The effect of search condition and advertising type on visual attention to Internet advertising

This research was conducted to examine the level of consumers' visual attention to Internet advertising. It was predicted that consumers' search type would influence visual attention to advertising. Specifically, it was predicted that more attention to advertising would be attracted in the exploratory search condition than in the goal-directed search condition. It was also predicted that there would be a difference in visual attention depending on the advertisement type (advertising type: text vs. pictorial advertising). An eye tracker was used for measurement. Results revealed that search condition and advertising type influenced advertising effectiveness.     

A novel conceptual framework investigating the relationship between roadside advertising and road safety: The driver behaviour and roadside advertising conceptual framework

This paper proposes a conceptual framework to understand the relationship between roadside advertising signs, driver behaviour, and road safety outcomes. Roadside advertising signs are external distractions that may take a driver's attention away from safety-critical driving tasks, potentially increasing crash risk through driver distraction and inattention. Although studies report safety concerns, as a whole, the body of research in the field is inconclusive with inconsistent quality, making it difficult to draw firm conclusions. Definitive links between roadside advertising and road trauma are not yet evident, which has major consequences for road regulators' capacity to develop evidence-based policy to safely administer public roads. However, a lack of consistent evidence does not indicate an absence of risk but underscores its complexity. To address this problem, the Driver Behaviour and Roadside Advertising Conceptual Framework (DBRA framework) was developed to strategically investigate and conceptualise the phenomena of roadside advertising. A new term – “extended engagement” – has also been proposed to account for situations of prolonged attentional engagement with a roadside advertising sign. Further, it is posited that important variations in driving performance may be associated with a driver's extended engagement with a roadside advertising sign. Built on extant theories of driver behaviour and empirical research, the DBRA framework is designed to be a robust tool that encourages a common agenda for future roadside advertising research.     

The effects of source likeability and need for cognition on advertising effectiveness under explicit persuasion

• While there is evidence that an endorser's likeability plays a determining role in the advertising effectiveness of explicit persuasive appeals, this paper examines the impact of the need for cognition (NFC) as a moderator of this relationship. We find that this effect holds, as predicted, for individuals with lower NFC, but not for those with higher NFC. Furthermore, the effects of explicit persuasion and the endorser's likeability on evaluations of products or services by lower‐NFC consumers were found to be mediated by the attribution of self‐interest. In contrast, advertising effectiveness for higher‐NFC consumers was predictable only by the valence of their cognitive responses to the product.

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The COVID-19 threat and luxury advertising

The purpose of this research is to examine how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the luxury goods industry. The authors hypothesize that pandemic threats drive consumers toward luxury consumption to increase their perceptions of control. The article reports results of three experimental studies conducted in the United States. In Study 1, after participants read an article about COVID-19, they respond favorably to an advertisement for a luxury brand. The comparative control participants read an article about a tofu dish and respond less favorably to the luxury advertisement. Study 2 provides further evidence that perceived control acts as a mediator, while ruling out alternative explanations. Study 3 indicates that threat evokes luxury preferences only when advertisements for both luxury and nonluxury products use abstract messages, as opposed to concrete messages. The findings provide practical insights showing that the most effective advertising strategy for luxury brand managers is to use abstract rather than concrete messages for targeting consumers who feel highly threatened by COVID-19.     

Show me the product,show me the model: Effect of picture type on attitudes toward advertising

We suggest that a consideration of consumer self-evaluations is fundamental to understanding the conditions under which it is more advantageous to present person or product pictures in print advertisements. We build on the basic human motives of self-enhancement and self-verification to propose that the specific self-esteem level of consumers, in the domain relevant for the category, differentially affects their responses to picture type. Specifically, for consumers with low (high) domain-specific self-esteem, depicting a product (person) in the advertisement enhances attitudes toward the advertisement more than depicting a person (product). In two studies, we demonstrate the proposed matching relationships using two different domains of consumer self-evaluation: appearance self-esteem and academic self-esteem. We also show that increased and more fluent generation of self-related mental imagery drives the observed improvement in attitudes toward the advertisement. Our findings suggest direct implications for advertising design.     

