advertising Research

ADVERTISINGThe Quarterly Review of Marketing Communications

International Journal of

Volume 26 Number 4 2007

ContentsEditorial 419

The academician–practitioner gap in advertising 425Gergely Nyilasy and Leonard Reid

The web motivation inventory: replication, extension and application 447to internet advertisingShelly Rodgers, Ye Wang, Ruth Rettie and Frank Alpert

More than meets the eye: investigating the hidden impact of brand 477placements in television magazinesJörg Matthes, Christian Schemer and Werner Wirth

The influence of message format on the effectiveness of print 505advertisements for tourism destinationsAlain Decrop

Internet advertising effectiveness: the effect of design on click-through 527rates for banner adsHelen Robinson, Anna Wysocka and Chris Hand

Directions in marketing communications research: an analysis of 543the International Journal of AdvertisingDouglas West

Comments – International advertising issues and challenges 557From Charles R. Taylor and Barbara Mueller

Book reviews 565W. Timothy Coombs and Sherry J. Holladay – It’s not just PR: public relations in societyAndrew Purcell

Paul Gillin – The New Influencers: A Marketer’s Guide to the New Social MediaSusan Dobscha

Ex Libris – Malcolm White

Global economy and adspend prospects 571

The Advertising Association is not responsible for the opinions anddata contained in the editorial or articles in this journal

© Advertising Association 2007

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T Ambler, Senior FellowLondon Business SchoolProfessor M J BakerUniversity of StrathclydeDr L BergkvistProfessor P BerthonBentley CollegeA L BielAlexander L Biel & AssociatesProfessor S BrownUniversity of UlsterProfessor S BurgessUniversity of Cape Town, South AfricaProfessor L CarlsonClemson UniversityProfessor A CaruanaUniversity of MaltaProfessor C S CraigNew York UniversityProfessor G DaviesManchester Business SchoolProfessor L de ChernatonyUniversity of BirminghamProfessor A S C EhrenbergSouth Bank UniversityProfessor R ElliottWarwick Business SchoolProfessor M EwingMonash UniversityProfessor P W FarrisUniversity of VirginiaProfessor J FordOld Dominion UniversityA T GreenIpsos MORIProfessor L HaBowling Green State UniversityProfessor C HackleyRoyal Holloway University of LondonProfessor F HansenCopenhagen Business SchoolProfessor H HenryIMCAProfessor M HolbrookColumbia UniversityProfessor J P JonesRGC Consulting CorporationProfessor M A KaminsUniversity of Southern CaliforniaProfessor K KarandeOld Dominion UniversityProfessor S KatesSimon Fraser UniversityProfessor E KaynakPennsylvania State University at HarrisburgProfessor P KitchenHull Business SchoolProfessor S KoslowUniversity of WaikatoProfessor A KoverFordham and Yale UniversitiesProfessor D KrugmanUniversity of Georgia

Professor J J LambinUniversity Catholique de LouvainJ LannonMarket LeaderDr H LiMichigan State UniversityC McDonald McDonald ResearchProfessor P MichellLeeds University Business SchoolDr A NairnE M LyonProfessor P NeijensUniversity of AmsterdamDr S O’DonohoeUniversity of EdinburghProfessor S OkazakiAutonomous University of MadridProfessor D OlsenUniversity of AlbertaProfessor S PaliwodaUniversity of StrathclydeProfessor C PattiUniversity of DenverProfessor N PiercyWarwick Business SchoolA E Pitcher, CBEInternational Advertising AssociationProfessor L PittSimon Fraser UniversityProfessor G PrendergastHong Kong Baptist UniversityProfessor L ReidUniversity of GeorgiaProfessor J RossiterUniversity of WollongongProfessor C RungieUniversity of South AustraliaProfessor S SasserEastern Michigan UniversityProfessor D SchultzNorthwestern UniversityJ ScrivenSouth Bank UniversityProfessor B SternRutgers UniversityProfessor D StewartUniversity of Southern CaliforniaProfessor M Sutherland Bond UniversityProfessor R TaylorVillanova UniversityA C TempestDirector General, FEDMA, BrusselsProfessor R TerlutterUniversity of KlagenfurtM J WatersonThe Advertising AssociationR WhiteAdmapDr B YoungUniversity of ExeterProfessor G ZinkhanUniversity of Georgia

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

Contents.qxp 05/11/2007 11:38 Page 418

We have some thought-provokingcomments to accompany the mainarticles in this last issue of IJA of 2007,with ‘Overcoming barriers to publish-ing international advertising researchin top journals’ from Charles R. Taylor(Villanova University) and ‘Just wheredoes corporate responsibility end andconsumer responsibility begin? Thecase of marketing food to kids aroundthe globe’ from Barbara Mueller (SanDiego State University). Along withthe book reviews is a fascinatingEx Libris from our invited practitioner,Malcolm White, and our regular globaladspend trends from Colin Macleod atWARC.

There are a couple of web-relateddevelopments worthy of note for thisend-of-the-year report. One is that thejournal launched its new website inspring – www.internationaljournalofadvertising.com. The site features fulltext of the previous 12 months’ issues,all IJA article abstracts since 1990, aswell as abstracts from the entirewarc.com database. Full text of leadingIJA papers on key industry debates ofthe past ten years are also accessible, asare book reviews and comment pieces.Subscribers to the journal (here comesa small plug) also benefit from accessto global adspend data by country, and

full text of the adspend trends articlepublished in each issue.

The other development is that wewill soon be changing our submissionsprocess to an online paper-trackingsystem. Authors will be able to submittheir papers over the internet andcheck on their progress, and reviewerswill be able to download papers andcomplete reviews through the system.It will bring greater clarity and visibil-ity to the review process for authors,and will make online reviews quickerand easier to complete.

Turning to this year’s submissionstatistics, there has been an increase insubmissions on 2006 figures of justover 10% to 102 submissions. It isnotoriously difficult to be preciseabout the acceptance rate in any calen-dar year given the ‘overhang’ of papersunder review from year to year, but ourestimate is an 18% acceptance rate for2007. Turning to author domicile, theUnited States has increased its share ofsubmissions from 27% last year to31%; submissions from Europe fellslightly over the same period, from24% to 17%, and those from the UKfell significantly, from 25% to 9%. Isuspect the fall in submissions fromthe UK may be linked to the UK’sresearch assessment exercise for 2008

Editorial

Douglas WestUniversity of Birmingham

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International Journal of Advertising, 26(4), pp. 419–420© 2007 Advertising AssociationPublished by the World Advertising Research Center, www.warc.com

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING, 2007, 26(4)

(see http://www.rae.ac.uk/), which seesthis year as the closing period.However, there was an enormousincrease in submissions from the restof the world, from 23% to 43% of thetotal. A new statistic to pass on is that95% of submissions were from aca-demics and 5% made up of MAR-COMS practitioners.

Regarding topics, advertisingpractice (32%) and advertising effects(31%) continued to dominate thesubmissions, followed by advertisingcontent (19%). Compared to lastyear, submissions on cultural topicsdeclined sharply, from 23% to 14%, asdid public policy, which fell from 18%to 4%. Perhaps the shift in topic areasreflects the changes in the domicile ofsubmissions.

Thanks to the members of ourEditorial Advisory Board for their con-tinued support of the IJA and theirvaluable advice to people submittingpapers. A particular thanks to JohnFord (Old Dominion) and StephanieO’Donohoe (Edinburgh) for their workand development of the Commentsand Book review sections respectively.We will be announcing our two topreviewers of 2007 in the next issue,which is always an extremely difficultdecision, made jointly by the Editorand production team.

Lastly, I would like to thank (inalphabetical order) the following adhoc reviewers:

Jennifer Argo, University of AlbertaGeorge Balabanis, Cass Business

School, City UniversityBradley Barnes, University of KentHelen Borland, University of

BirminghamLouise Canning, University of

BirminghamMarylyn Carrigan, University of

BirminghamGeorge Christodoulides, University of

BirminghamGeoffrey Crouch, La Trobe

UniversityJanine Dermody, University of

GloucestershireLynne Eagle, University of

MiddlesexJaafar El Murad, University of

WestminsterMichael La Tour, University of

Nevada, Las VegasLarry Percy, Copenhagen Business

SchoolIan Phau, University of CurtinMike Read, Monash UniversityHelen Robinson, Kingston UniversityHerbert Rotfeld, Auburn UniversityIsabelle Szmigin, University of

Birmingham

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ABSTRACTS

The academician–practitioner gap in advertising 425Gergely Nyilasy and Leonard Reid

The existence of the academician–practitioner gap is readily acknowledged andwidely discussed in the marketing/advertising literature. This paper analyses keywritings on the nature of the academician–practitioner rift and proposes a newapproach complementing the literature. The review identifies five prevailingexplanations why miscommunication between academicians and practitionersexists: (1) the failure of academic knowledge dissemination systems; (2) problems with the knowledge content and knowledge form academiciansproduce; (3) counterproductive academic organisational systems; (4) questions ofphilosophy of science; and (5) practitioners’ inability and unwillingness to processacademic information. The study concludes that one potential explanation isentirely missed in these accounts: the possibility that practitioners’ knowledgeabout how advertising works is an autonomous construct, which has its own rulesand deep structure, and resists simple assimilation attempted by academicians.The study also complements the existing literature by basing the review on firmtheoretical grounds: the authors apply the influential sociological theory ofprofessionalisation. Finally, future directions for research investigation are suggested,which moves the predominantly normative discourse into the empirical world.

The web motivation inventory: replication, extension 447and application to internet advertisingShelly Rodgers, Ye Wang, Ruth Rettie and Frank Alpert

The Web Motivation Inventory (WMI) is used in internet advertising research,and is frequently used and cited in advertising, marketing and communicationliterature. Investigations of the robustness of the WMI have been somewhatlimited. Additionally, new uses of the internet are not accounted for by the WMIsince its publication in 2002. This paper replicates and extends the original WMIusing participants in the US, UK and Australia and includes internet motives notpreviously examined. The results show that the four-factor WMI remained reliableand valid for all three samples. Findings suggest the extended WMI may bebroken into 12 sub-scales that represent the original four-factor measure.

More than meets the eye: investigating the hidden impact 477of brand placements in television magazinesJörg Matthes, Christian Schemer and Werner Wirth

A growing research literature suggests that visual brand placements need not berecalled in order to have an impact on brand attitudes. In an experimental studyworking with an authentic television broadcast, the authors investigated the

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influence of frequency of placement exposure, viewers’ involvement and viewers’persuasion knowledge on the attitudes towards the brand and brand recall. Resultsclearly indicate a mere exposure effect. A frequently presented brand placementcan have a positive effect on brand evaluations although viewers do not recall thebrand. However, this effect can only be found when there is a high involvement inthe programme and low persuasion knowledge. In contrast, when persuasionknowledge is high and involvement is low, frequently presented placements leadto a deterioration of brand attitudes.

The influence of message format on the effectiveness 505of print advertisements for tourism destinationsAlain Decrop

In a context of overabundant ads and saturated consumers, message format iscrucial in developing effective advertising campaigns. In this study, four majorformat components of print advertisements are considered: picture, logo, text andheadline. The goal is to investigate the effectiveness of each of these componentsin triggering a response by the target audience. Three types of response are takeninto account: knowledge (information), liking (attraction) and behaviouralintention. Four series of hypotheses related to the influence of message format onthe effectiveness of print ads are tested for an urban tourism destination throughan experimental research design. Findings show that picture and text are theprevailing elements, while logo and headline are of marginal importance. Picturesare especially effective in attracting the consumer and arousing a behaviouralintention, whereas text is most powerful in conveying information.

Internet advertising effectiveness: the effect of design 527on click-through rates for banner adsHelen Robinson, Anna Wysocka and Chris Hand

Online advertising has experienced phenomenal growth since its inception in1994. This empirical study investigates the impact of seven creative characteristicsof banner ads on the effectiveness of online advertising using a multiple regressionmodel. A random sample of 209 banner ads was drawn from a sampling frame ofadvertisers, provided by an advertising agency specialising in internet advertisingfor the gaming industry. The findings of this study are broadly consistent with pastresearch into online advertising efficiency, indicating that the creativecharacteristics of effective banner ads in the online gaming arena include: a largersize, absence of promotional incentives and the presence of information aboutcasino games. In contrast, banner features such as animation, action phrase andpresence of company brand or logo were ineffective in generating click-throughs.Contrary to expectations, long messages on banners were associated with higherclick-through rates.


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ABSTRACTS

Directions in marketing communications research: 543an analysis of the International Journal of AdvertisingDouglas West

This paper provides a content analysis of the inputs and outputs of the InternationalJournal of Advertising (IJA) during the period 1992–2006 and was sparked by the25th anniversary of the journal (1982–2006). A total of 348 papers were surveyed usinga content analysis in order to provide researchers and readers with a better sense ofthe contribution of the IJA over the past 15 years. The analysis reveals a journallargely focused upon topics involving practice and effects with increasinglysophisticated statistical techniques employed. Single-authored papers appear to be indecline in favour of two- to three-authored papers and author institutions widelydomiciled across North America, Asia, the UK, Europe and Australasia.



The academician–practitioner gapin advertising

Gergely NyilasyHall and Partners, New York

Leonard N. ReidGrady College, University of Georgia

The existence of the academician–practitioner gap is readily acknowledged and widelydiscussed in the marketing/advertising literature. This paper analyses key writings on thenature of the academician–practitioner rift and proposes a new approach complementingthe literature. The review identifies five prevailing explanations why miscommunicationbetween academicians and practitioners exists: (1) the failure of academic knowledge dis-semination systems; (2) problems with the knowledge content and knowledge form aca-demicians produce; (3) counterproductive academic organisational systems; (4) questionsof philosophy of science; and (5) practitioners’ inability and unwillingness to process aca-demic information. The study concludes that one potential explanation is entirely missedin these accounts: the possibility that practitioners’ knowledge about how advertisingworks is an autonomous construct, which has its own rules and deep structure, and resistssimple assimilation attempted by academicians. The study also complements the exist-ing literature by basing the review on firm theoretical grounds: the authors apply theinfluential sociological theory of professionalisation. Finally, future directions for researchinvestigation are suggested, which moves the predominantly normative discourse intothe empirical world.

Introduction

Advertising academicians and advertising practitioners seem to live in dif-ferent worlds. The separation between these two groups, commonlyreferred to as the academician–practitioner gap (Hunt 2002a), would notbe too alarming if it only denoted the fact that there are always discrepan-cies between theoretical modelling in the field and practical applications.The gap in the case of advertising, however, is much wider and is mani-fested on deeper levels than would be expected in the case of occupationssuch as medicine, engineering or law.

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The importance of the subject is reflected in a recent action of theAmerican Academy of Advertising. At the 2006 AAA Conference, a specialtopic session focused specifically on the problem of the academician–prac-titioner gap; the central mission of the session was to find ways ‘to createmore connections between advertising practitioners and those in aca-demia’ (Katz 2007, p. 1). The outcome was the creation of an AAANewsletter series on applied research summaries to build and strengthenthe relationship between the academic producers and the applied users ofadvertising knowledge. This paper offers another means of continuing thedialogue and promotes the discussion of the ‘gap’ problem between theacademic and professional communities of advertising.

The objective of this paper is twofold: (1) to give a structural review ofthe academician–practitioner divide literature in advertising and (2) topropose a new approach that moves the discussion forward. Specifically,the paper analyses key writings from the marketing and advertising litera-ture that discuss the nature of the academician–practitioner rift, why itexists and if it is possible to narrow it.

The paper also suggests that the reviewed literature suffers from threeshortcomings: (1) the explanations offered are incomplete; (2) they lack aclear theoretical framework – they tend to be ad hoc assessments; and(3) they have little empirical support. In contrast, the authors recommenda new approach that addresses each of these points: (1) the approach offersa new explanation that complements the existing literature; (2) it utilisesa firm theoretical base; and (3) it maps out directions for future empiricalinvestigations.

The review has some inherent limitations. Although the authors havemade a significant effort to search and compile an exhaustive list of arti-cles for reviewing the subject (through searching databases such asEBSCO Business Source Premier, following reference links, consultingcolleagues, etc.), some sources might have been missed. Further, thereview claims about the nature of academician–practitioner relations arelimited geographically: they are assumed to be valid only in the US andthe UK – the origins of the referenced sources. It is quite possible thatsome dynamics of the above relations have strong local flavours in othercountries.

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THE ACADEMICIAN–PRACTITIONER GAP IN ADVERTISING

The first part of the paper surveys the existing literature. Next it intro-duces a new approach, which places the debate in a relevant theoreticalcontext and maps out future directions for empirical inquiries.

The review

The existence of the academician–practitioner gap is readily acknowl-edged and widely discussed in marketing, one of advertising’s umbrelladisciplines. As Hunt (2002a, p. 305) argues: ‘Throughout its 100-plus yearhistory, one of the most recurring themes has been that there is a “gap” or“divide” between marketing academe and marketing practice.’ Indeed,over the years, a sizeable volume of literature has developed focusing onthis issue (e.g. Ehrenberg 1969; Kover 1976; Maiken et al. 1979; Peters1980; Parasuraman 1982; Holbrook 1985, 1987; Preston 1985; AMA TaskForce 1988; Wells 1993; McQuarrie 1998; Rossiter 2001; Hunt 2002b;McKenzie et al. 2002; Baker & Holt 2004; Baldridge et al. 2004; Brennan& Ankers 2004; November 2004; Tapp 2004a, 2004b; Gabriel et al. 2006;Southgate 2006).

Most scholars define the gap as a communication problem between aca-demia and advertising/marketing practice. According to this view, whileacademicians continually add to a body of abstract knowledge aboutadvertising and marketing phenomena, practitioners do not seem con-nected to this information. Practitioners do not read journals, and they donot even consider academic knowledge very relevant (Hunt 2002a).

While few commentators question the existence of the gap, they offerradically different explanations, and consequently suggest different poten-tial solutions. Most commonly, the cause of the problem is attributed toacademicians themselves, and the academician–practitioner rift linked tofive problems: (1) information dissemination; (2) knowledge content andform; (3) academic organisational structures; (4) philosophy of science; and(5) practitioner users.

Knowledge dissemination

To many, the divide is a ‘dissemination’ problem and exists because acad-emicians are not successful in disseminating the knowledge they generate.According to the AMA Task Force on the Development of Marketing

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Thought, academic researchers do not communicate well with their con-stituencies, ‘most importantly with practitioners’ (AMA Task Force 1988,p. 4). The Task Force – specifically brought together for assessing andpotentially reducing the gap – described the classic ideal of a direct com-munication flow from academia to praxis: ‘Primarily, marketing knowledgeis developed somewhat formally by academic researchers and commercialmarketing researchers or consultants and more experientially by “practi-tioners” or users. Knowledge developed by academic researchers tends tobe disseminated to the discipline through research journals or academi-cally oriented conferences’ (AMA Task Force 1988, p. 17). It is the break-down in academia’s knowledge distribution system that causes the divide.The assumption is that if only these systems improved, then theacademician–practitioner problem would cease to exist.

Similarly, Baker and Holt (2004) fault marketing education for the factthat despite long decades of research, marketing is perceived to bethe least accountable function in business: ‘One of the key findings isthat marketers are perceived to be “unaccountable” by the rest of the

Table 1: Understandings of the marketing academician–practitioner gap – based ona review of the academic literature

Definition: miscommunication between marketing academia and practice

Who to blame

Causes Academicians Practitioners

Knowledge dissemination Failure to create adequate distribution systems for academic advertising knowledge

Knowledge content/form Too much focus on knowledge production that has no relevance or presented in an incomprehensible format for practice

Academic organisational structures Certain organisational characteristics of academia prohibit a practical focus

Philosophy of science Philosophical presuppositions about the nature of academic advertising knowledge that prohibit a practical focus

Practitioner knowledge utilisation Unwillingness and inabilityof practitioners to processadvertising research results

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organisation; they are seen as unable to demonstrate a return on invest-ment in the activities they have control over’ (p. 560). Baker and Holtargue that this is especially embarrassing as there are useful tools out therethat simply do not get to the practitioners.

