Advances in Advertising Research (Vol. III)

Carlsberg’s “Probably…” campaigns, whose slogan has been seen in more than 100 versions of commercials and advertisements world-wide (Creative and Commercial Communications Ltd., 1998), are probably the best known example of the use of probability markers in advertising.

Research stretching over several decades shows that contact with nature has inherently positive emotional, cognitive and physiological effects on human beings (e.g., Frumkin,

2003

; Han,

2009

; Hartig et al.,

1991

; Hartig et al.,

2003

; Korpela et al.,

2001

; Ulrich,

1984

). Attention restoration theory (Kaplan,

1995

) and Ulrich’s (1981) psycho-physiological stress reduction framework proclaim that visual encounters with natural scenes, compared to most urban scenes lacking natural elements such as trees, reduce stress and enhance cognitive functioning.

There is no doubt that thinness is a determinant of physical attractiveness of individuals in Western societies. However, in the recent past, a debate existed about whether very slim models should be depicted in magazines and used in advertisements. Researchers articulated concerns about negative effects resulting from a slim-is-beautiful stereotype that could have been learnt if slim models are depicted in the context of beauty and life-style products. These negative effects exist if young average-sized females are dissatisfied with their figure and thus take unhealthy measures to approach to a very low body weight. Grove et al. (2003) even postulated that a slim figure is one aspect for women to define their value. Empirical literature provides support to the hypothesis that extremely slim advertising models reduce young females’ appearance self-esteem. Moreover, this phenomenon is often associated with eating disorders.

Today, consumers face a huge diversity of products and services. An ordinary American supermarket sells about 285 types of cookies, 120 types of pasta sauces, 175 types of salad dressings and an incredible amount of 275 types of cereal (Schwartz, 2005). Online stores like Amazon offer 10.000 different hand bags and 180.000 products for gardening (Hielscher, 2009). A typical electronic store like the European electronics store Media Markt offers a total of 100.000 stock keeping units (Berke et al., 2012). At Media Markt, customers can choose among 80 different mobile phones, 100 fridges, 32 dishwashers, 146 coffee machines,81 printers, 54 computer screens, 285 notebooks, and 271 digital cameras (Mediamarkt.de).

While advertisers usually aim at throwing a positive light on their products, persuasion literature suggests that presenting some drawbacks in a two-sided message can increase persuasion. A two-sided message provides not only positive information, but also some negative information, while in a one-sided message, only positive information is given. However, the effects of two-sided messages are ambiguous (e.g., Anderson and Golden,1984; Crowley and Hoyer,1994; Eisend,2006). While the source of a two-sided message is perceived as more credible than the source of a one-sided message, attitudes towards two-sided messages tend to be less favorable. Inasmuch as positive credibility effects of message sidedness have been explained by attribution processes (e.g., Eisend, 2007; Gotlieb and Sarel, 1991; Kamins and Marks,1987), an explanation for the negative effect of sidedness on message attitudes has still not been addressed in the literature.

Ample studies demonstrate the dire effects of binge drinking, which is the episodic or irregular consumption of excessive amounts of alcohol, especially among adolescents (Oei and Morawska, 2004; Vik et al., 2003. Hence, there is a strong need for prevention programs to reduce alcohol use among adolescents (Swahn et al., 2004).

There is a fair amount of research on green consumption and some research specifically focused on green seals of approval (hereafter referred to as green seals). For example, there are studies on the general communication effects of green seals (D’Souza et al., 2006; D’Souza et al., 2007), their appropriateness for specific product categories (Montoro-Rios et al., 2006; Montoro-Rios et al., 2008) and their origin, standards and classification (Horne, 2009).

Children are a key target group for retailers and manufacturers (Effertz, 2008; Schor, 2004). Consequently, children are exposed to many marketing messages (Cross, 2002; Kunkel et al., 2004), which is evident in an increasing amount of advertising directly aimed at and targeted towards them (Kunkel, et al., 2004) and a large number of products specifically geared towards children as buyers (Cook, 2009; Honeyman, 2010; Lawlor, 2000; Wilson and Wood, 2004).