Humour in advertising: An associative processing model

This chapter reviews a research programme on the effects of humour in advertising on positive and negative brand associations and brand choice, and integrates the findings into a single overarching model. Based on the Associative and Propositional Processes Model of Evaluation (Gawronski & Bodenhausen, 2006, 2007, 2011), we propose that repeated pairings of a novel brand with brand-unrelated humour forms positive brand associations, which mediate spontaneous brand choice. This associative process was found to be independent from the level of distraction posed by humour and from awareness of the stimulus pairings. In fact the distraction posed by humour benefits persuasion by preventing negative brand associations. Previous marketing research, which mainly viewed humour as a cue in peripheral processing, was rather pessimistic about the persuasive impact of humour. In contrast, this research programme suggests that a repeated pairing of a brand with humour affects the brand’s underlying associative structure, which may lead to stable attitude changes that guide overt spontaneous brand choice. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Analysing applications of neuromarketing in efficacy of programmatic advertising

In this paper, there is exploration of the concept of neuromarketing as a newly developed strategy with economic potential deriving from human brain research. The central notion of the essay is that programmatic advertising can be used to better comprehend the idea of neuromarketing and its impact on consumers' decision-making. So neuromarketing involves the scientific observation of brainwave activity, eye tracking, and skin response to determine how people's brains react to advertisements and other brand-related communications. By studying the brain, these neuromarketing strategies can forecast how consumers will make decisions. The neuromarketing tactics' benefits and constraints are studied on a number of market input devices in the paper. The influence of various techniques of neuromarketing is studied from the available research studies and literature. In the recent years, the neuromarketing concept has been able to garner a lot of importance in its contribution to the marketing, advertising, and programmatic advertising has been immensely helped by the understanding of consumer decision making. The consumer behaviour has been able to be comprehended through neuromarketing techniques which are one of the key pillars of the purpose and running of programmatic advertising. A neuromarketing study shall be the helping hand for increasing customer base, market leadership, and converting them to loyal customers. It will help in programmatic advertising through the understanding of the advertiser with respect to the likes and wants of the customers and how consumer attention can be drawn. The consumer behaviour can be understood by the marketers in terms of how the consumers react to the advertising.     

Masculinity threats influence evaluation of hypermasculine advertisements

ABSTRACT

The precarious manhood paradigm posits that many men view their gender as a social status that must be earned and maintained, and can be lost. The present study applied the precarious manhood paradigm to a hypermasculine advertisement. A sample of 208 men was collected online. Using a false feedback paradigm, men’s masculinity was either threatened, or not threatened. The men then viewed one of two commercials. One commercial was a neutral, control advertisement, and one was a hypermasculine advertisement. We also measured participants’ endorsement of masculine norms. Results of a moderated moderation analysis indicated that men in the threat condition were more likely to view the hypermasculine advertisement as being masculinity-enhancing, if they also endorsed the masculine norms of Winning, Heterosexual Self-Presentation, and Power over Women. Results for future research applying precarious manhood to advertising, and implications for clinical work with men, are discussed.     

When consensus counts: Exploring the impact of consensus claims in advertising

Consensus claims are broad declarative statements used in an advertisement purporting that a majority of a certain group of consumers prefer or use the sponsor's product or service. While consensus claims are frequently used by advertisers, little is known about how they operate or their effectiveness. We utilize attribution theory to provide insight about how consensus claims operate, and to investigate the impact of consensus claims on attributions and brand attitudes. Results suggest consensus claims are an effective advertising strategy, but their persuasive impact varies according to the featured social information and the processing motivation of audience members.     

The concept of suggestion in the early history of advertising psychology

As early as 1896, experimental psychologists began studying the mental proccesses involved in advertising. The first psychological theory of advertising maintained, in effect, that the consumer was a nonrational, suggestible creature under the hypnotic influence of the advertising copywriter. Walter Dill Scott was the major proponent of this theory, and it was largely through his writings that advertising men learned about the psychology of suggestion. Scott's theory was consistent with a growing trend in the advertising profession toward viewing consumer behavior as irrational. Scott's efforts might also be viewed as part of the trend in the advertising profession toward seeking a scientific basis for copywriting theory and practice.     