Some commentators, however, highlight that it is unrealistic to assumea direct flow from academe to praxis, and it is through the facilitation ofindirect flows that the gap can be narrowed. Brennan (2004), for example,argues: ‘There is evidence that marketing practitioners do not read aca-demic marketing journals. Perhaps the surprise here is not that practition-ers eschew these journals, but that anyone would expect them to read suchmaterial at all.’ Brennan argues that immediate and obvious applications ofacademic research are neither possible nor desirable. Ehrenberg, almostfour decades ago (1969), very similarly stated that it took a considerableamount of time and energy to apply theory to practice; technological appli-cation is not an automatic or a direct process in any field, rather it is a longand ‘painful’ one. The gap in this sense is to some extent natural, and care-ful nurturing of indirect channels that can effectively translate academicdevelopments into technological applications (such as textbooks, associa-tion work, and consultant and research services) would ultimately resolvethe issue.

In his rejoinder to the AMA Task Force report, Garda (1988, p. 35)agrees with this assessment: ‘The Task Force report implies that market-ing knowledge is solely original research at the concept/theory level.Original research is surely needed in each of the knowledge levels, butalso needed are resynthesis, repackaging, and repetition of “old” knowl-edge for the new generation of managers.’ Academic researchers (or oth-ers such as consulting or research firms) need to develop this secondaryform of knowledge to make academic research palatable for practitioners.McKenzie et al. (2002) also acknowledge the importance of channels forindirect communication flows such as trade journals, textbooks, confer-ences, training and development courses.

Others, however, disagree with the assessment that no direct communi-cation is necessary and express concern over the efficiency of indirect dis-semination routes. Tapp (2004b, pp. 497–498), for example, suggests: ‘Theargument that we don’t have to concern ourselves with how our workmight be used, on the grounds that there is often a time lag between thedevelopment of underlying theory and its use in practice, is wearing

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increasingly thin.’ He argues that if academicians do not concern them-selves with the lack of direct flow, there will be no flow whatsoever, andacademic research will quickly become obsolete.

Knowledge content and form

It is not only knowledge dissemination that is problematic but also thecontent of advertising/marketing knowledge itself. November (2004), forexample, in his satirical article, enumerates seven reasons why practition-ers should continue to ignore academic research: (1) academic researchdoes not contain knowledge that is relevant or actionable for practitioners;(2) academic knowledge is inadequately structured: ‘The reality is that,while we do seem to have an agreed standard as to what a brick is, there isno agreement as to which bricks need to be made first, no foundations, noarchitect of the final wall, and no idea as to what the wall is expected to dowhen, if ever, it is built’ (November 2004, p. 41); (3) academics sometimesmake false, misleading claims about the existence of causality where, inreality, it is not warranted; (4) academic research is often reductionistic:‘While a narrowly focused study is manageable and likely to lead to adefinitive result, the results, assuming they have statistical validity, cannotbe applied outside the scope of the study. This means that we can nevergenerate any generalisations from a single reductionist study’ (November2004, p. 43); (5) measurement in marketing is imprecise: ‘Because ourmeasurement systems lack precision in comparison with those used inclassical sciences’ (November 2004, p. 44); (6) knowledge is too generaland therefore does not help; (7) there is little replication in marketresearch. In essence, November’s caustic satire implies there is no usefulknowledge in marketing academia and practitioners should not expectthere to be.

In a similarly self-critical manner, the AMA Task Force (1988, p. 6)pummels academic researchers for producing research that is not goodenough (and not good enough for practitioners). The Task Force suggeststhat there are no real innovative ideas in academic research, only short-payoff studies; only ‘knowledge creep’ and not ‘knowledge spurt’. Atanother point in the report, they formulate this criticism much morestrongly; they suggest that there is, in fact, very little knowledge availableat all in marketing: ‘Further, there is little generalizable, accumulated

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marketing knowledge to be disseminated to marketing’s constituents’(AMA Task Force 1988, p. 17).

Further criticisms include the suggestion that academic research is verydifficult to read and uses a lot of jargon (Brennan 2004; Ottesen &Gronhaug 2004) – one study even provides empirical evidence for thisclaim (Crosier 2004). Another potential reason is that academic researchersare not familiar with the problems practitioners face and therefore areunable to develop research programmes that are useful for this con-stituency (Easton 2000, cited in Brennan & Ankers 2004). Parasuraman(1982, p. 78) suggests that this detachment is aggravated by the fact thatlittle practitioner input is sought or allowed in academic projects: ‘Lack ofmanagerial involvement or at least some managerial emphasis at the the-ory development stage can greatly reduce the chances of the theory everbeing applied in practice.’

Finally, Katsikeas et al. (2004, p. 568) argue that the problem maysimply be topicality: if academic researchers are able to identify the rele-vant ‘hot’ topics for research, academia automatically ceases to be irrele-vant: ‘Emphasis is placed on identifying a number of “hot” topics worthyof future investigation. … It is hoped that the identification and discussionof these topics will spark greater research on fundamental marketingissues, and that the allied explication of research rigour will likewiseenhance the efficacy of research in marketing.’

Academic organisational structures

Others point to the organisational context of the academic world and arguethat the gap between practitioners and academicians can partly beexplained by the fact that academic incentive and reward systems are notconducive to research that is of direct use for practitioners. One of the keyfindings of the AMA Task Force study was that the understanding of thesociological context of academia has predictive power when it comes toexplaining the gap. The Task Force (1988, p. 6) concluded: ‘The [incen-tive and reward] system, however, does truly deserve its appellation “pub-lish or perish”. It produces some very strong and undesirable incentivestoward knowledge development on the part of young academicians: it isextremely short-term in orientation, is almost entirely peer-reviewed, and

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is strongly directed toward achieving a maximum number of publicationsas a means to the end of promotion.’

Similarly, November (2004, p. 41) suggests that the sociological context,in which academic knowledge is conceived, has a tremendous impact onthe knowledge produced: ‘The relevance of this published material topractitioners has nothing to do with your promotional prospects or itschance of being published. At most universities, the critical factor is thenumber of publications and the type of journal in which they are pub-lished – not their relevance. The absence of relevance can readily be seenin the published products.’

Brennan and Ankers (2004, p. 511) also claim that it is the organisationalstructure of research at universities, and not individual researchers, that isat fault: ‘It seems clear that although academics would like to get closer topractitioners, they are inhibited by institutional factors, such as academicreward systems and the “publish or perish” culture.’

Philosophy of science

Some commentators dig deeper and examine the fundamental philosoph-ical presuppositions of academic research. The discussion has crystallisedaround the dichotomy of whether academic advertising/marketingresearch is a basic vs applied or academic vs professional discipline. Thosewho claim the field is an academic discipline argue that scholars are underno obligation to produce knowledge that is directly relevant for practition-ers. For this group, the gap between practitioners and academicians is ulti-mately not a very serious issue. The other group, on the contrary, suggeststhat since advertising/marketing is by definition an applied field, if acade-micians are not relevant for practitioners, they are not producing any use-ful knowledge. This latter approach can be summed up by the proverbialquestion Webster (1988, p. 49) posed: ‘What kind of “knowledge” in mar-keting is there that is not relevant for practice?’

Although the debate was very heated in the 1980s, it seems the ‘profes-sional discipline’ side has won the dispute. Hunt’s (2002b) monumentalsummary of marketing theory concludes that ‘problem-oriented research’is what marketing academia should strive for. In his assessment, ‘problem-oriented research’ represents a healthy equilibrium between purely basicresearch orientation and purely pragmatic applied research. ‘Problem-

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oriented research’ is applied research, which produces theoretically basedgeneralisations that also have practical value.

Similarly, Myers argued in a famous roundtable discussion on the issue:‘Marketing academicians should recognize that the overall purpose ofresearch and knowledge development in this field, over the short-run orthe long-run, is to improve marketing practice, and decision-making, andin general, to advance the state of knowledge useful for the profession’(cited in Maiken et al. 1979, p. 62).

There is still a group of thinkers that insist, quite forcefully, that adver-tising/marketing academia should have nothing to do with practice.Kassarjian suggests, for example: ‘I see no reason why just because we arein marketing we want to force a kind of practitioner view, or a real-worldview into other places. … I see absolutely no reason why I should have avalue system imposed on me that says do something useful. I don’t wantto do anything useful; I want to do what I want to do. … Those of us inacademia want to push our value system onto the other side of the worldand the other side of the world is trying to push their value system on usand maybe we just ought to part company’ (cited in Maiken et al. 1979,p. 71). Holbrook (1985, p. 145; 1987), another famous advocate of the aca-demic discipline viewpoint, argues: ‘I believe that business does to con-sumer research approximately what the comedian Gallagher’sSledge-O-Matic does to watermelon. It smashes, crushes, and pulverizes.If you want to sit in the front row at a Gallagher concert, you had betterwear a raincoat.’

While the above described standpoint seems to be in the minority inacademia, it represents a very powerful dynamic: the need for autonomyin advertising/marketing (or any type of academic) research. Those criti-cising the academic discipline orientation blame this on – what theybelieve to be – a misconstrued notion of scholarly autonomy and suggestthat this deep-seated belief is responsible for academia’s inability to pro-duce useful knowledge for the advertising practitioner.

Preston (1985, p. 14) suggests, for example, that academic freedom maybe better understood within the boundaries of the mission of the academicunit under which the scholar is operating. If freedom is understood thisway, marketing/advertising academicians may not be free to be irrelevant:‘There is, however, another relevant academic concept – that of the statedmission of an academic unit. Many university departments have written

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mission statements, and for advertising or marketing units they undoubt-edly make reference to the study of problems faced by practitioners. If thefaculty is studying the consumer in such ways as to be not explicitly study-ing practitioners’ problems, then perhaps the mission is not being carriedout.’

Yet another way of characterising the above dichotomy between aca-demic and professional discipline orientation is the ‘rigour vs relevance’debate: ‘Marketing, perhaps more than any other management functions,has had to struggle with a presumed conflict between rigor and relevance’(Webster 1988, p. 48). According to this formulation of the dichotomy,knowledge cannot be both rigorous and relevant in advertising/marketingresearch; you have to pick sides. Another way of stating this conflict is thatresearchers have to find a compromise between reliability and externalvalidity.

According to the critics of the academician–practitioner divide, how-ever, the dichotomy is false and should not be an excuse for the produc-tion of professionally irrelevant research. Some suggest that perhaps thefocus has been too much on reliability and not enough on external valid-ity in academic research (McQuarrie 1998). The consensus seems to bethat responsible advertising/marketing scholarship should strive for bothrigour and relevance: ‘the rigor and relevance dichotomy is not only falsebut counterproductive and misleading. … Research quality suffers if theonly concern is analytical rigor because marketing problems are so easilymisspecified, leading to results that are neither valid nor credible.However, managers and practitioners certainly do not come to the aca-demic world of marketing thought looking only for relevance. Nothing ismore useful to a professional marketing manager than a good theory thatcan help to bring order out of chaos, insights out of data, meaning out ofpatterns’ (Webster 1988, p. 61). A similar assessment is provided byKatsikeas et al. (2004, p. 568): ‘Enhancing the relevance and rigour of ourresearch in order to arrive at better explanations of contemporary andprospective marketing problems and issues is central to the continueddevelopment of the discipline.’

Even if, theoretically, the professional discipline view represents themajority opinion in academic practice, the actual research often ends upless than useful for practitioners: ‘It seems to be the case that the type ofresearch output that is viewed by academics as being of the highest

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quality, is the type of research that is viewed by managers as being of theleast interest’ (Brennan 2004). Some critics suggest that even stating thedichotomy of basic vs applied is dangerous, because it allows for work thatwill never be useful for anyone. The danger to suggest that there is a basicorientation is that the academician–practitioner gap becomes trivialisedand ignored. As Parasuraman (1982, p. 78) argues: ‘Surely, marketingtheory building as an end in itself is not worth pursuing. Nevertheless,there is a very real danger of this happening due to the insistence on label-ing research projects as either scientist-oriented or technologist-oriented,and further claiming that only scientist-oriented research can contribute totheory construction.’

Practitioner knowledge utilisation

So far we have only discussed arguments placing the blame for theacademician–practitioner divide on academicians. Some reviewers, how-ever, clearly charge practitioners as well for the existence of the gap.

First, some critics point to the fact that practitioners often do not useacademic information even if it is useful for them. According to this view,even if academia sometimes does have problems with communicating rel-evant information to practitioners, many times there is relevant informa-tion available – practitioners simply do not use it. Brennan and Ankers(2004), for example, provide in-depth interview data with academicianspondering on this issue: ‘[The objective is to] provide leading edgeknowledge to society but if that society chooses not to use it I don’t thinkit is our job to beat up on them and say “you’re idiots”. You can put thewater in the trough and bring the horse to the trough, but if they don’twant to drink then that’s not an academic’s problem.’

McKenzie et al. (2002) report survey data suggesting that, out of theirsample population of practitioners (n = 47), not a single marketing man-ager reads academic journals: ‘It is clear from this survey that academicjournals devoted to marketing are largely unknown and unread by mar-keting managers’ (p. 12).

Related to the previous commentary, the gap may also be explained bynegative attitudes held by practitioners (irrespective of whether or notthere is any justification for it). The AMA Task Force (1988, p 8), forinstance, points to the possibility that the whole issue of irrelevance may

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be more of a practitioner perception than reality: ‘The work of a market-ing academician may be dismissed as “ivory tower” and having little rele-vance to the real world when, in fact, some marketing academicians dofocus on translating theory into practice.’

Holbrook (1985, 1987) suggests that there is a generalised negative atti-tude among practitioners (business people) against academia: anti-intel-lectualism. In this view, the problem does not have to do with opinionsabout advertising research in particular. Rather, the problem has to do witha general negative opinion among American business people about the util-ity and value of academia. Holbrook argues – as cited above – that this isthe main reason academia should not be concerned about practical rele-vance: business anti-intellectualism can only ruin academic marketingresearch.

Finally, some critics focus on individual cognitive capabilities ratherthan structural features. Ottesen and Gronhaug (2004) argue that part ofthe problem may be that professionals simply lack the necessary knowl-edge to be able to comprehend complex presentations of academic data.They might also have a limited attention capacity to process academicinformation. They suggest: ‘Also, the research information may not beunderstood, because the potential users lack the required knowledge(Ottesen & Gronhaug 2004 1990, p. 521). It is also possible that the rele-vant users are unaware of the information, because potential users – likeother human beings – have limited attention capacity’ (Cohen &Levinthal 1990, p. 521). Myers, similarly, argues that part of the explana-tion for the gap lies in managers’ ‘lack of receptivity’ to academic infor-mation (cited in Maiken et al. 1979, p. 64).

Summary and new directions

To summarise, the growing literature on the academician–practitioner gaphas expressed serious concern about the status quo. Commentatorsemphasise that the current situation is unfortunate and detrimental to thefuture interests of both advertising/marketing academia and practice.Most define the problem as a communication issue and attribute the causeof the gap to academic research itself: the inability of academia to produceand disseminate relevant research knowledge to practitioners. Theconsensus is that the discipline is by definition applied and not basic;

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therefore academicians should conduct ‘problem-oriented research’ (Hunt2002b), or research that addresses general problems advertising/marketingpractitioners may face. Some commentators also point to the possibilitythat – at least partly – practitioners should be blamed for their unwilling-ness or inability to process information that is practically useful and read-ily available.

The authors’ contention is that this classic understanding of the acade-mician–practitioner gap has shortcomings on three fronts: (1) the explana-tions offered are incomplete; (2) they lack theoretical foundations – theytend to be ad hoc assessments; and (3) they do not have much empiricalsupport. Let us consider each of these limitations and offer a newapproach that strives to overcome them.

A new explanation: practitioner knowledge autonomy

What is striking from the reviewed literature is the extent to which the dis-cussion is centred on academia. Most of the literature focuses on acade-micians themselves and identifies academic knowledge distribution,content/form, organisational and philosophical factors as the root causes ofthe problem. When practitioners are mentioned, they are conceptualisedas empty vessels (and very leaky ones at that) to be filled with academicwisdom. Despite bona fide attempts by academicians, they are deemedunwilling and incapable of accepting a knowledge transfer.

This classic view does not allow for a very possible alternative scenario:practitioners may have their own autonomous knowledge forms about howadvertising works. It is very conceivable that as a distinct social group, theyhave developed their own sets of beliefs about advertising, which in bothcontent and form are independent of academic knowledge. Practitionerknowledge may carry either of the following ‘markers of knowledgeautonomy’:

• own set of theories• own sets of postulated boundary conditions and domains of applicability• unique underlying philosophical assumptions (meta-theories)• unique forms of validity/reliability testing• independent social systems to negotiate, distribute and consume

knowledge-systems that ignore or may actively resist academic influence

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• own ‘style’ of thinking and normative ideas about what is acceptable vsunacceptable to believe in, irrespective of a strict sense of validity.

This is not to say that practitioners are entirely isolated from academia.Indeed, the history of advertising research offers great examples ofacademician–practitioner interaction. Many authors have actually been onboth sides of the fence, both practising and publishing in academic jour-nals – literally embodying a knowledge crossover (consider such classictheorists as Ernest Dichter, Claude C. Hopkins, Herbert Krugman,Richard Vaughn; or contemporaries such as Tim Ambler, Paul Feldwick,Robert Heath, John Philip Jones, Erik du Plessis, John R. Rossiter, toname a few). Further, practitioners may in fact use, unadmittedly, someforms of academic knowledge. Even though direct flows seem to beobstructed, in indirect ways some ideas may still percolate through. Mediaplanners, for instance, may use the mental models of wear-in/wear-out the-ory when working with media response models – even if they would notbe able to reflect on the fact that they have borrowed anything from aca-demia. It seems that intermediaries (consultancies, research services andproducts, journalists, general educators) have a very instrumental role inthese implicit transfers.

Nevertheless, the existence of interactions, dialogues and crossovers(which still represent relatively isolated occurrences, rather than the norm)does not challenge the contention that there may be structural differencesbetween academic and practitioner knowledge forms. Even though theymay influence each other, the two forms of knowledge seem to representdifferent centres of gravity. The existence of a conversation does not implythat the conversing partners have identical norms, underlying assump-tions, styles of expression or ways of knowing. In fact, that is very rarelythe case. Finally, as an analytical strategy, it makes sense to fully under-stand the individual components of an intertwined system, before interac-tions can be described.

The classic view clearly ignores the possibility of practitioner knowl-edge autonomy and implicitly or explicitly presupposes a unidirectionalflow from academia to praxis. Some innovative thinkers, however, havealready pointed to the possibility of a ‘reverse flow’. The most emblematicexample is Zaltman et al.’s (1982) ‘theory-in-use’ approach. Others havealso emphasised the legitimacy of a praxis-to-academe transfer. Ottesen

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and Gronhaug (2004, p. 526), for instance, argue: ‘In order to enhance theusefulness of academic marketing knowledge to practitioners, we need tounderstand what types of information they perceive as useful as well asfactors that might impair the transfer of research information from acade-mia to practice.’ Similarly, Parasuraman (1982, p. 79) suggests: ‘To theextent possible, attempting to incorporate some managerial focus in theprocess of marketing theory development is a useful goal to strive toward.However, this may be easier said than done. For, it would not only requirethat the theory builders be aware of the ultimate theory users’ (i.e. practi-tioners’) perspectives, but also require that the ultimate theory users beappreciative of the potential benefits of developing marketing theories.’Rossiter (2001, p. 21) proposes that one potential way of overcoming thedivide between academia and practice is back-engineering practitionerknowledge into academia: ‘What is circulating as “practitioner marketingknowledge” must be codified and translated into the form of strategicprinciples, and this work will doubtless have to be done by academics.’

What we argue for in this paper, however, goes beyond the idea of a sim-ple reverse flow. It is possible that, precisely because of the postulatedautonomy of practitioner knowledge, certain aspects of this knowledge donot lend themselves to easy back-engineering into academia. It is also pos-sible that fundamental philosophical, metatheoretical and methodologicalrifts between the two domains (as well as sociological aspects of their pro-duction and negotiation) make the reverse flow just as problematic as theforward flow depicted by the classic literature. When thinking aboutknowledge flows, we can no longer assume, without critically assessing thevalidity of this assumption, that the only difference between academic andpractitioner knowledge is their topical content. It is quite possible thatthey are autonomous knowledge systems that differ in complex, multifac-eted and interacting structural ways.