Today many companies communicate their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities via huge advertising campaigns, demonstrating to be a “good company" to their stakeholder groups. For instance, Pepsi’s “Refresh Project" gained attention when the company passed up running a commercial during the Super Bowl 2010 and spend the millions saved to a CSR campaign. In grants every month they spend $ 1.3 million to fund public-selected ideas which will "refresh our world" (Forbes, 2010). Coca-Cola invests lots of money in CSR campaigns, for example they included on their iconic red cans a seasonal white polar bear in order to raise awareness and money for the World Wildlife Fond. Furthermore, they sponsored the so-called ’red dress campaign’ with Heidi Klum for women’s heart health (Diet Coke, 2012). Moreover, almost every automotive manufacturer invests in "blue efficiency” (e.g., Volkswagen’s ”Golf Blue-e-motion”). By doing so, companies hope to improve their corporate image and increase consumer purchase intentions as well as their willingness to pay more money for the company’s products.

As online platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have greatly expanded people’s opportunities to communicate with each other about brands the social media phenomenon has established a new dynamic in the area of marketing communications (Dholakia and Durham, Kaplan and Haenlein,). Consumers have become a brand’s most important persuasion vehicle. Instead of passively receiving marketer-generated content consumers in social media era actively advocate (or, for that matter, thrash) brands by engaging in online activities centred around brands and brand-related content. For instance, they share the videos that other consumers have uploaded on Absolut Vodka’s YouTube channel, talk with other consumers about IKEA on Twitter, or upload pictures of their newly purchased Converse sneakers to Facebook, where their new pride is their peers to see and awe upon.

The value of branded websites as critical elements of an e-commerce strategy is without dispute (Reynolds, 2000; Ward and Lee, 2000; Flores, 2004; Ibeh et al., 2005). Yet knowledge about how the various characteristics of websites influence critical customer brand related cognitions, attitudes and behaviors is in its infancy compared to the non-web commerce world (Argyriou et al., 2006). This paper reports the results of an exploratory empirical investigation into how website brand equity is developed in the mind of consumers for a branded internet portal. The study proposes and tests the explanatory power of a customer-based brand equity (CBBE) model formed from indices of brand meaning, brand responses and brand resonance as postulated by Keller (2008). While this perspective has been suggested by a wide variety of previous research findings (Müller and Chandon, 2003; Ha, 2004; Ha and Perks, 2005; Na and Marshall, 2005), this study expands on the previous work by modeling how user experiences with website performance affects brand preferences, brand image perceptions and subsequent brand loyalty and advocacy.

The use of social networks is becoming more and more popular among consumers (Fox et al., 2010). Facebook, for instance, the predominant network online, has more than 700 Mio. members who often visit the platform several times a week (Poynter, 2008). Thus, social networks offer interesting perspectives for marketers (Eisend and Küster-Rohde, 2008; Zhang, 2010), and it is not surprising that several marketers already use Facebook as a marketing tool (e.g., Coca Cola, Red Bull, Audi, and many others) or plan to be present in social networks in the future (e.g., Busby et al., 2010; CFMR, 2009).

Research on website interactivity is widespread and there are two important reasons for this popularity. The first is that interactivity is assumed to be the key characteristic that distinguishes communication in traditional media from communication in new media such as websites (Chung and Zhao, 2004; Jo and Kim, 2003). The second reason for the great interest in website interactivity is the generally positive influence of website interactivity on affective consumer responses to websites. While there is also some discussion on the possible detrimental or inverted u-shaped influence of interactivity on information processing (Liu and Shrum, 2002), a bulk of studies have shown that interactive websites are more positively evaluated and this positive website evaluation generally spills over to positive evaluations of the content that is presented in this website.

