driving PSAs: Persuasive Appeals and Images • Kasie Mitchell Roberson, Purdue University and Roger C. Saathoff, Texas Tech University • Television public service announcements have been key in creating awareness for prevention of alcohol-impaired. This study analyzed behavioral influence strategies and images in PSAs. The most frequent appeals were informative/ educational, empathy, fear and social modeling. While one might think that an expert would be an ideal choice in educating the audience about the issue of drinking and driving, spokespersons were the images found most often.
Negativity Effect or Message Sidedness Effect? Which Explains the Effects of Online Customer Reviews? • Shelly Rodgers and Mira Lee, Minnesota • The purpose of this research was to examine the effects of online customer reviews in light of two competing theories of persuasion – negativity effect and message sidedness effect – to determine which theory best explains this new phenomenon. This was accomplished with a two-factor, between-subjects experimental study. The independent variables were customer review type and monitoring process, and the dependent variables were corporate credibility, belief strength of positively reviewed attributes, attitude toward the brand and purchase intent.
Prescription Drug Advertising: The Effectiveness of Pitching Directlyt to Consumers • Subir Sengupta, Marist College • This study examined the attitude of consumers toward prescription drug advertising (PDA), and effectiveness of PDA. Telephone survey of 877 adults showed that most consumers are exposed to PDA, and are able to recall specific brands of prescription drugs they had seen advertised. Consumers appear to have a positive attitude toward PDA, and they frequently request their physicians for specific brands of prescription drugs. When requests are made, the physicians honor them in most cases.
Chronic Accessibility and Individual Cognitions: Examining the Effect of Message Frames in Political Advertisements • Fuyuan Shen, Penn State University • This study examines the effect of media framing on voter cognitions, and how such effect can be moderated by voters’ chronically accessible schemas. Participants in an experiment were exposed to political ads that have been systemically framed as either issue oriented or character oriented. Results indicated that while message frames could indeed prime audiences and alter the criteria they used in political evaluations. These effects, however, varied among those with different political schemas.
We Like It, We’re Going That Way, But Who’s at the Wheel?: An Exploratory Study of Integrated Marketing Communication • William N. Swain, Louisiana at Lafayette • The literature on integrated marketing communication (IMC) in the latter half of the 1990s offers evidence that a debate over the definition, acceptance, and leadership of the IMC remains unresolved. A survey was conducted to investigate perceptions of who should assume the leadership role in planning and implementing IMC, and whether there is consensus on those factors among samples of six groups with ties to marketing communication: advertising agency executives, public relations agency executives, corporate marketing executives, corporate public relations executives, advertising and marketing academics, and public relations academics.
The Effects of Third-Party Endorsements on Online Purchasing • Alex Wang, Texas at Austin • Do consumers process the third-party endorsement differently when it is presented in the form of news clip versus customer testimonial? This study investigated how consumers make their purchase decisions by integrating and examining two types of third-party endorsements, customer testimonial and news clip. The laboratory experiment tested several hypotheses on the determinants of a consumer’s purchase intention. The findings suggested that consumers evaluated the third-party endorsements by focusing on the believability and trust toward the news clip and customer testimonial to draw conclusion of their purchase intentions.
Use of Interactive Entertainment in Commercial Web Sites • Seounmi Youn and Heather Larson, North Dakota • Although marketers have incorporated interactive content into their web site as promotional tools, little academic research has been conducted on how marketers use these promotional tactics on the Internet. Using content analysis, this study examined how the top 100 megabrands utilize advergames, sweepstakes, and contests, and analyzed whether or not the use of online promotional tactics vary by product categories.
Effects of Advertising Images on Social Comparison: Do Societies Matter? • Shuhua Zhou, Peiqin Zhou and Fei Xue, Alabama • This paper investigated the effects of advertising images on social comparison variables. Participants from US and China took part in the three-group experiment. Affordable products and unaffordable products, as well as control images, were presented to participants. Subjects’ self-esteem and life-satisfaction were measured using a battery of scales. Results indicated affordable product images did not affect any dependent variables. However, exposure to unaffordable products produced mixed results.
SPECIAL TOPICS
Subversive Tactics in Early Nike Women’s Advertising • Jean Grow von Dorn, Marquette University • This analysis of early Nike women’s advertising suggests that the everyday lives of the creatives who worked on this account dramatically influenced the work produced. The author employed in-depth interviews with textual analysis. This study suggests that the creatives, through subversive tactics, challenged the gender bound paradigms that exist in advertising. Further, the author argues that their subversive reactions were driven by past experiences, as well as by their experiences while working on the Nike account.