Although at the developmental stage, the authors have collected datathat have found some initial empirical support for the above outlined newapproach. The authors encourage others to also investigate the hypothesis.

Broader theoretical context

The classic literature on the academician–practitioner divide also fails toput its claims into a larger theoretical context. However, there is a theory

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in the sociology of occupations that can be of great help. The theory ofprofessions focuses precisely on the phenomenon we want to understand:the nature of the link between an occupation and its theoretical core (if itat all exists). Professionalisation explains why occupations need to developan academic knowledge base, thereby maintaining and elevating theirstanding in society (see for example MacDonald 1992; Abbott 1998).

All occupations, even ones that are not considered ‘professions’ in asociology of occupations sense, strive for a professional status. If thereseems to be a breakdown in the otherwise universal professionalisationprocess (discrepancies and detachments between the knowledge base andits application), the analysis needs to focus on the characteristics of theknowledge base and how key constituencies think about it, in order tounderstand the discrepancy better. In other words, the idea of profession-alisation puts the academician–practitioner gap in a broader-scale theoret-ical context that may provide better explanations than an enumeration ofad hoc causes based on ad hoc opinions, an approach, characteristic of theabove reviewed literature. Among other things, professionalisation shedslight on the fact that what is really at stake is not just a problem of com-munication disturbances, personally held attitudes or reading habits, butthe societal status of an occupation. If the divide between practitionersand academicians is truly rooted in knowledge, and if practitioners andacademicians disagree what knowledge is or can be in advertising, this canseriously threaten, if not altogether undermine, the (aspired) professionalstatus of the advertising industry.

The need for empirical studies on practitioner knowledge

Finally, as suggested above, the current literature discussing theacademician–practitioner discrepancies is largely normative: a collection ofad hoc observations and recommendations without positive support (someexceptions using empirical data are McKenzie et al. (2002) and Brennan &Ankers (2004)). With a Copernican turn, we need to start using our ownsocial scientific methods and observe the gap in an empirical-positivemanner. If we truly want to understand what seems to be a key componentof the issue, namely the autonomy of practitioner knowledge, we need tolaunch research projects to investigate. Such empirical studies can give

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support (or can refute) the new conceptualisation of the academician–practitioner gap described above.

Sadly, with very few exceptions (Kover 1995; Gabriel et al. 2006) thereare currently no empirical studies available to answer the question ofwhether there are knowledge autonomy-based discrepancies between aca-demicians and practitioners. We do not know if the gap exists partlybecause of any of the following:

1. ad practitioners believe advertising works differently from what aca-demics claim;

2. if practitioners have the same presuppositions whether this knowledgeis even possible;

3. whether it is even relevant for them to have such a theoretical knowl-edge base when dealing with clients.

Such an investigation is long overdue. As mentioned earlier, the authorshave recently collected and analysed data to be able to answer these ques-tions, focusing on:

1. practitioner theories;2. practitioner metatheories; and3. pseudo-professionalisation techniques.

Their approach in this research was qualitative interviewing, using thegrounded theory method. Another potential empirical direction may bethe analysis of written practitioner texts. Advertising professionals seem tolove to write about their trade in the form of business books, trade articlesand even crossover papers published in academic publications such as theJournal of Advertising Research, International Journal of Advertising orInternational Journal of Market Research; such documents can be subjectedto systematic analysis. A third potential source is advertising effectivenesscase studies collected and published by professional organisations such asthe IPA and MRS in the UK. Finally, conference proceedings can beanalysed to content/textual analyses.

When executing such empirical investigations, it is important to notethat ‘practitioner’ is a heterogeneous construct. At the macro-level argu-ment that has been presented in this paper, the practitioner clearly differsfrom the academic; on a more micro-level analysis, important differencesare expected. It is very reasonable to assume that there will be important

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variations in the knowledge autonomies of advertising agencies (and evenfunctional units within) as well as marketing personnel or higher manage-ment on the client side. Further, intermediaries (research services, con-sultancies, associations, etc.) represent yet another layer of complexity – asthese groups often take an intervening position between academia andpractice. The differences between these groups should be uncovered byempirical investigations.

Conclusion

For advertising academicians to advance advertising knowledge, while ful-filling their professional responsibilities to the academic and professionalcommunities, investigations from the practitioner perspective are sorelyneeded in order to accomplish two fundamental objectives:

1. to narrow the divide between academicians and practitioners, whichendangers both academic research as a discipline and advertising as aprofessionalising occupation; communication and exchange – which areimpossible without the understanding of each other’s language – arenecessary preconditions for long-term survival for both parties

2. to aid advertising education by uncovering the types of knowledgeadvertising practitioners possess, use and expect from novices enteringthe academy; advertising educators may benefit from this research byusing these insights for the development of improved educational pro-grammes – ones that do a better job in anticipating the realities of adver-tising work and the needs of the industry.

To the benefit of all, research on what practitioners think about theworkings of advertising will allow us to compare and contrast practitionerperspectives with academic ones, thus allowing us to understand theacademician–practitioner gap on an even deeper level. If discrepancies arefound, this can be indicative of the knowledge-based nature of theacademician–practitioner gap and relevant implications can be drawn tominimise it. Additionally, if investigated in the social context in whichpractitioner knowledge is used, research can provide a rich description ofa knowledge-based occupation’s professionalisation dynamics, includingadvertising’s scholarly responsibilities to the academic community where

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advertising is taught and studied, and to the professional communitywhere advertising is practised.

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the editor and the manuscript’s three reviewersfor their insightful and constructive comments and suggestions.

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About the authors

Gergely Nyilasy is a senior account executive in the New York City officeof Hall & Partners, a market research firm specialising in advertising andbrand research. Beyond regular quantitative research projects for variousfmcg, B2B/technology and service industry clients, he plays a major role inthe firm’s R&D and new product development initiatives. He graduatedfrom the University of Georgia with a PhD in mass communication, wherehe also taught classes in copywriting (a former career). His research inter-ests include digital communication, word of mouth, sociology of occupa-tions/professionalisation and practitioner–academician relations.

Leonard N. Reid is professor of advertising at the University of Georgia.He received his PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Advertising andformer editor of the Journal of Advertising. His research on advertising andrelated topics has been published in many of the leading advertising,marketing, mass communication and health communication journals. Hismost recent research focuses on advertising knowledge and professionalpractice, trust in advertising, and direct-to-consumer prescription drugadvertising.

Address correspondence to: Greg Nyilasy, Hall & Partners New York,72 Spring Street, New York, NY 10012, USA.

Email: [email protected]

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The Web Motivation InventoryReplication, extension and application

to internet advertising

Shelly RodgersUniversity of Missouri-Columbia

Ye WangMissouri School of Journalism

Ruth RettieKingston University

Frank AlpertThe University of Queensland

The Web Motivation Inventory (WMI) is used in internet advertising research, and isfrequently used and cited in advertising, marketing and communication literature.Investigations of the robustness of the WMI have been somewhat limited. Additionally,new uses of the internet are not accounted for by the WMI since its publication in 2002.This paper replicates and extends the original WMI using participants in the US, UK andAustralia and includes internet motives not previously examined. The results show thatthe four-factor WMI remained reliable and valid for all three samples. Findings suggestthe extended WMI may be broken into 12 sub-scales that represent the original four-factor measure.

Introduction

Internet advertisers in the US spent $7.9 billion during the first six monthsof 2006 – a 37% increase over the first half of 2005 (IAB 2006). Increase inonline advertising reaffirms the internet’s growing importance for adver-tisers and marketers who want to engage consumers and leveragebranding opportunities. From search engines, behavioural targeting, con-sumer-generated content, broadband and new emerging platforms such asmobile and iPTV, the internet is projected to continue to increase its shareof total ad spending (IAB 2006).

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Despite advances in interactive options available to internet advertisersand marketers, and a shift in spending towards these interactive venues,measuring the impact of online promotional efforts continues to be a chal-lenge. As with traditional media, decisions made about online marketingstrategies and ad expenditures must be justified to demonstrate somelevel of ad effectiveness. In this push for greater accountability, consumermotives for internet use have been identified as a key to understandingthe effectiveness of interactive advertising strategies (Rodgers & Thorson2000). Studies have shown that internet motives influence website effec-tiveness (Ko et al. 2005) as well as attitudes and behaviours towards inter-net advertising (Rodgers 2002).

Numerous scales have been developed to measure consumer motivesfor internet use (e.g. Korgaonkar & Wolin 1999; Papacharissi & Rubin2000) but the Web Motivation Inventory has received particular attentionby internet advertising, communication and marketing scholars in the USand internationally (e.g. Sheehan 2002; Cai & Jun 2003; Faber et al. 2004;Francis & White 2004; Weib 2005; LaFerle & Kim 2006). The WMI wasdeveloped out of a comprehensive review of the literature, and a numberof data collections and factor analyses have been conducted on US(Rodgers & Sheldon 2002) and international samples (Rodgers et al. 2005).However, the scale has not always produced consistent results and newuses of the internet are not accounted for by the WMI since its inceptionin 1997. For the WMI to be useful, it must be updated to reflect currentinternet motives. The scale’s unidimensionality must also be tested andvalidated with internet ad variables to provide a robust measure of inter-net motives that is useful to internet advertisers and marketers.

This research replicates and extends the WMI, where replicationbroadly refers to a duplication of a target study and an extension is dupli-cation with the alteration of one or more key parameters (Berthon et al.2003). This was accomplished with two studies. Study 1 replicates theWMI with a survey of internet users from the US, UK and Australia. Study2 replicates and extends the original WMI to include ‘new’ internetmotives; the extended version of the WMI is validated with confirmatoryfactor analysis and internet ad-specific items. The paper begins with abrief review of the WMI and then compares it to other similar measures toassess the scale’s properties. An overview is then provided about analysesto be conducted to examine the WMI’s reliability and validity, and to

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THE WEB MOTIVATION INVENTORY

evaluate the scale’s psychometric properties. The paper concludes withfuture research possibilities.

Internet motives: instrument evaluation

Web Motivation Inventory

The Web Motivation Inventory (WMI) quantifies four primary internetmotives on 12 five-point Likert scales (Rodgers & Sheldon 2002). Thefour motives are: research (information acquisition), communicate (social-isation), surf (entertainment) and shop. The instrument was developedout of a series of data collections, factor analyses, and reliability and vali-dation techniques. Study 1 synthesised more than 100 internet motivesfrom the literature, and conducted qualitative interviews with internetusers and categorised these into four motives (see Rodgers & Sheldon2002). Study 2 purified the instrument and narrowed the number of scaleitems from 15 to 12 using five-point Likert scales. Study 3 cross-validatedthe WMI using a student sample and Study 4 cross-validated the WMIusing a non-student sample. The four-factor structure remained stableacross both samples. Study 5 tested the temporal stability of the WMI witha test–retest procedure that administered the scale at two different timesto the same participants over a six-week period. All but the communica-tion factor remained stable over the six weeks. Study 6 validated the WMIusing a student sample. Individuals filled out the WMI and were exposedto 12 banner ads, three for each of the four motives, and rated the bannerson ten five-point semantic differential scales that measured liking, per-suasion and intent to click. Three of the four motives successfully pre-dicted at least one of the dependent variables except for communication.Study 7 validated the WMI with the same procedures as in Study 6 usinga non-student sample. Three of the four motives successfully predicted atleast one of the dependent variables except for surfing (Rodgers &Sheldon 2002).

A replication of the WMI was published in 2005. The 12-item WMI wasadministered to four groups of students in the US, UK, Australia andSouth Korea. The scale was translated into Korean and half of the Koreanstudents were given the English and half the Korean version. Factor analy-sis was conducted with Varimax rotation, as were coefficient alphas.

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The four-factor structure emerged consistently across all but the Koreansample; two of the motives, namely research and surf, loaded on the samefactor for this sample.

Notwithstanding its use and scale development procedures, the WMIhas not yielded consistent results for every study in which it was exam-ined. Investigations of the robustness of the WMI also have been some-what limited. In all iterations noted above, principal component factoranalyses with Varimax rotations were conducted, as were reliability testsusing alpha coefficients. Factor analysis and coefficient alphas are neededbut are not a sufficient test for the validation of an instrument; confirma-tory factor analysis is also needed to assess the unidimensionality of ameasure to determine the scale’s acceptability (Gerbing & Anderson1988).

To further assess the WMI’s properties and identify possible newmotives not currently measured by the scale, we compared the WMI tosimilar internet motives scales. A broad search of the literature was con-ducted across disciplines such as advertising, marketing, computer scienceand mass communication to identify scales for possible inclusion. Dozensof studies were located that identified and/or examined internet motives,also called uses and gratifications of the internet, defined as general dis-positions that influence people’s inner desires to actively fulfil a need orwant (Deci & Ryan 1985; Papacharissi & Rubin 2000). We limited our dis-cussion to nine instruments based on three criteria: (1) instrument devel-opment was a major focus of the research; (2) individual scale items wereidentified and were predominantly focused on internet motives; and(3) internet motives were measured in a general (e.g. internet as a whole)vs specific context (e.g. email, eWOM, travel). To avoid repetition, meas-ures that used or adapted existing internet motive scales were alsoexcluded (e.g. Parker & Plank 2000; Sheehan 2002; Amiel & Sargent2004). This helped to narrow the universe of scales and provided measuresthat were sufficiently similar to the WMI to make comparisons. Table 1summarises the nine scales that met our criteria.

The scales are listed in chronological order starting with Eighmey’s(1997) user perceptions of commercial websites measure and ending withSong et al.’s (2004) internet gratification factors. The number of items perscale ranged from 12 (Rodgers & Sheldon 2002) to 41 (Korgaonkar &Wolin 1999). Likert and semantic differential scales were employed by the

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Tabl

e 1:

Inte

rnet

mot

ives

inst

rum

ent

eval

uati

on Num

ber

Scal

e Va

lidit

y M

etho

d In

stru

men

t na

me

Dim

ensi

ons

of it

ems

type

*Re

liabi

lity

chec

ksof

ana

lysi

sA

utho

r(s)

Year

Jour

nal

Repl

icat

ion(

s)

Use

r per

cept

ions

Si

x fa

ctor

s:14

SDN

oN

oFa

ctor

Ei

ghm

ey19

97Jo

urna

l of

Not

foun

dof

com

mer

cial

1.

Mar

ketin

g pe

rcep

tions

anal

ysis

Adve

rtis

ing

web

site

s2.

Ente

rtai

nmen

t val

ueRe

sear

ch3.

Info

rmat

iona

l val

ue4.

Ease

of u

se5.

Cred

ibili

ty6.

Inte

ract

ivity

Use

s an

d

Nin

e fa

ctor

them

es:

15SD

No

No

Fact

or

Eigh

mey

19

98Jo

urna

l of

Not

foun

dgr

atifi

catio

ns1.

Ente

rtai

nmen

t val

uean

alys

is&

McC

ord

Busi

ness

pe

rspe

ctiv

e2.

Pers

onal

invo

lvem

ent

Rese

arch

of w

ebsi

tes

3.Pe

rson

al re

leva

nce

4.In

form

atio

n in

volv

emen

t5.

Clar

ity o

f pur

pose

6.Co

ntro

vers

y7.

Cred

ibili

ty8.

Inte

rest

in c

ontin

uing

com

mun

icat

ion

9.Pu

rcha

se in

tere

st

Gra

tific

atio

ns

Seve

n fa

ctor

s:41

LIK

0.65

–0.9

1N

oFa

ctor

Ko

rgao

nkar

19

99Jo

urna

l of

Not

foun

dan

d co

ncer

ns1.

Soci

al e

scap

ism

anal

ysis

& W

olin

Adve

rtis

ing

2.Tr

ansa

ctio

n-ba

sed

secu

rity

and

priva

cy c

once

rns

Rese

arch

3.In

form

atio

n4.

Inte

ract

ive

cont

rol

5.So

cial

isat

ion

6.N

on-t

rans

actio

nal p

rivac

y co

ncer

ns7.

Econ

omic

Inte

rnet

mot

ives

Fi

ve fa

ctor

s:27

LIK

0.78

–0.9

3N

oFa

ctor

Pa

pach

aris

si

2000

Jour

nal o

f N

ot fo

und

& e

lect

roni

c m

edia

1.In

terp

erso

nal u

tility

anal

ysis

& R

ubin

Broa

dcas

ting

2.Pa

ss ti

me

3.In

form

atio

n se

ekin

g4.

Conv

enie

nce

5.En

tert

ainm

ent

(con

tinue

d)

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Tabl

e 1:

Inte

rnet

mot

ives

inst

rum

ent

eval

uati

on (c

onti

nued

)

Num

ber

Scal

e Va

lidit

y M

etho

d In

stru

men

t na

me

Dim

ensi

ons

of it

ems

type

*Re

liabi

lity

chec

ksof

ana

lysi

sA

utho

r(s)

Year

Jour

nal

Repl

icat

ion(

s)

Mot

ivat

ions

for

Ten

clus

ters

:21

SDN

oN

oCl

uste

r Fl

anag

in &

20

01Hu

man

N

ot fo

und

com

mun

icat

ion

1.In

form

atio

nan

alys

isM

etzg

erCo

mm

unic

atio

n te

chno

logy

use

2.Le

arn

Rese

arch

3.Pl

ay4.

Leis

ure

5.Pe

rsua

sion

6.So

cial

bon

ding

7.Re

latio

nshi

p m

anag

emen

t8.

Prob

lem

sol

ving

9.St

atus

10.I

nsig

htG

ener

al c

onsu

mer

Fi

ve fa

ctor

s:25

SD0.

73–0

.82

No

Fact

or

Staf

ford

&

2001

Info

rmat

ion

Not

foun

dm

otiv

es fo

r 1.

Sear

chan

alys

isSt

affo

rdRe

sour

ces

acce

ssin

g 2.

Cogn

itive

Man

agem

ent

com

mer

cial

are

as

3.N

ew a

nd u

niqu

eJo

urna

lof

the

web

4.So

cial

5.En

tert

ainm

ent

Web

Mot

ivat

ion

Four

fact

ors:

12LI

K0.

70–0

.93

Yes

Fact

or

Rodg

ers

&

2002

Jour

nal o

fRo

dger

s In

vent

ory

(WM

I)1.

Shop

Test

–ret

est

anal

ysis

Shel

don

Adve

rtis

ing

et a

l.2.

Surf

Rese

arch

2005

3.Re

sear

ch4.

Com

mun

icat

eEx

pect

ed o

utco

mes

Six

fact

ors

29SD

0.73

–0.9

3Ye

sFa

ctor

La

Rose

&

2004

Jour

nal o

f N

ot fo

und

1.Ac

tivity

out

com

esan

alys

is a

ndEa

stin

Broa

dcas

ting

2.M

onet

ary

outc

omes

conf

irmat

ory

& E

lect

roni

c 3.

Nov

el o

utco

mes

fact

or a

naly

sis

Med

ia4.

Soci

al o

utco

mes

5.Se

lf-re

activ

e ou

tcom

es6.

Stat

us o

utco

mes

Inte

rnet

Se

ven

fact

ors

36SD

0.63

–0.9

2N

oFa

ctor

So

ng e

t al.

2004

Cybe

r N

ot fo

und

grat

ifica

tion

1.Vi

rtua

l com

mun

ityan

alys

isPs

ycho

logy

fa

ctor

s2.

Info

rmat

ion

seek

ing

and

Beha

vior

3.Ae

sthe

tic e

xper

ienc

e4.

Mon

etar

y co

mpe

nsat

ion

5.Di

vers

ion

6.Pe

rson

al s

tatu

s7.

Rela

tions

hip

mai

nten

ance

*SD

= s

eman

tic d

iffer

entia

l sca

le,L

IK =

Lik

ert s

cale

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instruments. Six of the scales reported alpha coefficients as evidence ofthe scale’s reliability and three did not (Eighmey 1997; Eighmey &McCord 1998; Flanagin & Metzger 2001). One conducted a validationcheck with confirmatory factor analysis (LaRose & Eastin 2004) and one, thatwe could find, had been replicated (Rodgers & Sheldon 2002). Three of thenine scales had been applied to internet advertising, including the WMI.