Online consumer reviews are one of the various forms of eWOM that have challenged the interest of both researchers and practitioners. Such online articulation can contain evaluative information about a certain object and may be useful for potential consumers in determining whether they should or should not buy the product (Chen and Xie,

2008

). Prospective consumers are more likely to use a brand recommended by satisfied previous users than marketing-related sources, because information coming from other consumers are considered more truthful and relevant (Bickart and Schindler,

2001

).

An important problem for advertisers is the general tendency to avoid advertising (Li et al., 2002; McCoy et al., 2008; Zanot, 1984). Ads typically get the 'blame' that they do not meet the goals and desires of consumers, thus the commercial message is perceived as disturbing and therefore avoided (Li et al., 2002, McCoy et al., 2008; Speck and Elliott, 1997). In order to reduce interference and ad avoidance, advertisers must use forms of marketing which reflect the situation of the consumer (Cho and Cheon, 2004).

Consumer participation in loyalty programs continues to flourish and has become more frequent in service companies (Bolton et al., 2000). A loyalty program is a marketing program that is designed to build more involving relationships with customers by providing attractive incentives (Yi and Jeon, 2003). The logic behind this program is that loyal customers are a profitable segment as they tend to repeat their purchase, pay premium prices, and bring in new customers by word-of-mouth (O’ Brien and Jones, 1995). The use of loyalty programs is particularly important when firms want to win back inactive customers. The present study sheds light on this specific segment: those former customers who have left and not come back of their own accord. How can we get them back by QR code loyalty campaign? Quick response (QR) code is a unique, two-dimensional barcode that can be reproduced in a diverse range of printable surfaces.

From its beginning the digitalization of media was accompanied by the introduction and use of new forms for online and interactive advertising, e.g. banner, interstitials, e-mail advertising, ad-games, and in-game advertising (Silberer, 1997; 1997a; 2000; Fritz, 2004; Schulz et al., 2008). This development is still going on and includes efforts of stimulating an electronic word-of-mouth (Henning-Thurau et al., 2004) by the application of tell-a-friend services. This type of viral marketing could provide a fast and nearly cost free diffusion of website content and advertising messages.

Product placement involves the introduction of a identifiable branded product into the content or background of media broadcasting formats. Placements take place in traditional media as well as newer formats such as games and social media sites. A distinguishing feature of product placement is that – unlike traditional advertising – it takes place within the context of entertainment and is shaped or scaffolded by an immersive narrative (Cowley and Barron, 2008) thus making it difficult to avoid and often difficult to detect (La Ferle and Edwards, 2006).

The sharp increase in exposure to traditional advertising, its declining effectiveness (Jaffe, 2005), along with technological innovations such as the DVR, have forced professionals to shift their focus to alternative forms of advertising (Bernoff, 2007; Voorhoof, 2007). On a quest to successfully capture the ever more elusive attention of the consumer, advertisers have began to rely on more subtle advertising strategies such as product placement in entertainment media. Product placement is most commonly defined as the

‘paid inclusion of branded products or brand identifiers, through audio and/or visual means, within mass media programming’

(Karrh, 1998: 33).

In order to thrill saturated and fragmented advertising markets, firms are increasingly challenged to create innovative advertising strategies and campaigns that allow them to meaningfully connect with their target audiences (Gupta and Lord, 1998). One recent trend in advertising indicates firms’ efforts in tackling this problem. Firms to an increasing degree focus on brand placement to reach target customers.

It is possible to identify two clearly distinct international advertising strategies: standardisation and specialisation (Mueller, 2010). Standardisation operates on the assumption that as lifestyle and consumer needs are homogenised around the world, it becomes more cost effective to develop a universal advertising theme to ensure a multinational product penetrates the global market. When international advertising agencies standardise their campaigns for different markets around the world, they will be based on Western assumptions and values and this will be reflected in the advertisements they create. Consequently, Euro/American culture redefines masculinity outside the North Atlantic World (Connell, 1993).