医疗广告存在的问题及出路

伴随着广告途径增多和广告效应的增加,也带来了大量的非法广告,其中的医疗广告成为其中的重要组成部分,医疗广告的存与禁的问题也成为人们争论的热点。通过对于我国医疗广告存在的问题和产生的影响等方面的分析,指出医疗广告有其存在的必然性,同时,提出规范医疗广告市场的相应措施。     

Advertising Literacy and Executive Function: Testing Their Influence on Children’s Consumer Behavior

For decades, researchers have theorized that children’s persuasion understanding should help them cope with commercial messages. Yet, to date, there is little evidence to support this hypothesized relationship. Recently, scholars have suggested 2 potential reasons for the lack of findings. The first is that the measure of children’s persuasion understanding has not been thoroughly conceptualized, as previous work has confused knowledge of persuasive intent with knowledge of selling intent. The second is that previous research on the subject has not appropriately considered the role that cognitive development plays in helping children respond to commercial messages with a particular focus on the role that executive function should play. Working with 79 elementary school children and their parents, this study tested whether children’s advertising knowledge was associated with parent-reported consumer behavior (i.e., purchase requests) and if children’s executive function moderated this relationship. Results indicate that children’s understanding of selling intent is negatively associated with parent-reported purchase requests, but understanding of persuasive intent is not. Moreover, although children’s executive function does not moderate this relationship, it is directly associated with consumer behavior. These results offer new insights into how children’s advertising literacy and cognitive development potentially affect their consumer behavior.     

Mixing emotions: The use of humor in fear advertising

Fear is used to advertise many products, services, and causes such as antismoking, sunscreen usage, and safe driving. Past research indicates that high levels of fear tension arousal can prompt defensive responses in the audience, which, in turn, can reduce the persuasive effect of the ad. We show in two studies that humor can reduce these defensive responses and hence increase the persuasiveness of fear advertising. Specifically, we show that increasing the level of fear tension arousal decreases persuasion when humor is absent but increases persuasion when humor is present. Further, this interaction of humor and fear tension arousal is mediated by defensive responses related to message elaboration and vulnerability to threat. Our results suggest that the effectiveness of fear advertising can be increased by adding an element of humor to the ad. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Voice and persuasion in a banking telemarketing context

Voice has been neglected in research on advertising and persuasion. The present study examined the influence of voice and sex on the credibility of the voice source in a banking telemarketing context as well as with regards to the attitude toward the advertisement, and subjects' behavioral intention. An experiment using voices of a man and a woman was conducted. A recorded mock-telemarketing message consisted of an advertisement for an ATM card offered by a Canadian bank. Subjects were undergraduate students (N=399; 71.6% women, 28.4% men; M age=26.5 yr., SD = 7.4). They completed a questionnaire after hearing the message in telemarketing conditions. Analysis indicated a moderate intensity, an unmarked intonation, and a fast speech rate are associated with a more credible source than the other combinations. Sex was not a significant moderator in the relationship between voice characteristics and source credibility. Voice characteristics significantly affected attitudes toward the advertisement and behavioral intention.     

An fMRI study of advertising appeals and their relationship to product attractiveness and buying intentions

This study examines the effects of various visual apparel advertisements on consumers' brain activation during exposure to different types of advertising appeals (i.e., celebrity, non‐celebrity, and rational). The influence on consumer perceptions of products and their subsequent buying intentions are also measured. A repeated measures experimental design was employed, and the total of 27 right‐handed female subjects participated in the study. The results of the quantitative data showed significant differences in perceived product attractiveness for each of the three types of advertising appeals, but not in buying intentions. Regarding the fMRI results, our findings support the notion that celebrity advertising appeals are associated with heightened brain activation of memory‐related/retrieval regions, reflecting how consumers remember the ad and are influenced by the attractiveness of the source. Non‐celebrity advertising appeals were more closely associated with brain activation of regions thought to mediate self‐reflection and also engaging executive functions. For rational advertising appeals, our findings showed significant activation in brain areas associated with logical evaluative decision making reflecting more logical processing value assessments and reward potential. Therefore, retailers/marketers must be particularly mindful to match the appropriate advertising appeal to the specific purpose of the advertisement. This study also provides brain‐based insight into the effectiveness of different types of advertising appeals and whether or not they have the desired impact on the consumer. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Impact of emotional appeal on non-profit advertising: A neurophysiological analysis