A total of 59 internet motive factors are identified by the nine scales.Three primary factors emerged across the scales, including information,entertainment and socialisation. Information acquisition was identified byall nine scales with the following factors: informational value (Eighmey1997), information involvement (Eighmey & McCord 1998), information(Korgaonkar & Wolin 1999), information seeking (Papacharissi & Rubin2000), information (Flanagin & Metzger 2001), cognitive (Stafford &Stafford 2001), research (Rodgers & Sheldon 2002), novel outcomes(LaRose & Eastin 2004) and information seeking (Song et al. 2004).

The second internet motive that emerged across all nine scales is social-isation, which broadly refers to the communication, interactivity and/orrelationship-building function of the internet. Factors include: interactiv-ity (Eighmey 1997), interest in continuing communication (Eighmey &McCord 1998), socialisation (Korgaonkar & Wolin 1999), interpersonalutility (Papacharissi & Rubin 2000), social bonding and relationship build-ing (Flanagin & Metzger 2001), social (Stafford & Stafford 2001), commu-nicate (Rodgers & Sheldon 2002), social outcomes (LaRose & Eastin2004) and virtual community (Song et al. 2004).

The third internet motive, namely entertainment, is captured by eightof the nine scales and is represented by the following factors: entertain-ment value (Eighmey 1997), entertainment value (Eighmey & McCord1998), entertainment (Papacharissi & Rubin 2000), play (Flanagin &Metzger 2001), entertainment (Stafford & Stafford 2001), surf (Rodgers &Sheldon 2002), activity outcomes (LaRose & Eastin 2004) and aestheticexperience (Song et al. 2004).

Shopping also emerged as a factor in five out of the nine scales, as rep-resented by the following factors: purchase interest (Eighmey & McCord1998), economic and transaction-based security/privacy concerns(Korgaonkar & Wolin 1999), shop (Rodgers & Sheldon 2002), monetaryoutcomes (LaRose & Eastin 2004) and monetary compensation (Songet al. 2004).

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From this review, it appears that there are advantages and disadvantagesof the WMI in its current state. The WMI has been tested and retested ona number of student, non-student, US and non-US samples, whichincreases its ability to generalise to different populations (Peter 1979). Incomparison to existing measures, the validity and reliability of the WMIhas been assessed at different points in time and across different samples,providing additional evidence of the scale’s construct validity and reliabil-ity. The WMI has been applied to internet advertising, suggesting itspotential use in this area. The four predominant motives that emergedfrom our review – information, socialisation, entertainment and shopping– were present in four out of the nine scales including the WMI, suggest-ing that the scale captures perhaps the most predominant internetmotives. However, the identification of internet motives beyond thesefour, such as pass time (Papacharissi & Rubin 2000), persuasion (Flanagin& Metzger 2001) and diversion (Song et al. 2004), suggest that additionalinternet motives may exist that are not captured by the WMI. The use-fulness of any scale is dependent on the robustness of its psychometricproperties (Churchill 1979). Given the somewhat limited assessment ofthe scale’s robustness and the inconsistencies produced by the scale, areassessment of the WMI seems appropriate.

Overview

The research reported in the remainder of this paper describes a replica-tion of the WMI and the development and validation of the extendedWMI. First, we describe Study 1, which replicates the WMI on three dif-ferent student samples of internet users in the US, UK and Australia. Weprovide evidence from Study 1 that the original four-factor structure of theWMI is reliable across samples. Then, we describe the procedures used toreplicate and validate the WMI with confirmatory factor analysis (CFA)using three different student samples from the US, UK and Australia inStudy 2. We provide evidence of the scale’s unidimensionality in measur-ing the construct, namely internet motives. We then describe the proce-dures used to generate and purify ‘new’ uses of the internet. Anexploratory factor analysis is undertaken to examine the original WMI andnew motives collected in Study 2. Subsequent CFAs are conducted toexamine the extended version of the WMI for each sample. We report

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further evidence from a series of analyses in Study 2 of the WMI’s dis-criminant, convergent and nomological validity.

Method

Study 1

ParticipantsA pen-and-paper survey of the 12 items comprising the WMI was admin-istered to undergraduate students at three universities: US (N = 185, male= 40% and female = 60%), UK (N = 337, male = 49% and female = 52%),and Australia (N = 129, male = 31% and female = 69%). Students receivedextra credit for their participation.

Students are an appropriate sample since they are heavy users of theinternet and are adequate when research addresses methodological issuessuch as scale development and validation (Chen et al. 2002).

Survey itemsSurvey items included the 12 items comprising the WMI, rated on five-point Likert scales ranging from (1) strongly disagree to (5) strongly agree.The stem, ‘I use the internet to:’ was followed by the items: ‘email otherpeople’, ‘connect with my friends’, ‘make a purchase’, ‘do research’,‘explore new sites’, ‘buy things’, ‘communicate with others’, ‘get informa-tion I need’, ‘surf for fun’, ‘find interesting web pages’, ‘purchase a prod-uct I’ve heard about’ and ‘find out things I need to know’. Participantswere also asked to list any additional uses of the internet, to be examinedlater on in Study 2.

ResultsFactor analysis followed by Varimax rotation was used to reduce thedimensionality of the WMI (Bollen & Lennox 1991). Items with eigen-values of 1.0 or higher and item loadings of 0.40 were retained (Nunnally& Bernstein 1993). The same four-factor structure resulted for the threesamples (see Table 2). For the US sample, the resulting motives and theiralphas were: research (α = 0.81), communicate (α = 0.78), shop (α = 0.93)and surf (α = 0.90), which explained 79% of the total item variance. Forthe UK sample, the resulting motives and their alphas were: research

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Table 2: Rotated factor pattern from principal component analysis of the WMI(Study 1)

Motives Shop Surf Research Communicate Items

US SAMPLE

I use the internet to:

Shop 0.94 1. Make a purchase0.93 2. Buy things0.93 3. Purchase a product I’ve heard about

Surf 0.83 4. Explore new sites0.88 5. Surf for fun0.92 6. Find interesting web pages

Research 0.85 7. Do research0.83 8. Get information I need0.80 9. Find out things I need to know

Communicate 0.80 10. Email other people0.80 11. Connect with my friends0.90 12. Communicate with others

UK SAMPLE






AUSTRALIAN SAMPLE






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(α = 0.79), communicate (α = 0.75), shop (α = 0.95) and surf (α = 0.80),which explained 75% of the total item variance. For the Australian sample,the resulting internet motives and their alphas were: research (α = 0.74),communicate (α = 0.78), shop (α = 0.90) and surf (α = 0.84). The com-bined items explained 75% of the total item variance. The high-reliabilityalpha for each motive across the three countries demonstrates good inter-nal consistency of the WMI scale.

Study 2

ParticipantsThe participants in Study 2 were students at the same three universitiesexamined in Study 1, including the US (N = 117; females: 79%, males:21%), UK (N = 136; females: 45%, males: 55%) and Australia (N = 111;females: 67%, males: 33%). Students received extra credit for theirparticipation.

Survey itemsSurvey items included the original WMI plus an additional 42 items col-lected from qualitative data in Study 1 and identified in the academic andtrade literature. As with Study 1, the items were measured on five-pointLikert scales ranging from (1) strongly disagree to (5) strongly agree. Thestem, ‘I use the internet to:’ was followed by the new items listed in theappendix.

Analysis and resultsWith the goal of replicating and extending the WMI, three sets of analy-ses were performed. First, a confirmatory factor analysis was conducted toassess the validity and reliability of the WMI instrument (the original 12items) for the three countries. Second, a multi-group analysis of factorialinvariance was conducted to assess the measurement equivalence of theWMI instrument within the three samples. Last, the relationship betweenthe extended WMI and internet advertising variables was examined toestablish the criterion-related validity and to further investigate the scale’sapplication to internet advertising.

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CFA analysis of original WMI instrument

A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to assess the validityand reliability of the WMI. CFA is a more rigorous test of equality thanexploratory factor analysis (Alwin & Jackson 1981). First, the WMI struc-ture was validated using overall responses from the three samples. Then,the WMI was validated with a multi-group analysis of factorial invariance,which rigorously assesses cross-national equivalence of measures(Calantone & Zhao 2001). A CFA using AMOS assessed the WMI facto-rial structures, convergent validity, discriminant validity and the internalconsistency of the scale. Measurement items were force-loaded on theoriginal four-factor WMI. The overall goodness of fit was evaluatedaccording to the similarity of the predicted and actual correlation (Gerbing& Anderson 1988). Results show that the model fit indices are a good fitbetween the model and data (χ2 = 51.892 df = 41; p = 0.119; GFI = 0.978,AGFI = 0.958, NFI = 0.977, TLI = 0.992, RMSEA = 0.027) (see Figure 1).Table 3 documents the detailed estimates from the CFA analysis.

Table 3: CFA results – Study 2 (three samples combined)

Standardised Items Labels Constructs Estimate estimate SE CR p

C1 Email other people ← Communicate motive 1.000* 0.209 – – –

C2 Connect with my friends ← Communicate motive 4.092 0.617 0.979 4.182 ***

C3 Communicate with others ← Communicate motive 5.608 0.951 1.550 3.619 ***

C1 Email other people ← Research motive 0.623 0.487 0.068 9.195 ***

R1 Do research ← Research motive 1.000* 0.756 – – –

R2 Get information I need ← Research motive 1.149 0.909 0.075 15.296 ***

R3 Find out things I need to know ← Research motive 0.871 0.660 0.068 12.730 ***

Su1 Explore new sites ← Research motive 0.264 0.145 0.086 3.056 0.002

Su1 Explore new sites ← Surf motive 1.000* 0.616 – – –

Su2 Surf for fun ← Surf motive 1.248 0.783 0.113 11.068 ***

Su3 Find interesting web pages ← Surf motive 1.475 0.859 0.133 11.079 ***

Sh1 Make a purchase ← Shop motive 1.000* 0.904 – – –

Sh2 Buy things ← Shop motive 1.092 0.959 0.041 26.385 ***

Sh3 Purchase a product I’ve heard about ← Shop motive 0.796 0.741 0.043 18.607 ***

* We constrained the parameter to fix the scale of the latent construct; *** p < 0.001

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Convergent and discriminant validity

Convergent validity was assessed with structural equation modelling bydetermining whether indicator variables loaded significantly on the speci-fied construct (Gerbing & Anderson 1988). The significance of the associ-ated t-value for the respective value of lambda was assessed (Byrne 1989).This information is presented in Table 3 along with each indicator’s load-ing coefficient. Results show that each variable yielded a highly significantestimate, which demonstrates high convergent validity (Gerbing &Anderson 1988).

Figure 1: CFA for original WMI – Study 2 (three samples)

C1

C2

C3

R1

R2

R3

Su1

Su2

Su3

Sh1

Sh2

Sh3

0.21

0.62

0.95

0.49

0.76

0.91

0.66

0.15

0.62

0.78

0.86

0.90

0.96

0.74

0.50

0.35

0.19

0.28

0.13

Communicate motive

Researchmotive

Surfmotive

Shopmotive

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An accepted test of discriminant validity is to constrain the estimatedcorrelation parameter between pairs of constructs to 1.0 and conduct a chi-squared difference test on the values obtained from the models containingthe constrained pairs and the unconstrained model in which the correla-tion parameter varies freely (Joreskog 1971). The results yielded a signifi-cantly lower χ2 value on the unconstrained model (as compared to theconstrained model), which provides evidence that the comparison dimen-sions are not perfectly correlated (i.e. the motives are distinct) – an indica-tion that discriminant validity is achieved (Bagozzi & Phillips 1982).

Calibration of original WMI instrument

The overall CFA findings confirm the original WMI factorial structure andindicate two changes in the original scale. The first change was the com-munication factor. The original WMI item ‘email other people’ shiftedfrom the communication motive in Study 1 to the research motive inStudy 2. This shift was evidenced by a higher loading for research (0.49)vs communication (0.21). The second change in the original WMI per-tained to the item ‘explore new sites’. This item loaded exclusively on thesurf motive in Study 1 but loaded on both the research motive (0.15) andthe surf motive (0.62) in Study 2.

Nomological validity

Nomological validity assesses whether the construct of interest behaves asit should (Bagozzi 1980; Cronbach & Meehl 1955) with regard to its exter-nal relationships with other constructs (Reise et al. 1993). To confirm thenomological validity of the WMI, we investigated the relationshipbetween the four motives and two criterion variables, specific to internetadvertising. The first captured approach behaviour, measured by the item‘I tend to click on internet ads’ and the second measured avoidancebehaviour with the item ‘I typically try to avoid internet ads’ (Table 4).

Table 5 provides the bivariate correlations between each WMI motiveand criterion variable. The findings show that the surf (r = 0.209, p < 0.01)and shop motive (r = 0.139, p < 0.01) significantly correlated with approachbehaviour, whereas the communication (r = 0.104, p < 0.05), research (r =

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0.132, p < 0.05) and shop motives (r = 0.108, p < 0.05) were associated withavoidance behaviour pertaining to internet ads.

To further explore the predictive power of the WMI, we regressed eachof the two criterion variables on the four motives (see Table 6). The resultsshow that the four-factor model predicted approach behaviour (R2 = 0.084;adjusted R2 = 0.074; p < 0.01); the research (β = –0.30, p = 0.001), surf (β =0.25, p = 0.000) and shop motives (β = 0.10, p = 0.022) were significantpredictors of approach behaviour. The research motive decreased, and thesurf and shop motives increased, consumers’ intention to click on internetads. None of the four WMI motives significantly predicted avoidancebehaviour, although the overall model’s predictive power was acceptable(R2 = 0.027; adjusted R2 = 0.016; p < 0.05).

Table 4: Correlation matrix between WMI and criterion variables (Study 2)

Motive I tend to click on internet ads I typically try to avoid internet ads

Communication 0.046 0.104*

Research –0.067 0.132*

Surf 0.209** 0.077

Shop 0.139** 0.108*

** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (two-tailed)* Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (two-tailed)

Table 5: Regression analysis (Study 2)

Dependent variables

Predictors I tend to click on internet ads I typically try to avoid internet ads

WMI: � P � P

Communication motive 0.09 0.250 0.08 0.508

Research motive –0.30 0.001 0.22 0.138

Surf motive 0.25 0.000 0.03 0.776

Shop motive 0.10 0.022 0.12 0.105

R2 (Adj. R2) 0.084** (0.074**) 0.027* (0.016*)

** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (two-tailed)* Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (two-tailed)

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Multi-group analysis of factorial invariance

To assess the cross-national equivalence of WMI measures, CFA in themulti-group level was performed. An unconstrained CFA was conductedthat allowed the factor structure to vary across samples in the US, UK andAustralia. After a slight modification, the results revealed a high level ofconsistency in model form and measurement across the three groups.Factor loadings for each indicator for its respective construct were signifi-cant (p < 0.01) except for the items: ‘connect with my friends’ and ‘com-municate with others’ for the US and Australian samples; ‘explore newsites’ for the UK sample; and ‘connect with my friends’ for the UK andAustralian samples. Factor loadings yielded similar patterns for the threesamples, shown in Tables 6–8, and the multi-group model yielded a goodfit (χ2 = 118.272, df = 102; p = 0.129; GFI = 0.954, AGFI = 0.894, NFI =0.952, TLI = 0.986, RMSEA = 0.021) (see Figure 2). Invariance testing(i.e. test of equivalence) is a particularly demanding test of an instrument’srobustness that helps diagnose measurement equivalence; minor changesin item loadings may not be critical to the interpretation of research results

Table 6: CFA results – Study 2 (United States)



C2 Connect with my friends ← Communicate motive 8.327 0.531 4.593 1.813 0.070

C3 Communicate with others ← Communicate motive 14.748 1.089 9.428 1.564 0.118

C1 Email other people ← Research motive 1.000* 0.787 – – –

R1 Do research ← Research motive 1.222 0.918 0.119 10.275 ***










C2 Connect with my friends ← Shop motive 0.313 0.327 0.076 4.123 ***

* We constrained the parameter to fix the scale of the latent construct*** p <0 .001

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Table 8: CFA results – Study 2 (Australia)



C2 Connect with my friends ← Communicate motive 5.252 0.563 3.293 1.595 0.111













C2 Connect with my friends ← Shop motive –0.003 –0.003 0.079 –0.036 0.971

* We constrained the parameter to fix the scale of the latent construct*** p < 0.001

Table 7: CFA results – Study 2 (United Kingdom)



C2 Connect with my friends ← Communicate motive 2.457 0.683 0.654 3.756 ***













C2 Connect with my friends ← Shop motive –0.055 –0.053 0.090 -0.614 0.539


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(Byrne & Shavelson 1987). Thus, despite minor differences in item-factorloadings, it was concluded that the three samples have virtually the samepattern of variables associated with the four latent motive constructs(McGowan & Sternquist 1998).

To further test the equivalence of the measurement model across thethree samples, a constrained CFA was conducted. If the measurementproperties are the same for the three samples, factor patterns and factorloadings should be equal. Therefore, we set the factor structure to beinvariant in the constrained model. The results indicated identical factor

Figure 2: CFA for original WMI – Study 2 (multi-group comparison: US sample shown in CFA factorial structure)

C1

C2

C3

R1

R2

R3

Su1

Su2

Su3

Sh1

Sh2

Sh3

0.12

0.53

1.09

0.65

0.79

0.92

0.74

0.15

0.71

0.85

0.91

0.93

0.97

0.78

0.33

0.43

0.36

0.24

0.26

0.26

0.22

Communicate motive

Researchmotive

Surfmotive

Shopmotive

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patterns. Compared with the unconstrained model, the difference in χ2

value of 36.72 with df of 22 suggests that factor structure was indifferentacross samples. The constrained model also exhibited a good fit (χ2 =155.024, df = 124; p = 0.031; GFI = 0.940, AGFI = 0.886, NFI = 0.937, TLI= 0.978, RMSEA = 0.026).

Extension of web motivation inventory

Data analysisTo examine the validity and reliability of the extended version of theWMI, exploratory factor analysis with the original 12 items and 42 newitems was used to explore the emergence of possible new internet motivefactors. An eigenvalue of 1.00 was used as the stopping criterion ratherthan force a specified factor solution. Principal component analysis withVarimax rotation yielded 12 factors, explaining 67% of the matrix variance(see Table 9). The new factors were labelled: Community, Entertainment,Product trial, Information, Transaction, Game, Survey, Downloads,Interaction, Search, Exploration and News. The highest three loadingsabove 0.40 were used to represent each factor, as shown in Table 9. The12 factors were mapped conceptually to form the sub-factors of the origi-nal WMI scale where: Community, Survey and Interaction are sub-motives of the original Communication motive; Information, Search andExploration are sub-motives of the original Research motive;Entertainment, Game and Downloads are sub-motives of the original Surfmotive; and Transaction and Product trial are sub-motives of the originalShopping motive. News emerged as a sub-motive for both of the originalResearch and Surf motives (see Figure 3).

A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was then conducted to assesswhether the conceptual structure of the WMI fit the data. Table 10 showsthat although the χ2 statistic (χ2 = 1051.272, df = 500, p < 0.0001) did notindicate a perfect fit, it is not always the best indication of model fit (e.g.Bagozzi & Yi 1988; Mulaik et al. 1989); therefore a range of additional fitindices is reported. The additional indices taken together (GFI = 0.859,AGFI = 0.833, NFI = 0.851, TLI = 0.905, CFI = 0.915, RMSEA = 0.054)indicate a reasonably good fit between the data and extended version ofthe WMI.