Readers’ Perspective on Advertising’s Influence in Women’s Magazines: Thought on Two Common Practices • Eric Haley, Tennessee and Anne Cunningham, Louisiana State University • This study explores how consumers react to advertisers’ attempts to influence editorial content of media. Two practices are explored: complementary editorial (magazines giving editorial mentions to advertisers’ products or services) and attempts at content censorship. Specifically, the study looks at how women readers of women’s magazines make sense of the two aforementioned practices. Findings indicate that women feel that editorial mentions of advertisers’ products and services can be useful.
A Critical Application of Hofstede’s Masculinity/Femininity Continuum to the Gender Role Study: A Cross-cultural Comparison of Gender Portrayal in TV Commercials • Jongbae Hong, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale and Jaejin Lee, Hanyang University • This crosscultural advertising study compared gender role portrayals between Korean and U.S. TV commercials by analyzing a total of 2545 TV commercials including 5037 characters. Based on Hofstede’s masculinity/femininity intercultural value dimension and the interconnection of gender, culture, and media, gender role portrayals in two countries’ TV commercials were compared in terms of six categories such as frequencies, roles, settings, product types, relationships, and occupations.
Unpaid Advertising: A Case of Wilson the Volleyball in Cast Away • Michael L. Maynard and Megan Scala, Temple University • This study explores how Wilson the Volleyball’s non-purposive placement in Cast Away ironically resulted in a profitable advertising buy. After briefly discussing product placement in films, and how Wilson’s case is radically different, a cost efficiency calculus of how much advertising dollars were saved is offered. The effect of the unpaid placement is considered from the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), leading to a qualitative analysis of the effect of Wilson’s exposure.
PF&R Advertising in the Islamic World: The Portrayal of Women in Egyptian Television Commercials • Jami A. Fullerton and Azza Ahmad, Oklahoma State University • This study examines the portrayal of men and women in Egyptian television commercials and provides insight about advertising content in the Islamic world. It attempts to examine how the content of Egyptian television commercials reflect Egyptian culture and compares the findings to content studies from the U.S. and other countries. A pool of 306 commercials and 337 primary characters were examined from 18 hours of Egyptian prime time programming.
Longitudinal Content Analysis of Gender Imprints Left by Primetime Network Television Commercials: How Advertisers Portray The Gender of their Prospects • Dennis J. Ganahl and Kwangok Kim, Southern Illinois University • Advertisers must target their commercials to their prospects, which means the prospects must be able to see how the products fit into their lives. This research was designed to see how advertisers use gender images to target their prospects. This research was designed as a 3-year longitudinal study of prime time commercials for the same major networks during the same time period each year to insure comparable samplings and reliable coding.
Advertising and the First Amendment: The Central Hudson Analysis and the Impact of Lorillard Tobacco Co. v. Reilly • Michael Hoefges, Tennessee • Since 1980, the Supreme Court has used a complex form of intermediate constitutional scrutiny – the Central Hudson analysis – as a litmus test for government regulations of commercial speech. In Lorillard Tobacco Co. v. Reilly (2001), the Court used this analysis for the first time to test the constitutionality of state restrictions on tobacco advertising. This paper reviews the Court’s commercial speech doctrine through the Lorillard Tobacco decision and determines the legal impact of that case.
A Proper Prescription for Commercial Speech? A Study of the Food and Drug Administration Warning Letters Regulating Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Advertising • Annisa Lee North Carolina-Chapel Hill • This paper explores the criteria the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) uses to regulate Direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising. Analysis of 108 warning letters issued by the FDA to pharmaceutical companies shows signs of subjective, vague and immaterial regulations used to discontinue drug ads on a regular basis. Such evidence, demanding the need for more First Amendment protection for commercial speech, gives way to the purposeful expansive system of the FDA regulation.
TEACHING
The Decision to Major in Advertising: Gender Differences and Other Factors • Jami A. Fullerton, Oklahoma State and Don Umphrey, Southern Methodist • This study surveyed 275 advertising majors from two southwestern universities to determine the factors influencing their selection of their major. Many of the students reported being attracted to advertising because of its creative aspects. Reflecting this, more than one-third of the students expressed a desire to work as art directors or graphic designers after graduation. When asked about sources of information about aspects of their advertising major, most frequently cited were television, movies and ads in the media.
E-Business in the Marketing Communication Curriculum: Integrate, Don’t Isolate • Jim Pokrywczynski, Marquette • Although discussion of e-business in the curriculum usually has roots in the marketing or computer science areas, implications are also extensive for the communication industry and deserve some consideration. This paper outlines the influence that e-business has on communication areas like advertising and public relations, broadcasting and journalism. The paper posits the argument that changes in the curriculum should be integrated across most or all existing courses, rather that creating a rash of independent new courses to address this issue.