Gender role norms for men and women can vary significantly from one culture to the next. A critical question for marketers and advertisers is whether gender differences translate into differences in consumer evaluations of marketing communications. In contrast with the disciplines of psychology and sociology, there has been a significantly more limited examination of sex differences in the area of consumer responses to advertising. The focus of this investigation is to address three key questions: (1) are certain ad appeals more effective with males vs. females? (2) do such preferences vary by culture? (3) are there age-related differences in the perception of soft-sell ads? This research examines gender and age differences in responses toward soft-sell ads in four different cultures. Specifically, it tests whether men and women and older and younger individuals differ in terms of attitude toward the ad, message credibility, irritation experienced, and ultimate purchase intention in the U.S, France, Germany and Italy. With regard to ad appeals, this study focuses specifically on soft-sell appeals (closely related to emotional appeals), which have been employed in advertising messages for more than a century. Soft-sell appeals are often contrasted with hard-sell appeals. Soft-sell appeals employ more visual imagery and are more subtle and ambiguous than hard-sell ones.

“It’s Christmas time!” and every year millions of children eagerly await Christmas Eve. Beyond the spiritual aspect of the holiday, children are especially looking forward to getting their presents. Gift-giving is one of the most important rituals associated with this holiday all over the developed, Christian world (Schori, 2008; Storey, 2008; Waldfogel, 2009). Parents, on the other hand, are engaged in selecting the right presents for their kids and therefore are very sensitive to children’s consumption habits during the run-up to Christmas because gift-giving is very important for both parents and children (Schori, 2008). As parents use the children’s letters to Santa or, in the southern-German world, to the

Christkind

(Baby Jesus) to get ideas for Christmas shopping (Clarke and McAuley, 2010), knowing more about children’s wishing behavior is an important subject for marketing and advertising.

Increasingly, advertisers use techniques that integrate persuasive messages into editorial content, resulting in blurred boundaries between advertising, entertainment, and information (Raney et al., 2003). Many of these techniques aim to reach children: Advergames, branded websites, and brand placements have invaded media targeted toward children (Calvert, 2008; Moore, 2004).

In recent years, computer games have become an important part of children’s lives. Gaming is not only one of their favorite pastime activities, but games are also increasingly used by marketers in an attempt to influence children’s purchase behavior. Today, almost every food and beverage brand targeting children has an advergame on its website. Advergames are

“computer games specifically created to function as advertisements to promote brands”

, containing brand identifiers such as logos and brand characters (Kretchmer, 2005: 7). Games can also be powerful learning tools. Several authors (e.g., Gee, 2003; Prensky, 2001) argue that computer games can be more enjoyable, more interesting and thus more effective than traditional learning modes to increase children’s knowledge. Empirical studies that evaluated the impact of the use of games within disciplines such as mathematics, science, language, geography and computer science show positive outcomes in terms of learning effectiveness in relation to curricu- lar objectives (e.g., Papastergiou, 2009; Rosas et al., 2003). However, these authors mainly focus on the learning ability of games rather than their persuasive impact for social marketing purposes. In the area of health education, playing computer games has often been seen with skepticism (e.g., Bale, 1994; Funk and Buchman, 1995).

Over the past decade, the practice of creative media choice, in which nontraditional media are creatively employed to implicitly communicate a target message, has grown rapidly (e.g., Dahlén, 2009; Dahlén et al. 2009a). Most likely, this trend will continue as marketers face ever higher levels of advertising clutter in traditional media, and need to find new ways to stand out (Elliott and Speck, 1998; Rosengren, 2008).

With increasing numbers of internet users advertisers have put more emphasis on online advertising and have shifted advertising budgets from traditional media to online media (Edelmann, 2007). While the internet certainly provides better ways for measuring the direct impact of advertising (e.g., in terms of click- through rates), it still remains an open question whether shifting from traditional to online advertising leads to higher effectiveness. In this study, we investigate whether and how such an advertising channel shift impacts consumers’ assessment of advertising practices.