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Table 9: Exploratory factor analysis with original WMI and new motives (Study 2)

Sub-motives Items Loading Variance explained

1. Community Get to know other people 0.767 11.30

Participate in an online chat 0.754

Join a group 0.733

2. Entertainment Amuse myself 0.761 8.07

Entertain myself 0.758

Find information to entertain myself 0.714

3. Product trial Try on the latest fashions 0.716 7.83

Experience a product 0.659

Try out a product 0.652

4. Information Do research 0.827 7.00

Get information I need 0.804

Search for information I need 0.693

5. Transaction Make a purchase 0.907 5.89

Buy things 0.901

Purchase a product I’ve heard about 0.828

6. Game Play online games 0.874 5.14

Entertain myself with internet games 0.858

Play online games with individuals from other countries 0.706

7. Survey Take a survey on a topic I care about 0.799 4.93

Fill out an online survey 0.771

Give my opinion on a survey 0.674

8. Downloads Download music 0.694 3.91

Listen to music 0.532

Watch online videos 0.450

9. Interaction Connect with my friends 0.784 3.75

Communicate with others 0.712

Instant message others I know 0.511

10. Search Get answers to specific questions 0.727 3.48

Find information I can trust 0.536

11. Exploration Find interesting web pages 0.703 3.42

Explore new sites 0.635

Surf for fun 0.578

12. News Read about current events and news 0.595 2.71

Read entertainment news 0.580

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WMI sub-motives WMI motives

Figure 3: Extended WMI conceptual model – Study 2

Entertainment

Game

Downloads

Transaction

Product trial

Community

Survey

Information

Search

Interaction

Exploration

News

Surf motive

Shoppingmotive

Communicationmotive

Researchmotive

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Table 10: CFA results for extended WMI (Study 2)

Standardised Labels Constructs Estimate estimate SE CR p

Sub-motives:Community ← Communication motive 1.000* 0.931 – – –Survey ← Communication motive 0.482 0.517 0.075 6.463 ***Interaction ← Communication motive 0.266 0.293 0.061 4.381 ***Exploration ← Communication motive 0.026 0.025 0.110 0.236 0.813Product trial ← Communication motive 0.482 0.576 0.124 3.889 ***Information ← Research motive 1.000* 0.824 – – –Search ← Research motive 0.634 0.528 0.128 4.944 ***Exploration ← Research motive 0.767 0.418 0.148 5.198 ***News ← Research motive 0.690 0.539 0.119 5.813 ***Interaction ← Research motive 0.897 0.558 0.132 6.775 ***Entertainment ← Research motive 0.841 0.434 0.141 5.977 ***Entertainment ← Surf motive 1.000* 0.604 – – –Game ← Surf motive 1.114 0.605 0.145 7.684 ***Downloads ← Surf motive 1.279 0.747 0.164 7.810 ***News ← Surf motive 0.554 0.506 0.086 6.470 ***Exploration ← Surf motive 0.766 0.487 0.190 4.041 ***Product trial ← Surf motive 0.015 0.012 0.143 0.108 0.914Transaction ← Shopping motive 1.000* 0.406 – – –Product trial ← Shopping motive 1.066 0.639 0.247 4.318 ***Survey ← Shopping motive 0.976 0.525 0.219 4.458 ***Search ← Shopping motive 0.674 0.497 0.180 3.741 ***

Items:Play online games ← Game 1.000* 0.889 – – –Entertain myself with internet games ← Game 1.042 0.932 0.044 23.600 ***Play online games with individuals from other countries ← Game 0.747 0.729 0.044 17.071 ***Download music ← Downloads 1.000* 0.747 – – –Listen to music ← Downloads 0.891 0.675 0.081 10.953 ***Watch online videos ← Downloads 0.873 0.708 0.077 11.356 ***Try on the latest fashions ← Product trial 1.000* 0.635 – – –Experience a product ← Product trial 1.269 0.847 0.106 11.985 ***Try out a product ← Product trial 1.045 0.746 0.092 11.372 ***Get to know other people ← Community 1.000* 0.809 – – –Participate in an online chat ← Community 0.943 0.746 0.067 14.160 ***Join a group ← Community 0.822 0.768 0.057 14.537 ***Take a survey on a topic I care about ← Survey 1.000* 0.762 – – –Fill out an online survey ← Survey 1.122 0.814 0.074 15.116 ***Give my opinion on a survey ← Survey 1.069 0.834 0.070 15.355 ***Connect with my friends ← Interaction 1.000* 0.778 – – –Communicate with others ← Interaction 0.845 0.741 0.077 10.961 ***Instant message others I know ← Interaction 0.980 0.561 0.106 9.244 ***Do research ← Information 1.000* 0.785 – – –Get information I need. ← Information 1.019 0.841 0.068 14.923 ***Search for information I need ← Information 1.109 0.683 0.087 12.757 ***Get answers to specific questions ← Search 1.000* 0.539 – – –Find information I can trust ← Search 1.256 0.696 0.214 5.865 ***Find information to entertain myself ← Entertainment 1.000* 0.864 – – –Entertain myself ← Entertainment 0.895 0.758 0.054 16.662 ***Amuse myself ← Entertainment 0.991 0.818 0.054 18.406 ***Make a purchase ← Transaction 1.000* 0.904 – – –Buy things ← Transaction 1.089 0.958 0.041 26.471 ***Purchase a product I’ve heard about ← Transaction 0.811 0.748 0.044 18.544 ***Find interesting web pages ← Exploration 1.000* 0.817 – – –Surf for fun ← Exploration 0.963 0.842 0.059 16.450 ***Explore new sites ← Exploration 0.756 0.654 0.059 12.758 ***Read about current events and news ← News 1.000* 0.624 – – –Read entertainment news ← News 1.375 0.766 0.147 9.331 ***


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Discussion and conclusion

Overview

The purpose of this research was to replicate and extend the original WebMotivation Inventory (WMI), which categorises internet motives into fourprimary factors: research, communication, surfing and shopping. Thescale’s psychometric properties were examined with two studies: Study 1replicated the WMI with samples from the US, UK and Australia, andStudy 2 replicated and extended the WMI with three new samples fromthe same three countries.

The results presented here provide support for the psychometricsoundness of the original WMI and the extended WMI. The original WMIwas shown to be valid and reliable with US and non-US samples withsomewhat different market and consumer settings, suggesting that theWMI is a culturally neutral scale that may be useful in a global environ-ment. The extended WMI yielded 12 new sub-motives that proved to beadequate extensions of the original four-factor scale, providing additionalevidence of the scale’s unidimensionality, validity and reliability. The orig-inal WMI yielded meaningful responses among internet users on theapproach and avoidance behavioural items regarding internet advertising,thereby suggesting that the scale possesses useful advertising and mana-gerial applications.

Limitations and future research

There are several limitations and directions for future research. First,although the respondents were from three different countries, the threecountries were English-speaking and shared perhaps other cultural char-acteristics. It may be informative to consider how the three countries dif-fer, and also how cultures within the same country differ in their responsesto the WMI. Ideally, countries beyond those examined here could also beincluded in future studies that examine the WMI.

Second, follow-up studies could consider possibly improving the origi-nal and extended versions of the WMI by rewording items that comprise,for example, the communication motive. The items ‘communicate withothers’ and ‘connect with my friends’ appear to be somewhat confusing to

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some respondents. A re-examination of these and other items using dif-ferent wording would help to further establish the cross-national equiva-lence of the scale (see Ewing et al. 2002).

Third, a limitation of this research is that the samples were undergrad-uate students. We argued earlier that this is an appropriate sample giventhe task of validating a scale, particularly across different countries whereindividuals likely differ with regard to internet needs and motives. Afuture direction for research is to collect more data from different samplesusing an improved version of the WMI, and then examine whether theitems that shifted from one motive to another in the current research couldbe applied to other samples. The items that shifted here could be sampleand/or country specific (Strasheim et al. 2007). More research is needed todetermine which items to retain. It may also be advantageous to includemore items that have emerged in the trade and academic literature sincethe writing of this paper and then reassess the stability and psychometricrobustness of the WMI instrument. Additionally, it may be useful to con-sider other forms of new technology that either supplement and/or replacecurrent applications of the internet to account for possible shifts in theitems that comprise the WMI, particularly with regard to communication(e.g. Svennevig 2000).

Fourth, internet advertising practitioners and scholars can consideradditional external factors with the goal of building a more comprehensivemodel of how internet motives influence individuals’ psychological andbehavioural responses to internet ads. In addition to internet ad approachand avoidance behaviour, other variables may include: recall and recogni-tion of internet ads, attitude towards the site, and purchase intentions, toname a few.

Last, the WMI may be applied to scholarly research to better under-stand and develop theories about how internet users perceive and processadvertising stimuli. Future research could consider pairing the WMI withexisting internet advertising scales and constructs such as interactivity(McMillan & Hwang 2002), virtuality (Griffith & Chen 2004), and websitepersonality (Chen & Rodgers 2006) to examine applications of the WMIin the field of internet advertising and marketing research.

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Conclusion

If the state of internet marketing and advertising is to develop beyond itscurrent condition, it is useful to assess the scales that have been developedfor use in this area. Findings presented here suggest that the original andextended versions of the WMI are valid and reliable scales. Internet adver-tisers may therefore use the WMI with confidence when gauging con-sumer motives for internet use.

Appendix: Web Motivation Inventory with new motives

Please circle the number that best represents your agreement ordisagreement

Strongly Strongly I use the internet to … disagree agree

Original 12 items:

Email other people 1 2 3 4 5

Connect with my friends 1 2 3 4 5

Make a purchase 1 2 3 4 5

Do research 1 2 3 4 5

Explore new sites 1 2 3 4 5

Buy things 1 2 3 4 5

Communicate with others 1 2 3 4 5

Get information I need 1 2 3 4 5

Surf for fun 1 2 3 4 5

Find interesting web pages 1 2 3 4 5

Purchase a product I’ve heard about 1 2 3 4 5

Find out things I need to know

Additional 42 items:

Download music 1 2 3 4 5

Watch online videos 1 2 3 4 5

Play online games 1 2 3 4 5

Read entertainment news 1 2 3 4 5

Entertain myself with internet games 1 2 3 4 5

Instant message others I know 1 2 3 4 5

Take a survey on a topic I care about 1 2 3 4 5

Play online games with individuals from other countries 1 2 3 4 5

Search for information I need 1 2 3 4 5

Find information to entertain myself 1 2 3 4 5

(continued)

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Strongly Strongly I use the internet to … disagree agree

Amuse myself 1 2 3 4 5

Use a search engine to find the latest trends 1 2 3 4 5

Read about current events and news 1 2 3 4 5

Write a product review 1 2 3 4 5

Give my opinion on a survey 1 2 3 4 5

Create a wish list on a website 1 2 3 4 5

Buy a gift card for a family member or friend 1 2 3 4 5

Talk to a knowledgeable individual 1 2 3 4 5

Listen to other people’s problems 1 2 3 4 5

Respond to a posting on a website 1 2 3 4 5

Join a group 1 2 3 4 5

Participate in an online chat 1 2 3 4 5

Try on the latest fashions 1 2 3 4 5

Experience a product 1 2 3 4 5

Download coupons 1 2 3 4 5

Shop for the best price on a product 1 2 3 4 5

Comparison shop 1 2 3 4 5

Get to know other people 1 2 3 4 5

Chat with others 1 2 3 4 5

Find information for someone else 1 2 3 4 5

Find a website someone recommended to me 1 2 3 4 5

Fill out an online survey 1 2 3 4 5

Try out a product 1 2 3 4 5

Entertain myself 1 2 3 4 5

Visit entertaining websites 1 2 3 4 5

Talk to a live person 1 2 3 4 5

Build a relationship with others 1 2 3 4 5

Talk to a person in real time 1 2 3 4 5

Get answers to specific questions 1 2 3 4 5

Find information I can trust 1 2 3 4 5

Cast my vote 1 2 3 4 5

Listen to music 1 2 3 4 5

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About the authors

Shelly Rodgers, Ph.D., is an associate professor of strategic communica-tion at the Missouri School of Journalism. Her research areas are interac-tive advertising, marketing and communication with emphasis oninformation processing of health messages in new media contexts.

Qimei Chen, Ph.D., is chair of the Department of Marketing and asso-ciate professor of marketing in the Shidler College of Business, Universityof Hawaii at Manoa. Her research interests include advertising effective-ness, online/offline consumer behavior and innovation knowledge.

Ye Wang is an MA student of strategic communication at the MissouriSchool of Journalism. Her research interests include international andcross-cultural advertising and new technology.

Ruth Rettie, Ph.D., is an assistant professor and director of theeCommerce Consumer Research Unit in the School of Marketing,Kingston University, London. Her research interests include eCommerce,internet marketing and communication theory.

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Frank Alpert, PhD, is an associate professor at the UQ Business School,University of Queensland, Australia. His research areas include marketingstrategy, marketing management, brand management, product manage-ment, marketing education and entertainment software industry.

Address correspondence to: Shelly Rodgers, Associate Professor,Strategic Communication, University of Missouri-Columbia,364 McReynolds Hall, Columbia, MO 65211


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More than meets the eyeInvestigating the hidden impact of brand

placements in television magazines

Jörg Matthes, Christian Schemer and Werner WirthUniversity of Zurich

A growing research literature suggests that visual brand placements need not be recalledin order to have an impact on brand attitudes. In an experimental study working with anauthentic television broadcast, the authors investigated the influence of frequency ofplacement exposure, viewers’ involvement and viewers’ persuasion knowledge on theattitudes towards the brand and brand recall. Results clearly indicate a mere exposureeffect. A frequently presented brand placement can have a positive effect on brand eval-uations although viewers do not recall the brand. However, this effect can only be foundwhen there is a high involvement in the programme and low persuasion knowledge. Incontrast, when persuasion knowledge is high and involvement is low, frequently pre-sented placements lead to a deterioration of brand attitudes.

Introduction

In today’s oversaturated media landscape, product placements are seen aspromising tools for the advertising of brands because they are less likely tobe recognised as persuasive attempts than more obtrusive forms of adver-tising. However, throughout almost the entire research literature it isassumed that product placements must be recognised or recalled in orderto influence brand evaluations. Therefore, in studying the effects of prod-uct placements, scholars have focused primarily on measuring brand recall.Accordingly, many studies seem to indicate that the hidden nature ofproduct placements makes them hard to be recognised, and, therefore,there might often be no effect on brand recall (Russell 1998; Karrh et al.2003). In fact, when brands are not recalled, placements are thought to beunsuccessful (Karrh et al. 2003).

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More recently, however, there have been some hints in the research lit-erature that brand placements need not be recalled in order to have animpact on brand attitudes. As Law and Braun-LaTour (2004, p. 64) argue,‘recall and recognition measures are not capable of detecting the moresubtle effects of product placements’. For instance, research by Law andBraun (2000) and Russell (2002) suggests that placement recall might beindependent of placement evaluation. This view is supported by researchin cognitive psychology on the so-called mere exposure effect (Zajonc1968; Kunst-Wilson & Zajonc 1980). According to the mere exposureeffect, a repeated exposure to a stimulus can lead to favourable feelingstowards that stimulus, even though people do not remember that theywere exposed to it. In recent years, the consideration of mere exposureeffects has become an important and lively research area in advertising,consumer research and marketing research (Baker 1999; Lee and Labroo2004; Fang et al. 2007; Grimes & Kitchen 2007; Tom et al. 2007). AsGrimes and Kitchen (2007, p. 192) argue, ‘the development of method-ologies to study mere exposure effects represents one of the major con-temporary challenges for marketing research’. Despite the relevance ofthis research area, however, little is known about mere exposure effectswhen it comes to product placements. In fact, although the mere exposureeffect is regarded as a possible and important mechanism for the impact ofproduct placements (Russell 2002; McCarty 2004), there are to date nostudies in advertising research that have put this notion to a direct test.Moreover, there is a dearth of studies investigating the specific conditionsunder which mere exposure effects are likely to occur in the context ofproduct or brand placements. This is of utmost importance because prod-uct placements are embedded in a rather complex visual field. Unlike tra-ditional mere exposure stimuli in cognitive psychology, placements are notpresented directly to viewers; in contrast, they are popping up in movingpictures and compete against a rich array of other stimuli that are a part ofthe plot. Therefore, the crucial question is, are there boundary conditionsfor the mere exposure effects of product placements?

The aim of this paper is to fill these pressing research gaps. The paperwill first discuss previous research that has dealt with the impact of prod-uct placements on viewers’ recall and brand evaluations. It will thenbriefly summarise research on the mere exposure effect in the context ofcognitive psychology, and will discuss several explanations of the mere

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BRAND PLACEMENTS IN TELEVISION MAGAZINES

exposure effect. Following this there will be a discussion of possibleboundary conditions or moderators of mere exposure effects in the contextof product placements. Based on these insights, an experiment will be pre-sented that explicitly tests the notion of mere exposure effects for productplacements.

The impact of product placements on recall andattitudes

A plethora of studies call attention to the ways in which product place-ments influence viewers’ brand recall (e.g. Karrh et al. 2003; Brennan andBabin 2004; Law and Braun-LaTour 2004). The idea is that placementscan activate already existing images. Or, if such images do not exist, place-ments can enhance brand awareness. Therefore, in order for the place-ments to have an impact, they must be recognised in the first place.According to this line of reasoning, placements that are not attentivelyprocessed and that cannot be recalled later on are rather useless. However,previous studies have shown that viewers generally show a relatively lowbrand recall (Babin & Carder 1996; Law & Braun 2000; Tiwsakul et al.2005). Although recall can be increased when placements are more obtru-sive (Brennan et al. 1999; d’Astous & Chartier 2000), it can be concludedthat simple, unobtrusive screen placements are rather marginally efficientin terms of brand recall (Law & Braun-LaTour 2004). These results pointto a very serious dilemma. On the one hand, the subtlety of placementsmakes them attractive for practitioners because viewers do not recognisethe persuasive attempt, and, therefore, strategies of counter-arguingbecome less likely (d’Astous & Chartier 2000). On the other hand, how-ever, the non-aggressive, non-persuasive method of placing a brand runsthe risk of being overlooked by the viewers. One explanation is that place-ments compete against a rich array of other stimuli that are a part of theplot.

In contrast to research gauging the impact of placements on brandrecall, there are comparatively few studies that examine effects on brandattitudes. In most instances, it is assumed that recall is the precondition forany attitudinal effects (Law & Braun-LaTour 2004). Other researchersargue that placements must have an impact on attitudes simply becausethey are more accepted and more tolerated by the audience (Karrh 1998;

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Tiwsakul et al. 2005). However, tolerating placements does not necessar-ily mean that placements influence attitudes and evaluations. Recently,several researchers advanced the notion that mere exposure effects maybe at work when viewers are confronted with placements (e.g. Russell2002; McCarty 2004). According to this reasoning, a placement can havean impact on attitudes, even though viewers cannot recall the brand or theproduct. This mere exposure effect will be outlined in more detail in thenext section.

The mere exposure effect: an unmediated phenomenon

The mere exposure effect is a learning effect that ‘apparently can takeplace entirely outside of conscious awareness, involving implicit ratherthan explicit knowledge’ (Bornstein & D’Agostino 1992, p. 545). Aplethora of studies in cognitive psychology have shown that the repeatedmere exposure to a previously unknown stimulus leads to an increase inliking for that stimulus. As Zajonc (2004, p. 198) puts it, a stimulus objectis made accessible to the individual’s sensory receptors without offeringany positive or negative reinforcement. Mere exposure effects have beenshown for a wide array of stimuli, ranging from simple syllables to soundsor pictures of persons, and from supraliminal to subliminal exposure times(Zajonc 1968, 2001; Bornstein 1989). Typically, this line of research isbased on focal exposure to target stimuli, and the frequencies of exposureare experimentally varied. The mere exposure effect works best underlow-attention conditions and for very short presentation times (Bornstein1989). In a seminal study by Moreland and Zajonc (1977), Japanese ideo-graphs were presented to subjects at five different frequencies (0, 1, 3, 9,27 times). After that, the subjects were asked to evaluate the stimuli aspositive or negative. The results showed an enhancement of liking withincreasing stimulus exposure. Even more importantly, significant correla-tions between frequency and liking were found, but not between likingand recognition. These results suggest that, in contrast to exposure fre-quency, recognition is not necessary for the enhancement of liking. Thisidea has become the fundamental backdrop of mere exposure researchover the past 40 years (Zajonc 1968, 2001, 2004), and it has been replicatedin a vast number of experiments (see Bornstein 1989). Summing up thecomprehensive evidence for mere exposure effects, Zajonc (2004)

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concludes that they are unmediated – that is, ‘recognition is not a neces-sary mediator of the exposure effect’ (p. 200).