The number of Non-Profit Organisations (NPOs) has increased in the past years, and they rely on advertising to communicate their causes. Although the effectiveness of NPO advertising has been studied previously, there is still no consensus about which appeal (emotionally positive or negative) increases its effectiveness. On the other hand, the most prevalent research approaches to NPO advertising are traditional research methodologies based on declarative techniques. So, the purpose of this study is to identify which appeal (positive or negative) in NPO advertising is more effective at the three levels of effectiveness (perceptual or communicational effectiveness, psychological or attitudinal effectiveness and behavioural effectiveness), providing a new approach based on the analysis of consumers' unconscious responses to advertising. We conducted an experiment with 113 participants whose neurophysiological responses were evaluated through electroencephalogram (EEG) and eye tracking (ET) while they watched NPO advertisements with a randomly assigned emotional appeal (positive or negative). In addition, a survey revealed behavioural responses. The results showed that considering the psychological or attitudinal effectiveness, positively framed ads are more effective, as there is a positive effect on attitudes towards the ad and a higher positive emotional valence. On the other hand, in perceptual effectiveness, where attention is considered an important variable, the negatively framed ads showed more significant time in the area of interest (AOI) of the image area of the ad, and longer time in the AOI text was observed for positively framed ads. Furthermore, regarding behavioural effectiveness, negatively framed ads seem more effective in eliciting actual donations. The results suggest that a positive appeal is more effective in generating a more positive attitude and a positive emotional valence towards the advertisement, which could benefit the NPO in the long term. But a negative appeal is more effective if the goal is to achieve immediate donations.     

基于人性本真性的拟人化广告的负面情绪与态度——愧疚感的中介作用

通常来说,商业活动中的拟人化设计可以起到增加亲切感、提升产品评价和增加购买意愿作用。然而,产品广告中不恰当的拟人化设计所引发的负面情绪和态度却很少受到学术界和实践界的关注。本文以食物广告的拟人化设计为研究背景,发现广告中对食用对象进行不恰当的拟人化设计会让人产生愧疚感,进而对广告态度产生负面态度。更进一步,本文表明这种负面效应只发生在感知该拟人化对象的人性本真性高的情况。当消费者不相信拟人化对象真的会拥有人性(本真性低)时,拟人化广告并不会给人们带来明显的负面情绪和态度。     

Television alcohol advertising: Do children really mean what they say?

Few studies have investigated children's responses to television alcohol advertising. Two separate studies evaluated the appeal of alcohol advertisements on children aged 7–10. An exploratory interview study (N=17) was carried out to assess children's verbal responses to both alcohol and non‐alcohol advertisements and to elicit vocabulary to be used in the second study. Whilst the 7–8 years old children were very positive about the alcohol advertisements, older children did not like them, nor did they perceive them to be effective. The second study was designed to assess children's implicit knowledge, in view of developmental theory that knowledge is not always available for verbal report. This study (N=179) used a simple categorization programme on computer. Using this methodology, children of all ages liked the alcohol advertisements and perceived them as effective. Advertising styles affected popularity with humour, cartoon format or the inclusion of an animal, or character increasing the appeal of an advertisement. The discussion draws attention to the importance of multiple methodologies in eliciting valid and accurate information from children, and to policy matters with regard to alcohol advertising regulation.     

Children and “junk food” advertising: Critique of a recent Australian study

A field experiment by Australian public health researchers Norman, Kelly, McMahon, and others allegedly demonstrated that primary school children's physical health is threatened by exposure to “junk food” advertising. Their study was published in the international health journal Appetite and was clearly intended to influence government regulatory policy. The methodology of the study was taken, without acknowledgement, from an earlier American study in the Journal of Consumer Research and much other research on children's consumer behavior, including pioneering studies conducted by the present author? was ignored. Also, quite unforgivably, the researchers neglected to cite Australia's already strict regulatory controls on and guidelines for advertising directed to children. The present author sent a rejoinder to Appetite pointing out the many problems with Norman et al.'s research and recommending that their article be withdrawn, but the editor insisted I revise it to remove almost all the criticisms, which I naturally refused to do. Instead, by publishing this article in JCB, the present author is hoping to make consumer researchers aware of the sort of poorly performed and ideologically influenced research relating to marketing and consumer behavior that is appearing in the health journals. The present article also contributes more generally by exposing problems that must be avoided in experimental research on consumer behavior.     

Differences in readers' response towards advertising versus publicity

Publicity is assumed to have higher credibility than advertising prompting communication specialists to call for its use alongside traditional advertising to achieve overall communication goals. To test the differences in readers' response towards advertisements and publicity, a sample of students (N= 104; 52 men and 52 women) were shown printed messages identified as advertising or publicity. The publicity format appeared to be associated with deeper processing because participants had higher recall, more message-relevant thoughts, and better discrimination for the publicity message. In addition, participants rated the publicity message higher on Source Credibility, Brand Attitude, and Purchase Intent than a comparable advertisement.