Some advertising agencies and their marketing clients have traditionally invested in long term relationships that were greatly valued. Recent economic imperatives have prompted many clients to break such long term bonds and re-define relationships. For example, in the auto industry, some client-agency relationships forged over one hundred years ago have recently been terminated during the search for new agency partners and creativity. Consumer packaged goods marketers like Proctor and Gamble and Unilever also tend to remain with their full service agency of record partners, even when switching account teams and resources globally.

Marketing scholars traditionally regard satisfaction as an important determinant of customer loyalty (Oliver, 1999; 2010). The relevance of the satisfaction- loyalty link to managers is that changes in customers’ levels of satisfaction are expected to correspond to changes in customers’ share of category spending (i.e., share of wallet, SOW). In fact, Jones and Sasser (1995, p. 94) assert, “the ultimate measure of loyalty, of course, is share of purchases in the category.” While this may be an overstatement, since SOW is not as forward looking as other measures of loyalty (Oliver, 1999), it is frequently used by researchers to opera- tionalize loyalty behavior (e.g., Bowman et al., 2000; Bowman and Narayandas, 2004; Brody and Cunningham, 1968; Cunningham, 1956; Tellis, 1988; Wind, 1970).

How can free publicity contribute to building high quality consumer-brand relationships or strong brands? This is an important question because building strong brands is the main objective of brand management. Consumers are more willing to receive communication messages from strong brands (Smit et al., 2007); consumers show a tendency to ignore negative communication more if it is related to strong brands (Oliver, 1999), and strong brands generate higher profits than weak brands (e.g. Bendapudi and Berry, 1997; Bendapudi and Leone, 2002; Bhattacharya and Sen, 2003; Blackston, 2000; Morgan and Hunt, 1994; O’Malley and Tynan, 2001; Reichheld, 1996; Winer, 2001). Hence the aim of brand managers should be to establish high quality consumer-brand relationships.

‘An organization has two important key factors: its brand and its employees. Both are not imitable and basically unique’.

This quote by one of the interviewees in our study described in this paper (the CEO of a well-known international organization) clearly statesF the importance of organizational focus being on employees in order to succeed in a complex and fast moving environment. In recent years employer branding has significantly grown in relevance. Especially practitioners research on the topic of employer branding has received increasing attention (e.g., Andreassen and Lanseng, 2010; Edwards, 2010). Next to an expanding number of practitioners literature, different studies in the field of employer branding have been conducted, like for example the Q12 Workplace Survey (Gallup). The major task of the employer brand is to attract and retain superior employees (Berthon et al., 2005). With regard to the frequently cited ‘war for talent’ (e.g., Ewing et al., 2002; Lievens and Highhouse, 2003; Moroko and Uncles, 2008) a strong employer brand is seen essential to become an ‘employer of choice’ to attract prospective and retain existing employees (Martin et al., 2005). Especially inexperienced job seekers may rely upon the employer’s brand image as making a comparison based on job and company attributes can be difficult for them and furthermore they are not familiar with all workplace attributes (Agrawal and Swaroop, 2007). Indeed not only inexperienced job seekers have to manage with incomplete information. In fact, all employees have to accept a certain amount of missing information due to the fact that the complete assessment of an employer is not possible prior to employment with the organization (Moroko and Uncles, 2008). A strong employer brand can help to attract prospective and retain existing employees. However, even though the benefits and the importance of branding and brand building in the labor market have been discussed and acknowledged by many authors (e.g., Agrawal and Swaroop, 2007; Andreassen and Lanseng, 2010; Collins and Stevens, 2002), little is known regarding the factors that drive employer branding activities in organizations. Hence this paper focuses on the following research question to extend the research area of employer branding and to identify insights which have not yet been empirically examined.

Marketing, and particularly marketing communication (marcom), has experienced dramatic transitions over the last 60 years. From the dependency on mass media to the development of data-based systems, to today’s digitally-driven, interactive approaches, marcom has evolved based on new approaches and methodologies that were not even imagined six decades ago.