Several explanations for the occurrence of mere exposure effects havebeen proposed (for a review see Fang et al. 2007). Zajonc (2001, 2004)draws on a classical conditioning explanation, arguing that ‘the absence ofaversive consequences following the presentation of the conditioned stim-ulus is a sufficient condition for the development of an approach tendencyto that stimulus’ (Zajonc 2004, p. 202). However, the most prominent andwidely accepted mechanism is a perceptual fluency-based account ofmere exposure effects (Winkielman et al. 2003; Lee & Labroo 2004; Reberet al. 2004; Fang et al. 2007; Grimes & Kitchen 2007). The idea is that priorexposure enhances the ease with which individuals can process the stim-uli in subsequent encounters. This perceptual fluency is an importantsource of information for individuals. Winkielman et al. (2003) argue thatindividuals monitor the fluency with which they can extract informationfrom a stimulus. The fluency signal itself is hedonically marked: high per-ceptual fluency will elicit a positive affective reaction. As Winkielman et al.(2003, p. 195) further explain, individuals ‘by default assume that their flu-ency-based affective reactions reflect their disposition toward the stimu-lus’. In other words, the same stimulus is evaluated more positively whenit can be processed with high as opposed to low fluency. According to thisline of reasoning, then, the more frequently a stimulus is presented, thefaster individuals can process the stimulus at a later point in time. Thereason for the increase in processing fluency lies in implicit memory traces(Schacter 1987; Shapiro 1999). The intriguing point is that those implicitmemory traces cannot be consciously retrieved from memory, so that thereis no explicit memory for the stimulus. However, the retrieval of thosememory traces ‘can take place non-consciously, thus influencing subse-quent choice without conscious recollection of the encoding episode. […]As such, it is widely thought that mere exposure effects are primarilydriven by automatic, preconscious processes’ (Grimes & Kitchen 2007,p. 195).

In recent years, there has been a flourish of interest in mere exposureeffects in advertising research (e.g. Baker 1999; Lee & Labroo 2004; Fanget al. 2007; Grimes & Kitchen 2007; Tom et al. 2007). Even Zajonc (2004)himself has argued that the mere exposure effect ‘must be well known inthe advertising industry’ (p. 202). However, in research on the effects of

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product placements, there are only some first hints for mere exposureeffects. Janiszewski (1993) demonstrated that the mere presentation of abrand in a print ad had a positive impact on the attitude towards the brand,even though viewers did not recall the exposure to it. In an interestingstudy, Russell (2002) investigated the impact of modality (visual or audi-tory) and degree of connection between plot and placement on viewers’recall and attitudes. The results showed that placements which could notbe remembered did indeed exert an influence on viewers’ attitudestowards the brand. In contrast, placements that were better rememberedhad no impact on attitudes. As Russell (2002) explains, when placementsare the focal point of attention, they become obtrusive and viewers mightrespond with counter-arguing: ‘The fact that subtly placed visual brandsappeared more natural and were therefore not counter-argued advancesour knowledge of visual persuasion’ (Russel 2002, p. 314). The results ofJaniszewski (1993) and Russell (2002) suggest that placement recall mightbe independent of placement evaluation.

Taken together, insights from cognitive psychology and advertisingresearch support the notion that mere exposure effects are not mediatedby stimulus recognition and recall. However, little is known about mereexposure effects when it comes to product placements. Although Russell(2002) mentions the mere exposure effect as one possible explanation ofher results, there are no studies that have put this notion to a direct test.Even more importantly, the placement-specific boundary conditions ormoderators for the mere exposure effects are an unresolved issue.

The mere exposure effect for product placements:a moderated phenomenon

While the mere exposure effect is unmediated, this does not mean thatthere are no moderators at work (Bornstein 1989). As Muller et al. (2005)explain, mediational analyses aim at identifying the intermediary processthat leads to an effect on a dependent variable, but moderational analyses‘attempt to identify […] contextual variables that strengthen and/orchange the direction of the relationship between the treatment variableand the dependent variable’ (p. 852). In his meta-analysis, Bornstein(1989) identifies several moderators for mere exposure effects, such asplacement frequency or exposure time. However, research has yielded

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little knowledge about the moderators that are likely to occur when itcomes to product placements. First of all, the studies by Janiszewski(1993) and Russell (2002) investigated singular placements. The mostimportant moderator, the frequency of exposure (Bornstein 1989), has notbeen manipulated in product placement research so far. Based on theresults in psychological mere exposure research, it can be assumed thatmere exposure effects are more pronounced when a brand is presentedfrequently, i.e. more than once. Therefore, a first moderator of productplacement mere exposure effects should be placement frequency.

Second, there is a crucial difference between the rather simple stimulipresented in psychological mere exposure research and product place-ments in audiovisual media. In movies or television shows, product place-ments are embedded in a rather complex visual stimulus and are watchedwith varying degrees of attention. In contrast, psychological mere expo-sure research works with unembedded stimuli. Therefore, the effective-ness of product placements highly depends on the context in whichplacements are shown and on the involvement viewers devote to a mediaprogramme. Surprisingly, this aspect has rarely been taken into account inprevious research: studies testing the effectiveness of placements mostlywork with simple placement contexts, such as slideshows of placements ornewspaper articles (Janiszewski 1993; see also Baker 1999). Bearing inmind that fluency-based mere exposure effects occur only when viewersdo not consciously elaborate on the occurrence of placements, it can beassumed that placements should be processed with a rather limitedamount of attention (Law & Braun 2000; Fang et al. 2007). Also, Grimesand Kitchen (2007) call for low-attention conditions in order to observemere exposure effects. As stated by Winkielman et al. (2003), it can beexpected that ‘fluency effects increase under resource limitations, becausethese limitations interfere with the integration of additional informationabout the stimulus’. In other words, the less cognitive resources aredevoted to the placement itself, the stronger the attitudinal effects(McCarty 2004; Fang et al. 2007; Grimes & Kitchen 2007). More specifi-cally, when cognitive resources are devoted to the movie or television pro-gramme itself – which means there is a high programme involvement –cognitive resources for the placements are rather low. Put simply, if view-ers are cognitively engaged with the story, they lack the cognitive capacityto watch out for placements. A study by Schneider and Cornwell (2005)

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gives clear support for this argument: highly involved players of a racinggame showed a poorer placement recall compared to players with lowinvolvement. This line of reasoning is also supported by research on tra-ditional forms of advertising, which demonstrates that higher involvementwith the story reduces the cognitive capacity for the commercial (Norris &Coleman 1992). Or, as Grigorivici and Constantin (2004, p. 34) have put it,placing brands in highly arousing, immersive programme context ‘leavesless processing capacities to encoding placements as commercial mes-sages, but rather “wrapping” users/viewers in the program context itself’.Therefore, it can be assumed that a mere exposure effect is more likely tooccur when programme involvement is high, because high programmeinvolvement limits processing capacity for the embedded placements,thus impeding deliberative processing of the placement (Winkielman et al.2003, p. 211; Fang et al. 2007, p. 102; Grimes & Kitchen 2007, p. 210). Thisshould be the second moderator for a mere exposure effect of a productplacement.

Along with the frequency of placements and programme involvement,another crucial variable can be derived from the research literature(Russell 2002): viewers’ persuasion knowledge. Friestad and Wright (1995)argue that people can detect the persuasive attempt, they indulge incounter-arguing and, consequently, develop more negative attitudestowards the brand (see also Brehm 1966). Persuasion knowledge is bestdefined as an activated attitude towards a persuasive attempt. Morespecifically, it comprises knowledge about actors, themes and outcomes ofthe persuasion process (Friestad & Wright 1995). In a seminal study,Boush et al. (1994) operationalised persuasion knowledge as a stable atti-tude that can be activated during persuasion. As Russell (2002) has con-vincingly argued, persuasion knowledge can impede mere exposureeffects: audiences may realise that the placements were placed there toaffect their judgements, and ‘they may counter-argue them just as they dotraditional advertising messages’ (p. 307). That means persuasion knowl-edge is a moderator that impedes a mere exposure effect. When there ispersuasion knowledge, implicit memory effects are no longer possible.

Persuasion knowledge evolves from experiences with persuasion thatmay differ among individuals (Boush et al. 1994; Friestad & Wright 1995).Hence, it can be assumed that individuals differ in their degree of havingalready developed persuasion knowledge about product placements.

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In fact, people who have developed a high degree of persuasion knowl-edge during their media socialisation are less likely to be influenced byproduct placements via the mere exposure effect. In contrast, individualswho have no accessible and applicable persuasion knowledge for productplacements are unlikely to employ strategies of counter-arguing. Thus,persuasion knowledge is the third moderator that can be identified basedon the product placement literature.

Taken together, consistent with the literature previously discussed, it isproposed that there are three moderators of mere exposure effects to occurfor product placements: first, the frequency of exposure (Bornstein 1989);second, the involvement in the plot (Winkielman et al. 2003); and, third,viewers’ persuasion knowledge (Russell 2002). Of course, involvementand persuasion knowledge were not investigated in psychological mereexposure research outside the advertising context. The reason is, simply,that they were not relevant. For the simple stimuli in Zajonc’s (1968)study, there is no context in which viewers can get involved. Likewise,syllables or ideographs cannot invoke persuasion knowledge, because theyare not meant to persuade. In contrast, placements are meant to persuade,and they are embedded in a programme context that can be watched withvarying degrees of involvement.

Hypotheses

Throughout this paper, it has been argued that a frequently presentedbrand placement can have a positive effect on brand evaluations althoughviewers do not recall the brand. This is a mere exposure effect. Therefore,the following general hypothesis can be derived:

H1: The repeated exposure to a brand placement can lead to an increasein liking for the brand, when people do not remember that they wereexposed to a placement (mere exposure effect).

However, as should be apparent from the discussion above, this generalhypothesis is bound to three conditions, or moderators. First of all, basedon the insights of mere exposure research in cognitive psychology, it issuggested that a placement must be presented with a high frequency.Second, frequently presented product placements can gain an attitudinal

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impact only when viewers have limited cognitive capacity to process theplacements (Winkielman et al. 2003; Fang et al. 2007; Grimes & Kitchen2007). This means that the media programme must be processed withhigh involvement, leaving little capacity for processing the placementinformation itself. In this case, placements are not attentively processed.While they nevertheless leave memory traces (Schacter 1987; Shapiro1999), these traces are not accessible to recall: viewers have in fact seen theplacements but will not remember them explicitly. Nevertheless, theappearance of the brand leaves implicit memory traces, which, in turn,lead to a higher fluency. Due to the positive marking of perceptual flu-ency, viewers should evaluate the brand positively. Third, a crucial vari-able in any persuasion process is the viewer’s persuasion knowledge.Persuasion knowledge is not generated while viewing the movie or televi-sion programme, it is rather brought to the process based on previous per-suasion experiences. People who have developed high degrees ofpersuasion knowledge during previous contact with placements are moresusceptible to persuasion cues. Therefore, they are more likely to counter-argue when they view a movie or a television broadcast.

Taken together, for a mere exposure effect to occur, placements must bepresented with high frequency, viewers must watch the movie or pro-gramme with high involvement, and they should have a low amount ofpersuasion knowledge. Hence, it is argued that a mere exposure effect ispossible only when these three moderators are present. Therefore, we canformulate three sub-hypotheses:

H1a–H1c: For mere exposure effects to occur, brand placements mustbe presented with high frequency (H1a), viewers must watchthe media programme with high involvement (H1b) andhave a low degree of persuasion knowledge (H1c).

In contrast to a mere exposure effect, the presentation of placementscan also lead to a decrease in liking for a brand. As Russell (2002) hasargued, when placements become the focal point of attention and whenthey can be remembered well by viewers, a deterioration of brand atti-tudes can be the result. This is a reactance effect. Hence, we can formu-late the second general hypothesis:

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H2: The repeated exposure to a brand placement can lead to a decreasein liking for the brand, when people do remember the exposure to aplacement (reactance effect).

Similar to the mere exposure effect, we argue that there are conditionsfor a reactance effect. In general, when persuasion knowledge is high, nopositive attitude change can be expected at all (Friestad & Wright 1995).However, when there is high persuasion knowledge and low programmeinvolvement, individuals have the maximum amount of resources to elab-orate on the persuasion attempt. We assume that persuasion knowledgehas the most negative impact on brand evaluations when there is a highcognitive capacity to activate and elaborate persuasion knowledge (for asimilar argument, see Russell 2002; Lee & Labroo 2004). Based on that,we assume that the frequent presentation of a placement can even have anegative impact on brand evaluations when persuasion knowledge is highand involvement in the programme is low. This negative effect can beinterpreted as a reactance effect (Brehm 1966) which is completely differ-ent to a mere exposure effect. This leads us to three sub-hypotheses:

H2a–H2c: For a reactance effect to occur, brand placements must bepresented with high frequency (H2a), viewers must watchthe media programme with low involvement (H2b) and havea high degree of persuasion knowledge (H2c).

For the other combinations of the independent variables, we can onlystate some assumptions. Therefore, no hypotheses are formulated. First,we suppose that high programme involvement and high persuasionknowledge, as well as low programme involvement and low persuasionknowledge, have no impact on brand attitudes. Individuals with lowinvolvement and low persuasion knowledge might process placementinformation; however, as long as they have only a low degree of persuasionknowledge, they will not engage in counter-arguing. Similarly, individualswith high programme involvement and high persuasion knowledge mightstart counter-arguing, but they are still captured by the narration of thestory. In this case, persuasion knowledge is without any consequences.Taken together, we assume that there should be no attitude change inthese cells as a function of placement frequency.

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Method

Design

We tested our hypotheses in a 3 × 2 × 2 experimental design. Subjectswere randomly assigned to the experimental groups. First, the frequencyof placement appearance was manipulated: we took a broadcasted audio-visual report from a TV magazine focusing on science topics. In this report,a screen placement for an agricultural company (the brand logo ‘DeLaval’,see Figure 1) occurred several times. Similar to psychological mere expo-sure research, the target brand DeLaval is quite unknown to the generalpublic. The occurrence of the brand placement could easily be varied. Wecreated one version without any placement, one version in which thebrand appeared seven times, and one version with 13 appearances of thebrand. These frequencies were chosen for three reasons: (1) in order toprevent wear-out effects, there should not be too many placement repeti-tions (see Laroche et al. 2006); (2) the frequencies were deemed realisticfrom a practical standpoint – creating a report with a higher amount ofplacements could adversely affect the credibility of the report; (3) thewhole design was tested in an extensive pilot experiment (n = 74), whichgave clear hints for the expected results. The duration of a placementappearance was 0.5 to 3 seconds (see Figure 1 for screenshots). The con-tent of the report was exactly the same in the three versions.

Second, programme involvement was varied by telling one half of thesubjects that the story they were going to see was quite important, thatthey should concentrate on the content of the story, and that a knowledgetest would follow (Wirth 2006). The other half of the subjects were toldthat the story they were about to see was rather uninspiring and not veryimportant to the general public. Persuasion knowledge was not manipu-lated but measured after the experiment and treated as a quasi-experi-mental factor.

Subjects

A total of 115 students participated in the experiment (55% female; age:M = 24.4, SD = 3.35). Subjects were enrolled in graduate and undergraduatecourses; most subjects majored in mass communication. No relationship

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Figure 1: Screenshots (target brand is ringed in white)

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between students’ area of study and the results could be observed. Theywere paid US$10 for their participation. Of course, student samples can beproblematic in terms of population validity. However, as Oakes (1972)explained, when the dependent variables do not interact with subjectcharacteristics, student samples can be appropriate. In this study, weexamine mere exposure effects. In the research literature, there is no indi-cation that mere exposure effects depend on age, gender or education(Bornstein 1989).

Stimulus material

The topic of the story was ‘new methods of cattle-breeding’. Subjects sawtwo reports: one warm-up report at the beginning and our target report.Overall, the whole stimulus lasted about 10 minutes. In our target report– dependent on experimental condition – a brand placement was shownvarying in frequency. For instance, there was a placement on perimeteradvertising at a cattle exhibition or on the coat of a farmer. These shortscenes were cut out for the versions without placements. A first pre-test(n = 27) showed that all versions of the stimulus were perceived as natu-ral, not arousing any suspicion of manipulation. A second pre-test (surveydata, n = 70) showed that our subjects did not know that particular brand,and that they evaluated it equally neutral compared to other unknownbrands (e.g. ‘Flaco’) that were invented especially for that pre-test. In athird pre-test – a pilot experiment (n = 74) – we tested all measures andthe whole procedure.

Procedure

Subjects were run in groups of six to eight individuals in our advertisinglab. They watched the stimulus on a personal computer (equipped withheadsets), and worked independently. No disturbance among subjects wasobserved. As a cover story, they were told that the investigation was aboutattitudes towards audiovisual science reports. After the stimulus wasshown, subjects filled out an online questionnaire. In that questionnaire,we asked for the purpose of the study. As the results indicate, no oneguessed the true purpose. Because of that and because of the strict ran-domisation, we believe that there were no other ways that the respondents

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could have been influenced during the fieldwork. After filling out thequestionnaire, subjects were debriefed, thanked and paid US$10.

Measures

All items were extensively tested in several pre-tests prior to the field-work. Involvement was measured with five items (α = 0.78) assessing thedegree to which subjects were captured by the story and how much theyconcentrated on it (for all measures see the appendix). Persuasion knowl-edge was measured with five items (α = 0.85). In order to capture the neg-ative preoccupation, we operationalised persuasion knowledge as anactivated attitude of how disturbing product placements were perceived(see Friestad & Wright 1995). As persuasion knowledge served as an inde-pendent variable, we divided our subjects into two groups by means ofmedian split (Md = –0.26). As the main dependent variable, we measuredthe attitude towards the brand with a semantic differential scale consistingof five items (α = 0.84). Subjects were shown several brands and wereasked how much they intuitively liked those brands. This measure fol-lowed the suggestions by Bornstein’s (1989) extensive meta-analysis onmere exposure effects. He found that liking-ratings, goodness-ratings andappealing-ratings showed best results in terms of mere exposure effects. Itwas quite important for us to build on these measures because the mereexposure effect we were looking for demands a spontaneous, unelaboratedassessment of brand preference. Brand choice measures were deemed toocomplicated to implement in our laboratory. Furthermore, similar scaleswere used in the study by Russell (2002) that were crucial for the deriva-tion of our hypotheses. We also checked the Marketing Scales Handbook byBruner et al. (2005), which documents several attitudes towards the brandmeasures that are similar to ours (e.g. Zhang & Schmitt 2001).

In a pilot experiment (n = 74), we found a social desirability bias (King& Bruner 2000) in the condition with zero placements. In fact, subjectsevaluated the placements quite positively, although no placements wereincluded in that version of the stimulus. Such a bias can emerge when sub-jects have to evaluate a brand they could not have seen. We controlled forthis social desirability bias by partialling out the influence of such ‘falseevaluation’ effects. We computed a difference score between the evalua-tion of our target brand (DeLaval) and another unknown brand (Flaco),

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which we call ‘ghost brand’. As shown in our pre-test survey (n = 70), theghost brand is completely equal in familiarity and evaluation compared toDeLaval. The logic is as follows: the ghost brand was not shown in ourstimulus, but we asked for the evaluation of that brand in our question-naire. If a social desirability bias occurs, it should also affect the evaluationof the ghost brand. Hence, we can partial out that social desirability biasby computing a difference score between our target brand and the ghostbrand. This difference score is, therefore, an adjusted evaluation of the tar-get brand – controlled for a social desirability bias. To capture viewers’brand recognition, we measured aided recall: subjects reported to whatextent they could remember the brand. Both for the attitude and the recallmeasure, brands were shown as an icon in the questionnaire. In order tocontrol for possible confounds, we asked participants for their evaluationof the report with a seven-item scale (α = 0.81). Moreover, we tried toavoid measurement effects by asking about our most important depend-ent variable, brand evaluation, at the beginning of the questionnaire. Onlysome filler questions and the programme involvement were asked prior tothat. Then followed persuasion knowledge and aided recall of severalbrands.