Multimedia for Mortals: Rationale, Resources, and Tips for Integrating Visuals, Audio, and Video into Lectures for Advertising Courses • James Hamilton, Georgia • Developments in desktop computing, digital encoding, digital delivery systems, and the integration of these with the practice of marketing and advertising have progressed to the point where producing multimedia presentations for courses in advertising is a practical possibility for people who have no other specialized, technical knowledge than a reasonable familiarity with using personal computers. This essay presents a rationale, resources, and tips for using multimedia presentations in advertising courses.
The Development of Distance Learning Courses: A Training Camp • Robyn Blakeman and Ralph Hanson, West Virginia • More colleges and universities across the country are implementing online distance learning courses as alternatives to traditional classroom instruction. Students who consider participating in online courses are as diverse as the courses themselves. Online courses must encourage student interaction and recognize and adapt to, individual student learning styles. This paper will examine how to develop an online course, retain student interest, develop course content as well as how to encourage interaction through these many venues.
STUDENT PAPERS
Environmental Determinants of Foreign Entry Mode Choice of U. S. Based Transnational Advertising Agencies • Jaemin Jung, Florida • This paper investigated the impact of host country environmental factors on the entry mode choice of U.S. advertising agencies. The hypotheses were derived by using the theories on the determinants of foreign direct investment in the manufacturing firms and service industries. The three hypotheses depicted U. S. advertising agencies empirically tested and revealed significant results. Joint ventures are preferred to acquisitions when the cultural distance between the host country and the U.S. is more distant.
The Roles of Emotion and Cognition in Attitude Formation from a Product Trial Under Different Purchase Decision Involvement Conditions • JooYoung Kim and SungWook Shim, Florida • Affective and cognitive responses to a product trial are examined in an experiment containing four cells representing two product types (hedonic and functional) and two involvement situations (low and high purchase decision involvement). The stimulus products were a computer game and grammar-checking software, and one hundred twenty five college students were sampled for the experiment. The specific affective responses studied were pleasure, arousal, and dominance; product cognitions are represented as the expectancy value from the product attributes (sum of (product beliefs x attribute evaluations)).
Web Context Effects on Perceptions of Product Attributes • Jung-Gyo Lee, Missouri-Columbia • This research reports how product attributes primed by contextual Web pages affect consumers’ judgments of products presented in subsequent Web pages in terms of product quality. It also looks at the moderating effects of individuals’ own levels of product involvement on assimilation and contrast processes. As expected, extremity of the context and ambiguity of the target brand were found to exert significant influences on judgment of product information.
Truth in Advertising: Progressive Era Reform and the New Professionals • Robert A Rabe, Wisconsin- Madison • This paper examines changes generated in the advertising industry in the years between 1900 and 1914 to “clean up” advertising and establish the newly professional industry as “progressive.” After discussing the historical interpretations of the progressive era and advertising history, it argues that, given an accurate interpretation of “progressive,” these efforts should place the advertising reformers within the bounds of the larger progressive movement of the early 20th century.
Anti-smoking Advertisements: The Effects of Corporate Credibility on Ad Credibility • Jennifer A. Robinson, Angela M. Adema, Lucian Dinu, Ignatius Fosu, Alabama • This paper examined the relationship between corporate credibility and antismoking ad credibility when source identification occurs at the end of the ad. Cigarette companies were perceived as less credible than both nonprofit agencies and the government. After exposure to ads attributed to them, the cigarette companies’ credibility increased. Source identification did not impact ad credibility. A model relating corporate (source) credibility, attitude toward the ad, ad credibility, and issue involvement was proposed and partially supported.
Website Structures And Audience Flow: A Network Approach • Dongyoung Sohn, Texas at Austin • What makes the Web a unique advertising medium? On which objective standards can we valuate each vehicle and compare it with others? Existing standards for audience measurement and vehicle valuation on the Web are heavily dependent on the traffic information of a separate site at a certain point or interval in time. As a result, the structures of interconnections between sites, which are unique to the Web, have not been carefully examined.
Materialism, Social Image and Self-Esteem in China: A Model of Advertising’s Social Effects from the Perspective of Social Comparison Theory • Peiqin Zhou, Alabama • The exploratory study tested the model examining the social effects of advertising in China from the perspective of social comparison theory. The study was designed within a broader context including materialism, global attitude toward advertising, self-esteem and life-satisfaction. The study found that using advertising images as the social standard improves self-esteem of Chinese college students, which is opposite of most previous research. It was argued that future-orientation employed by Chinese college students may help to understand the striking findings.
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