Results

Manipulation check

First of all, there were no differences between the three versions of thestimulus in terms of perceived professionalism, credibility and overallimpression of the programme. Second, the involvement manipulationworked quite well: respondents in the high involvement group reported asignificant higher programme involvement (M = 0.38, SD = 0.88) thanrespondents in the low involvement group (M = –0.39, SD = 0.96, t (112) =4.51, p < 0.01). However, the involvement manipulation had no impact onthe attitude towards the brand (t < 1). Third, we checked whether place-ment frequency or involvement had an impact on viewers’ persuasionknowledge. This was not the case: neither placement frequency nor view-ers’ involvement influenced persuasion knowledge (Fs < 1). Hence, thereis no indication of a confounding among our independent variables.

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Experimental hypotheses testing

We assumed that the mere exposure to a frequently presented brand willhave a positive impact on the attitude towards the brand when programmeinvolvement is high, and persuasion knowledge is low. We call this exper-imental group the mere exposure group. In contrast, when a brand placementis presented with high frequency, and viewers devote low involvement tothe report, and have a high degree of persuasion knowledge, the exposureto product placements will have a negative impact on the attitude towardsthe brand (i.e. reactance group). Therefore, we expected a three-way inter-action of placement frequency, programme involvement and persuasionknowledge. As the results indicate, this is the case: there is a significantthree-way interaction of the independent variables (F (11, 97) = 3.54, p <0.01, η2 = 0.29). No main effects of placement frequency, programmeinvolvement and persuasion knowledge on the attitude towards the brandemerged (Fs < 1). Put differently, we have a disordinal interaction. Thereis no main effect of placement frequency on attitude towards the brandbecause the attitude towards the brand can deteriorate or increasedepending on the other conditions. Likewise, there are no main effects ofpersuasion knowledge and involvement. Persuasion knowledge per sedoes not lead to a worsening of brand attitudes. And high programmeinvolvement per se does not lead to better brand attitudes. In other words,all three independent variables interact in their impact, i.e. they can onlyexert an effect in their combination.

As can be seen in Table 1, subjects who were exposed to the broadcastwith 13 placement appearances, watched the programme with highinvolvement, and had no persuasion knowledge (i.e. the mere exposuregroup), have the highest scores on the attitude towards the brand index(M = 1.23, SD = 0.31). To further elaborate on this finding, we testedwhether the mean of the mere exposure group is significantly differentfrom the mean of all other cells. In fact, all 11 tests are significant (p < 0.05)in the expected direction.

However, this positive attitude towards the brand can be interpreted asa mere exposure effect only when subjects fail to remember the brandexplicitly. Indeed, subjects in the mere exposure group (13 placements,high programme involvement, and low persuasion knowledge), haveextremely low scores on the memory towards the brand index (M = 1.25,

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SD = 0.46). In other words, viewers with the most positive evaluation ofthe brand show a very low brand recall. Because explicit brand recall is notresponsible for the bettering of brand attitudes, an implicit mere exposureeffect must be at work here. In order to prove this, we have calculated acorrelation between brand recall and brand attitudes for this mere expo-sure group. As expected, we can find no significant correlation betweenbrand recall and attitude towards the brand (r = 0.15, p = 0.72). Thus,explicit brand recall has no impact on the attitude towards the brand forthis group. To put it in the words of Zajonc (2004), the mere exposureeffect is unmediated by recall. Taken together, our results lend strong sup-port for our first hypothesis, and the three sub-hypotheses 1a, 1b and 1c.

Furthermore, we hypothesised that the attitude towards the brand willdeteriorate when there is a high frequency of placements, low involve-ment and high persuasion knowledge (reactance group). This effect is nomere exposure effect, but a reactance effect, as the memory for the brand

Table 1: Evaluation of the brand and brand recognition as a function of placementfrequency, involvement and persuasion knowledge (standard deviations in brackets)

Involvement

High (n = 58) Low (n = 57)

Persuasion Persuasion Persuasion Persuasion knowledge knowledge knowledge knowledge

high (n = 29) low (n = 29) high (n = 30) low (n = 27)

Attitude towards the brand:

0 placements 0.39 –0.12 0.22 0.34(n = 33) (0.38) (0.35) (0.40) (0.35)

7 placements 0.26 –0.13 –0.80 –0.25(n = 41) (0.30) (0.37) (0.35) (0.31)

13 placements –0.13 1.23 –0.67 0.05(n = 41) (0.35) (0.31) (0.29) (0.44)

Recognition:

0 placements 1.14 1.40 1.50 1.17(n = 33) (0.38) (0.52) (0.58) (3.89)

7 placements 3.00 1.33 1.71 1.14(n = 41) (1.62) (0.71) (0.76) (0.54)

13 placements 3.23 1.25 3.31 1.75(n = 41) (1.42) (0.46) (1.82) (0.96)

Note: Values for brand evaluation are z-standardised means; brand recognition is measured on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 ‘donot remember the brand’ to 5 ‘do remember the brand’.

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should be very high. As expected, subjects who were exposed to 13 place-ments, and had a low involvement but high persuasion knowledge,showed a very negative attitude towards the brand (M = –0.67, SD = 0.29).This effect can even be found for the low involvement/high persuasionknowledge group that was exposed to seven placements (M = –0.80, SD =0.35). In fact, there is a significant decrease regarding the attitude towardsthe brand compared to the conditions with zero placements. Even moreimportantly, subjects in the reactance group had very high scores on thememory towards the brand index (M = 3.31, SD = 1.82). Obviously, thehigh persuasion knowledge and the low programme involvement lead to ahigh placement recall. This impedes a mere exposure effect but leads toreactance. In other words, in contrast to the mere exposure effectdescribed above, placement recall has an impact on brand attitudes for thereactance group. In order to prove this, we have again calculated the cor-relation between recall and attitude towards the brand, just as above. Asexpected, this time we can find a significant correlation between both vari-ables (r = 0.58, p < 0.05). Overall, this result supports the second hypoth-esis, and the three sub-hypotheses 2a, 2b and 2c.

To reiterate, it is the specific combination of the independent variablesthat can either lead to more positive brand attitudes (mere exposureeffect) or to more negative brand attitudes (reactance effect). In the firstcase, explicit brand recall is not responsible for the effect – the mere expo-sure effect is not mediated by recall. In the second case, however, a highbrand recall can support the worsening of brand attitudes.

Regarding the other experimental groups, as expected, subjects withlow programme involvement and low persuasion knowledge show no dif-ferences in their attitudes at all. For those participants, the frequency ofproduct placements has no impact on the attitude towards the brand (zeroplacements: M = 0.34, SD = 0.35; seven placements, M = –0.25, SD = 0.31;13 placements, M = 0.05, SD = 0.44). Put differently, when there is lowinvolvement and low persuasion knowledge, no mere exposure effect canbe expected, because there is no high involvement. However, no reac-tance effect can be expected either, because these viewers are lacking thenecessary persuasion knowledge. Likewise, we find no effect of place-ment frequency for subjects with high programme involvement and highpersuasion knowledge (zero placements: M = 0.39, SD = 0.38; seven place-ments, M = 0.26, SD = 0.30; 13 placements, M = –0.13, SD = 0.35). For this

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group, a possible mere exposure effect is suppressed by persuasion knowl-edge. Furthermore, a reactance effect is unlikely, because reactancerequires cognitive resources that are bound by high involvement. In otherwords, persuasion knowledge and involvement neutralise each other intheir impact on viewers’ attitudes.

Discussion

The findings of this study indicate that the frequent and unreinforcedpresentation of a previously unknown brand can have an effect on view-ers’ attitudes, even if memory for the placement is low. This lends supportto the idea that the impact of product placements on viewers’ attitudes canbe interpreted as a mere exposure effect. More precisely, this effect can beexplained in terms of processing fluency (Reber et al. 2004). Although peo-ple cannot remember the stimulus, repeated exposure leads to an increasein processing fluency. This fluency signal itself is hedonically marked:high fluency will elicit a positive affective reaction. It is important to stressthat the mere exposure effect is not mediated by brand recall, becausethere is no significant relationship between brand recall and the betteringof the attitude towards the brand.

In this study, we have identified three important moderators for themere exposure effect of product placements: a mere exposure effect islikely to occur when a previously unknown brand is presented with highfrequency, viewers watch the programme with high involvement, andhave a rather low persuasion knowledge. Besides the mere exposureeffect, we can also formulate the conditions for a reactance effect: when abrand placement occurs with high frequency, the audience programmeinvolvement is low but persuasion knowledge is high, the attitude towardsthe brand can be negatively affected compared to a condition where noplacements are shown. One possible explanation for this reactance effectis that viewers possess sufficient cognitive resources to elaborate on theirpersuasion knowledge. In other words, when watching a media pro-gramme with low involvement and feeling disturbed by product place-ments, people have the cognitive capacity to critically scrutinise theplacements. Therefore, when subjects figure out that the placements areintended to persuade, they try to resist this persuasion attempt and evalu-ate the brand more negatively. Although other explanations for this effect

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cannot be fully ruled out by the present data, this reasoning is in line withthe persuasion knowledge model of Friestad and Wright (1995) whichexplicitly points to reactance effects.

One could object that, in terms of priming, we have studied a wordrather than a brand. However, it is important to stress that the placementwe have used is a real brand placement. Our stimulus was not an artificialslideshow with invented placements or just words, but an authentic place-ment broadcasted in a TV magazine. In short, the placements were real.Moreover, subjects were asked about their evaluation and aided recallwith respect to a brand, not just a word. Even in theoretical terms, theplacement we have used is a combination of an icon with a brand name,which perfectly matches the definition of a screen placement (Gupta &Lord 1998; Russell 1998). Bearing in mind that we have used a real prod-uct placement presented in an authentic broadcast, there are of course dif-ferences to classical mere exposure studies in cognitive psychology.Compared to these studies, the time of placement exposure is quite high,lasting for 0.5 to 3 seconds. However, we have to keep in mind that theplacements are embedded in a complex audiovisual field. Thus, individu-als are not really directly exposed to those placements. In contrast, theplacements are popping up at some place in moving pictures. And again,these are realistic exposure times in real-world contexts, therefore enhanc-ing the external validity of our results.

We have studied a real, but comparatively unknown brand. It is knownthat mere exposure effects are stronger for unknown stimuli (Bornstein1989). For mere exposure effects to occur, attitude strength might be themost important predictor. When individuals hold strong attitudes towardsa brand, mere exposure will certainly exert no influence. However, in theglobal advertising world, consumers are literally surrounded by thousandsof brands without having a strong attitude for them. For such brands, mereexposure effects are a realistic scenario.

In considering the broader implications of our findings, our results pointto the importance of examining how product placements are processed byviewers. Among practitioners and marketing researchers, there is a wide-spread agreement that product placements must catch as much attentionas possible. However, our findings contradict the idea that placementsmust be remembered in order to have an attitudinal impact: in contrast,our experiment demonstrated that well-remembered product placements

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can even lead to reactance effects. Moreover, our findings suggest thateffects on memory can be independent of effects on attitudes: placementscan have an effect on attitudes although there is no effect on explicit mem-ory. This ‘hidden impact’ of product placements is quite importantbecause it contributes to our understanding of some otherwise paradoxicalphenomena. Previous research on the impact of product placements hasconsistently pointed to a rather serious problem. On the one hand, prod-uct placements are attractive for practitioners because viewers do notrecognise the persuasive attempt. Therefore, compared to classical formsof advertising (such as commercials), placements are accepted amongviewers and reactance towards advertising is less likely (d’Astous &Chartier 2000). On the other hand, however, the subtle and non-persua-sive way of a placing a brand runs the risk of its being overlooked by view-ers. In fact, our results seem to indicate that this risk is no drawback; incontrast, it can even be an advantage: when placements are not recog-nised, they can nevertheless have an impact on viewers’ attitudes. In otherwords, effective placements are ‘more than meets the eye’.

Moreover, the results of this study are also quite important both forpractitioners and marketers. For instance, although we do not yet knowhow strong and enduring such mere exposure effects are, it can beassumed that mere exposure effects can be quite important when newbrands are introduced to the market. By subtly placing brands in a highlyinvolving media programme, positive attitudes towards the brand can becreated in a first step. In a second step, then, this positive attitudinal basecan be strengthened by more obtrusive forms of advertising.

So far, we have reached some preliminary conclusions about when mereexposure effects and reactance effects are likely to occur; however, we arefar from having a comprehensive analysis of all antecedents and conse-quences of such effects. First of all, a replication of this study with a largersample could further test the extent to which our findings can be gener-alised. Second, further research should also explore the relationshipbetween programme involvement and persuasion knowledge. In thisstudy, we argued that persuasion knowledge has the most negative impactwhen viewers can elaborate consciously on the placement information (i.e.low programme involvement). This assumption is confirmed by the highbrand recognition scores of low-involvement viewers. However, it may beequally possible that, once persuasion knowledge is activated, viewers

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disengage from the media programme. In order to examine the relation-ship between involvement and persuasion knowledge, future studies willhave to manipulate the two variables independently.

A further shortcoming of our study refers to the ‘magic number’ ofplacement appearances. In psychological mere exposure research, the‘optimal’ frequency (i.e. to produce the most positive attitudes) variesfrom stimulus to stimulus. Therefore, we may expect that an absolute‘magic number’ does not exist. Nevertheless, future research should testthe mere exposure effect with different placement frequencies and differ-ent media contexts. There is probably an exposure level (i.e. extremelyhigh placement frequency) at which no mere exposure effects can befound. As Sawyer (2006) states, the effectiveness of the frequency ofplacements might have an inverted U-curve effect. The examination ofthis issue might be a fertile topic for upcoming research on productplacements.

Appendix: Test measures

All scales were administered with a five-point scale ranging from1 ‘not agree at all’ to 5 ‘fully agree’.

Involvement:I thought about the topic of this story extensively.I concentrated on the story.I was captured by the story.I thought about things that had to do with the story.I was absorbed by the things that were shown in the story.

Persuasion knowledge:I think some persons will feel disturbed by the placements that were

shown in the programme.The brand icons in the story should have been cut out.There was too much advertising in the TV programme.I found the brand appearances in the story annoying.Obviously, companies were given the opportunity to place their brands

in the programme.

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Attitudes towards the brand (five-point semantic differential):In my opinion, this brand seems to be …

• friendly ↔ unfriendly• positive ↔ negative• appealing ↔ not appealing• interesting ↔ uninteresting• attractive ↔ unattractive

Attitude towards the report:In my opinion the report was …

• good ↔ bad• interesting ↔ uninteresting• credible ↔ not credible• professional ↔ unprofessional• informative ↔ uninformative• exciting ↔ boring• realistic ↔ unrealistic

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About the authors

Jörg Matthes (PhD University of Zurich, Switzerland) is a post-doctoral atthe Institute of Mass Communication and Media Research, University ofZurich, Switzerland. His research focuses on advertising effects, theprocess of public opinion formation, media effects, trust in news media,and empirical methods.

Christian Schemer (MA University of Mainz, Germany) is a PhD stu-dent at the Institute of Mass Communication and Media Research,University of Zurich, Switzerland. His research focuses on advertisingeffects, the process of public opinion formation, media effects, media andemotions, and empirical methods.

Werner Wirth (PhD University of Leipzig, Germany) is professor forcommunication and empirical media research at the Institute of MassCommunication and Media Research, University of Zurich, Switzerland.His research focuses on advertising effects, media effects, entertainment,media and emotions, interactive media, and empirical methods.

Address correspondence to: Jörg Matthes, Institute of MassCommunication and Media Research, University of Zurich,Andreasstrasse 15, 8050 Zurich, Switzerland.


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The influence of message formaton the effectiveness ofprint advertisements

for tourism destinations

Alain DecropUniversity of Namur (FUNDP)

CeRCLe (Centre for Research on Consumption and Leisure)

In a context of overabundant ads and saturated consumers, message format is crucial indeveloping effective advertising campaigns. In this study, four major format componentsof print advertisements are considered: picture, logo, text and headline. The goal is toinvestigate the effectiveness of each of these components in triggering a response by thetarget audience. Three types of response are taken into account: knowledge (informa-tion), liking (attraction) and behavioural intention. Four series of hypotheses related tothe influence of message format on the effectiveness of print ads are tested for an urbantourism destination through an experimental research design. Findings show that pictureand text are the prevailing elements, while logo and headline are of marginal importance.Pictures are especially effective in attracting the consumer and arousing a behaviouralintention, whereas text is most powerful in conveying information.

Introduction and problem definition

Designing the message is a major step in developing effective advertisingcampaigns. It is usually considered once the target audience has beenidentified and the desired communication objectives have been defined.Four major decisions are involved in designing the advertising message:(1) what to say (content), (2) how to say it logically (structure), (3) how tosay it symbolically (format), and (4) who should say it (source). In thispaper, the focus is on the third decision, i.e. message format. The formatof any advertisement is made up of numerous components. The key ele-ments in print advertising are the headline, visual, subheads, body copy,

505


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captions, boxes and panels, slogans, logotypes, seals and signatures (Bovée& Arens 1989; Belch & Belch 2007). Each time copywriters create a newad, they have to make decisions on the mix of these elements: they maybe moved, enlarged or reduced, changed or eliminated, until a satisfyingdesign is reached.

In this study, four key format components of print advertisements areconsidered, i.e. the picture (visual), logo (signature), text (body copy) andslogan (headline). A series of studies have shown that most readers lookfirst at the visual, then read the headline, and finally, in the optimum case,read the body copy (Ogilvy 1985). As far as tourism ads are concerned,Urbain (1983) found that slogan–photograph–text is the most typical for-mat. The position of the signature (e.g. brand name) is more variable. Theaim of this paper is not to investigate the order but rather the effectivenessof each element in triggering appropriate responses by the target audi-ence. Different response levels may be considered when assessing adver-tising effectiveness. Over the past two decades, measures of effectivenesshave been based on recall and recognition tests (e.g. Starch ReadershipScores). However, Hanssens and Weitz (1980) have argued that additionalad hoc measures related to purchasing behaviour (i.e. readership andinquiry generation) are needed. It is now well accepted that measures ofadvertising effectiveness should be connected with conceptual frame-works: ‘advertising objectives are best set if they are based on some under-lying theory or model that expresses the laws or principles by whichadvertising works’ (Davidson 1994, p. 539). Such general ‘hierarchy-of-effects’ models (e.g. Lavidge & Steiner 1961; for a review, see Barry &Howard 1990) have been proposed in the literature to help in determiningthe communication objectives and in measuring the extent to which theyhave been reached afterwards. Those models assume that the consumerpasses through different stages when responding to marketing stimulibefore purchasing a product or a brand. More precisely, the advertiser mayseek to produce cognitive (e.g. attention, awareness, knowledge), affective(e.g. interest, liking, conviction) or conative (e.g. intention, trial, purchase)audience responses. In his book about the language of tourism, Dann(1996) acknowledges that most tourism advertising follows the AIDA pat-tern, capturing Attention, maintaining Interest, creating Desire and get-ting Action. Johnson and Messmer (1991) have used such a hierarchicalstructure in order to investigate the effect of advertising on different stages

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PRINT ADS FOR TOURISM DESTINATIONS: MESSAGE FORMAT

in vacation destination choice. However, the authors limit their scope totwo stages, namely inquiry generation and visitation. They regret that ‘fewresearchers have attempted to directly model the effect of advertising atstages of a hierarchy; the great majority of studies have concentrated on asingle dependent variable’ (p. 18). The current study tries to avoid thislimitation by considering three response levels, i.e. knowledge (the ad’sinformational value), liking (attraction value), and intention (behaviouralvalue). In summary, this research aims at contributing to extant literatureregarding three aspects: on the one hand, it extends the classical examina-tion of text–picture connections by investigating the role of two additionalelements of print message format, i.e. logo and headline. On the otherhand, the study measures three response levels referring to the cogni-tive–affective–conative sequence featured in most hierarchy-of-effectsmodels. Finally, it develops an original methodological approach, i.e. a full-profile conjoint task, to examine the effectiveness of each format elementin triggering different types of readers’ responses.

At a more practical level, this study was undertaken to help design thenext promotional campaign of an urban tourism destination, namelyNamur, which is a medium-sized Belgian city of 100,000 inhabitants and apopular tourism destination for one-day excursions and short trips. Knownas the ‘Ardennes gate’, Namur offers a mix of natural and cultural attrac-tions (confluence of two major rivers, walking trails through parks andwoods, the biggest citadel of Europe built by Vauban in the 17th century,a range of museums, etc.) and recreational venues (large pedestrianisedshopping district, casino, pubs and restaurants). Assessing the effective-ness of advertising is of paramount importance to businesses in respect ofthe huge amounts of money that are spent on it. While it has been neg-lected for a long time, advertising now plays a vital role in the marketingof tourism destinations. According to the World Tourism Organization, the2004 marketing budgets of countries such as Malaysia, Australia, Spain,South Africa and Canada amounted to 89.1, 80.2, 67.6, 51.5 and 50.7 mil-lion USD respectively. Belgium has to satisfy itself with a promotionalbudget of around 4 million USD. In the US, advertising accounts for 44%of tourism marketing state budgets. In 2004–2005, US states planned tospend a total of 602.7 million USD for development and promotion,Hawaii taking the lead with a budget of 69 million USD (Travel IndustryAssociation 2005).

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Well-executed advertising evaluation research helps managers spendmoney more effectively, as ‘identifying ways to make even small improve-ments in communications impact or preventing the repetition of mistakescan lead in the long run to substantial gains in sales and profits’ (Davidson1994, p. 538). Optimising the message format is one such improvement.Although much attention has focused on advertising effectiveness in gen-eral, it is surprising that little research has centred on the issue of messageformat. This shortcoming is particularly relevant to the tourism industry:destination managers often find it hard to set up marketing campaigns andto design effective advertisements. Moreover, Davidson (1994) noticesthat ‘while a number of journal articles have been written on assessingadvertising, almost nothing has been published on assessing tourismadvertising’ (p. 543).

Literature review

A few format studies have been carried out during the two last decades forthe major advertising media, such as radio (Sullivan 1990), internet(Gretzel et al. 2000; Burns & Lutz 2006), mobile telecommunication (Rau& Chen 2006), and of course print media (see below). Research effort hasfocused on the verbal content of the ad, although the importance of non-verbal communication has increasingly been acknowledged (Woollacott1982; Edell & Staelin 1983; Hecker & Stewart 1988). The rise of imageadvertising is, to a large extent, responsible for this increased interest innon-verbal communication (MacInnis & Price 1987; Stewart et al. 1987;Unnava & Burnkrant 1991).

Regarding the format of print ads, most studies focused on the compar-ison between the two prevailing elements, i.e. text and pictures. A firstseries of studies has shown that pictures-only proves to be more effectivethan text-only, especially in being recalled. Based on Starch ReadershipScores, Hanssens and Weitz (1980) found that pictures are helpful inimproving the effectiveness of industrial print advertisements while this isnot the case with text. According to Mitchell and Olson (1981), advertise-ments designed with pictures have a stronger effect in influencing atti-tudes than do ads containing text only. For Edell and Staelin (1983), adrecall is stronger when supported by pictures than when purely text-basedbecause processing of pictorial and lexical information is carried out by

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different cognitive processes, which may result in different amounts oflearning. The same positive effect of pictures on recall was highlighted byUnnava and Burnkrant (1991). Miniard et al. (1991) and Kroeber-Riel(1993) suggested the inclusion of involvement as a mediating variable onthis effect. The latter authors found that pictures play a significant role ingaining readers’ attention in advertisements for high-involvement prod-ucts, such as a tourism destination, despite increased reading of writteninformation. Mitchell (1986) confirmed the effectiveness of the visualcomponent of ads in triggering both cognitive (i.e. the formation of prod-uct attribute beliefs) and affective (i.e. the attitude towards the advertise-ment) responses. Finally, Tscheulin and Helmig (1998) showed thatpictures are more effective than text in hospital print advertisements; thetype of pictures has both a positive effect on the attractiveness of the adand on its perceived informational value, whereas the type of text impactsonly on the ad’s informational value.

Other authors have demonstrated that advertising effectiveness isstronger when picture and text are combined. Morelli (1970) was the firstto support this: the use of pictorial material increases the memorisationeffect when pictures are used to illustrate the text. In 1977, Lutz and Lutzreported a stronger recall effect when the text is supported by interactiveand non-redundant pictures. That conclusion was confirmed in later stud-ies by Edell and Staelin (1983) and Houston et al. (1987). Finally, Jaegerand MacFie (2001) have shown that ads communicating both pictorial andtextual information resulted in different expectations than those raised bytext-only information. They further showed that pictures had a greaterinfluence on consumers with a high ‘need for cognition’ (NFC) than thosewith a low NFC. In addition to these two major research streams, morespecific studies have highlighted the influence of the picture’s size(Rossiter & Percy 1983; Percy 1989; Tscheulin & Helmig 1998) and theincreased effectiveness resulting from an interactive picture–slogan rela-tionship (Tscheulin & Helmig 1998).

A few tourism researchers have also been interested in issues related tomessage format and print media. Dann (1996) has pointed out that almostwithout exception photographs are used in tandem with verbal messagesin tourism ads and brochures. MacKay and Fesenmaier (1997) focused onthe visual/pictorial component of advertising in shaping destinationimages and expectations. Olson et al. (1986) found that the visual content

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of ads affects the perception of vacation experiences through the associa-tion of certain types of pictures with certain types of experiences (e.g.natural scenery elicits the recollection of a romantic vacation). Morerecently, MacKay and Smith (2006) found that advertising format is adeterminant of elaborative memory, while age is not. In two experiments,they examined age-related differences in memory for ads using text andpicture formats. They showed that younger adults recall more of the con-tent of a written description of a destination than do older participants. Incontrast, younger and older adults appear to process and encode informa-tion from pictures of destinations in a similar manner. In spite of these fewpapers, format studies are rare in recent tourism advertising research,which focuses on measuring the effectiveness of destination advertising,especially through conversion studies (Woodside & Ronkainen 1994;Woodside & Dubelaar 2003) or tracking studies (see Siegel & Ziff-Levine1994; McWilliams & Crompton 1997). MacKay and Smith (2006) diagnosethat ‘there are still many outstanding issues to be resolved in the area ofage, format, and memory for tourism advertising’ (p. 20).

Research hypotheses

This research aims to test which orientation would be more effective fortourism advertising – that is, either a text-oriented or a picture-orientedformat. In addition to these two major elements, the logo and the headlineare also considered. Three measures of effectiveness are used: knowledge,liking and intention. The hypotheses discussed below involve these fourelements of the message format of print ads, namely visual, logotype, textand headline (independent variables) and three levels of response(dependent variables); four series of hypotheses are presented and eachseries comprises three sub-hypotheses.

Visual

The first series of hypotheses is concerned with the visual. Pictures are acornerstone in print advertising as it has been shown that most readers ofadvertisements look first at the picture before considering other elements(Ogilvy 1985). Pictures and photographs are of paramount importance totourism destinations. Dilley (1986) has shown that up to 75% of tourism

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brochure material is taken up by pictures and that the influence of a pro-motional picture varies directly with its size. Pictures are widely usedbecause they help to induce imagery (MacInnis & Price 1987), to developknowledge and expectations (MacKay & Smith 2006) and the desire forimage verification (Okoroafo 1989). The visual contributes strongly to suc-cessful ads by accomplishing three major tasks. First, the visual conveys anabundance of information as it assists with identifying the subject of thead, clarifying the claims made by the copy and emphasising unique fea-tures of the product: ‘adding an illustration to a textual advertising mes-sage means communicating additional information’ (Jaeger & MacFie2001, p. 190). Second, it is meant to capture the attention of the reader andto arouse his/her interest in other elements of the ad (Belch & Belch2007). Third, the visual helps to generate an intention to buy the adver-tised product/brand by filtering prospects, creating a favourable impres-sion of the product and enhancing the trustworthiness of claims made inthe copy (Wilmshurst & Mackay 1999). These three functions may betranslated into the following hypotheses:

H1a: The ad’s informational value is increased when a picture is pres-ent compared with when there is no picture.

H1b: The ad’s attraction value is increased when a picture is presentcompared with when there is no picture.

H1c: The intention effect of the ad is increased when a picture is pres-ent compared with when there is no picture.

Logotypes

Logotypes (logos) are special designs of the advertiser’s company name orproduct name; they are like signatures and trademarks because they ‘pro-vide individuality and immediate recognition in advertising, packaging,point of purchase, and other promotional efforts’ (Govoni 2004, pp. 117–118). As they help readers recognise familiar products or brands and createidentity, they raise attention towards the ad/product (Bovée & Arens1989). However, as they are short and have very specific content (i.e. thebrand or company name), they are of limited informational value. Finally,logos usually do not bear any behavioural intention (Belch & Belch 2007).Therefore, the following hypotheses are proposed:

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H2a: The ad’s informational value is not increased when a logo is pres-ent compared with when it is absent.

H2b: The ad’s attraction value is increased when a logo is present com-pared with when it is absent.

H2c: The intention effect of the ad is not increased when a logo is pres-ent compared with when it is absent.

The third series of hypotheses is concerned with the influence of text orbody copy on the effectiveness of destination ads. The text includes all thewords used to tell the complete sales story. It has to be clear, simple, direct,appropriately expressed and relevant (Wilmshurst & Mackay 1999) andmust be connected with the headline and/or the visual. According toBovée and Arens (1989), ‘body copy is where the sale is closed’ (p. 264). Itmust explain how the advertised product/brand satisfies the consumer’sneeds and emphasise the consumer’s benefit(s) in order to create an inten-tion to buy. To this end, the major goal of the copy is both to inform aboutthe product’s characteristics and advantages and to provide the greatestsales appeal for the idea that is presented. Therefore, we expect that theamount of text will affect the informational value and the intention effectof the ad, with a longer text being more effective than a shorter text or notext at all. In contrast, the amount of text is not supposed to attract thereader’s attention. Generally, longer text even proves to have detrimentaleffects on interest (Belch & Belch 2007). The third set of hypothesesreads therefore as follows:

H3a: The ad’s informational value is increased by the amount of text:the longer the text, the higher the informational value.

H3b: The ad’s attraction value is not increased by the amount of text.H3c: The intention effect of the ad is increased by the amount of text:

the longer the text, the stronger the intention.

Headlines

The term headline refers to the words that are used in the leading positionof an ad. These words are meant to attract attention and to be read first.Research has shown that the headline is generally the first element peo-ple look at in a print ad, followed by the visual (Belch & Belch 2007). In a

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tourism context, Mayo and Jarvis (1981) assert that 66% of people noticethe headline and illustration of an ad, while only 15% read the body copy.Therefore, headlines are positioned carefully and usually set in larger typethan other textual elements of the ad. Bovée and Arens (1989) andWilmshurst and Mackay (1999) describe the major functions of a headline:to draw attention to the ad, select the reader, lead the reader into the bodycopy, present the complete selling idea (USP), promise the customer abenefit, and present product news of interest to the reader. These func-tions show that a headline should influence the attraction and intentioneffects of the ad. In contrast, as it must be short and appealing, it oftenlacks clarity and informational content. This leads to the fourth set ofhypotheses:

H4a: The ad’s informational value is not increased when a headline ispresent compared to when it is absent.

H4b: The ad’s attraction value is increased when a headline is presentcompared to when it is absent.

H4c: The intention effect of the ad is increased when a headline ispresent compared to when it is absent.

Method

An experimental conjoint design has been developed in order to test thefour series of hypotheses. Four independent variables were manipulatedto build up the advertisement stimuli: the picture, the logo, the text andthe headline. For each of these attributes, attribute levels were established(see Table 1). As regards picture, the major purpose was to test hypothe-ses related to its presence/absence in the ad. When present, we decided totest three types of picture in order to meet our sponsor’s expectations (i.e.Namur’s Tourism Board): a view of nature (park and pond), a view of cul-ture (historic buildings) or a recreational stimulus (nude painting byFélicien Rops). This choice was inspired by existing typologies of tourismattractions and images that often make a distinction between nature, cul-ture and recreation. Among the range of studies that have focused on thecontent of tourism promotional material (for a review, see Dann 1996),Dilley (1986) found that brochures allocate 32% of their space to land-scapes, 36% to culture, and 32% to recreation and services.

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It should be noted that no assump-tion was made as to the relative effec-tiveness of these three types of visual.No picture was assumed to elicit a bet-ter response than others. The logo ofNamur’s Tourism Board was eitherpresent or absent. The text could be ofthree possible types: no text, short textor long text, both relating to the sameselling propositions (i.e. well-pre-served heritage and the dynamism of ayoung capital city) but with a varyingnumber of words. Finally, the headlinecould be of three possible types: noheadline, an indirect/interrogativeheadline (‘Do you want to get into thesecret?’) and a direct/affirmative headline (‘Namur also has its secrets’).These two headlines share the same semantic content which attracts read-ers into the body copy to learn about the destination’s secrets. Belch andBelch (2007) make a distinction between direct and indirect headlines.Direct headlines are ‘straightforward and informative in terms of the mes-sage they are presenting and the target audience they are directed toward’,whereas indirect headlines are not straightforward but ‘generate curiosityor intrigue so as to motivate readers to become involved with the ad’(p. 283). The other features of the advertisements (name and address ofthe Tourism Board, fonts, size of pictures, number of words used in theheadline etc.) were kept unchanged.

All attribute levels combine in 72 (i.e. 4 × 2 × 3 × 3) possible advertisingformats. These 72 possible combinations were reduced to 16 alternativesaccording to an orthogonal main-effect design (Addelman 1962). All 16stimuli were produced to resemble real colour advertisements in full-pagesize (see Figure 1). This full-profile approach was preferred to pair-wisecomparisons because it represents a more realistic evaluation task forrespondents. An additional control advertisement (exactly the same as oneof the 16 stimuli, i.e. card 3) was added as a reliability check.

All 16 stimuli were presented to each subject in a random order in orderto avoid priming effects. Respondents were asked to rate each stimulus

Table 1: Format attributes andattribute levels used in the study

Format attribute Attribute levels

Picture Nude painting

Historic buildings

Park and pond

No picture

Logo Yes

No

Text Long text

Short text

No text

Headline Interrogative headline

Descriptive headline

No headline

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Figure 1: Examples of designed advertisements

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separately on a 7-point Likert scale for its informational value (‘Does thisadvertisement inform you on what can be done in Namur?’), its attractionvalue (‘Does this advertisement make you feel attracted by Namur?’), andthe visiting intention elicited by the advertisement (‘Does this advertise-ment make you want to visit Namur?’). The use of metric conjoint analy-sis has now surpassed that of the non-metric approach as ratings are moreconvenient for respondents and make analyses easier than rankings(Wittink & Cattin 1989). This results in higher reliability and validity. Inorder to control for priming and possible fatigue effects due to the numberof stimuli to rate, we computed correlations between the ratings of the twoidentical stimuli (cards 17 and 3) and we obtained coefficients greater than0.90 (with p-values < 0.05) for the three dependent variables. Such resultsshow the reliability of our data.

The quota sampling method was used to build a small representativesample of the Belgian population according to gender, linguistic region,and age category. Using a questionnaire, a total of 127 face-to-face inter-views were conducted in different Belgian cities. Respondents aged 15years and over were selected by convenience on the street, on their way towork or at their workplace. It should be mentioned that two versions of theset of 16 stimuli and accompanying questionnaires have been developed:the first one in French for the Walloon respondents and the second one inDutch for the Flemish participants. All respondents were potential visitorswho had not previously visited Namur. The final sample was composed of66 males and 61 females; 76 Flemish and 51 Walloon respondents; 38 peo-ple aged 15–24, 27 between 25 and 34, 23 between 35 and 54, and 39 aged55 or more.

Both conjoint analysis and analysis of variance were used in this study.Conjoint analysis helped in estimating the relative importance given bythe respondents to the four attributes of the message format and the util-ities attached to each attribute’s level. In addition, a series of inferentialanalyses (t-tests and one-way ANOVAs) were conducted on each of thethree dependent variables to uncover the main effects of the four inde-pendent variables.1 The programs CONJOINT LINMAP (Srinivasan &Shocker 1982), based on linear programming, and SPSS have been used torun the analyses. CONJOINT LINMAP offers a distribution of violations

1 It has not been possible to look into the interaction effects due to the nature of the experimental design,i.e. a conjoint choice task.

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as a goodness-of-fit measure. Predicted and actual evaluations of stimuliare compared and a percentage of ‘violated’ pairs is calculated.Respondents with more than 50% violations were discarded, leaving uswith, respectively, 123, 126 and 118 ‘usable’ respondents for the analyseson the three dependent variables.

Results

Before testing the four series of hypotheses described above, Table 2 pres-ents the aggregated relative importance weights of the four ad compo-nents for the three dependent variables. It shows that the visual is largelyprevailing in the attraction and intention effects of print advertisementsfor a tourism destination. To a smaller extent, the headline also helps toattract and persuade consumers. On the other hand, the text is by far themost powerful tool for conveying information. Finally, the relative impor-tance weight of the logo is very low, whatever the desired effect.

We now come to the first series of hypotheses, which are related to thevisual. Table 3 shows that the type of picture has a significant influence onthe levels of attraction and intention responses. In contrast, the type ofpicture does not influence the informational value of the advertisement.

Table 2: Relative importance weights (%) for the three dependent variables

Picture Logo Text Headline Total n

Attraction 78.77 1.03 5.40 14.80 100 123

Information 21.18 1.50 72.96 4.36 100 126

Intention 57.36 3.58 30.19 8.87 100 118

Table 3: The influence of the type of picture on the effectiveness of print ads

Differences Sum of squares df Mean square F p-value

Attraction Between 6.349 3 2.116 16.946 0.000

Within 1.499 12 0.125

Information Between 4.161 3 1.387 1.606 0.241

Within 10.396 12 0.866

Intention Between 6.180 3 2.060 13.448 0.000

Within 1.838 12 0.153

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Therefore, H1b and H1c are supported while H1a is not. This contradic-tion the results of Tscheulin and Helmig (1998) and Jaeger and MacFie(2001) can be explained by the nature of the product used in this study.The visual may show less informational value in advertisements for intan-gibles such as a tourism destination than for tangibles. In tourism, picturesare an established means of inducing imagery (subjective knowledge) andemphasising the symbolic attributes of the destination rather than itsactual features. Therefore, pictures assist with the evaluation and persua-sion process more than with the information process (MacInnis & Price1987; MacKay & Fesenmaier 1997).

The part-worth utilities for the two significant effects are displayed inFigure 2. For both attraction and intention, we see that having a picture ismuch more preferable than having no picture at all, with the view ofnature and the nude painting being more preferred and a view of culturebeing less preferred than the average (i.e. 0). It is surprising that the nudepainting is less effective than the view of the park and pond, especially inarousing a visiting intention. This may be the result of a lack of credibilityrelated to the sex-oriented content of the picture. Manfredo et al. (1992)have stressed the relevance of source credibility, expertise and trustwor-thiness in determining the effectiveness of image advertising for tourismdestinations.

Figure 2: Estimation of part-worth utilities for the attraction and intention effects according to the type of picture

–25

–20

–15

–10

–5

0

5

10

15

20Intention (n = 118)

Attention (n = 123)

No pictureNatureCultureNude

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The tests of the second series of hypotheses related to the logo do notlead to any significant result: the presence/absence of a logo influencesneither the informational value, nor the attraction level, nor the visit inten-tion triggered by the advertisement. These findings are in line with H2aand H2c but do not support H2b. This contradiction may be the conse-quence of the marginal importance weight of the logo for the attractioneffect (i.e. 1.03). In conjoint experiments, attributes with small relativeimportance weights should be interpreted with caution (Srinivasan &Shocker 1982). Weights near to zero indicate that respondents have everor not used the attribute in their product evaluations, be it ratings orrankings. Therefore differences between attribute levels are seldomsignificant.

Table 4 shows that the type of text does not influence the ad’s attractionpower. However, significant differences are found with respect to theinformational value and the behavioural intention conveyed by the printad. These results are in line with the third series of hypotheses describedabove.

When looking at part-worth utilities for the informational value of theadvertisement, Figure 3 shows that having no text is far less preferred thanhaving a text and that long text is considered more informational thanshort text. The same logical interpretation applies to the visiting intentionelicited by the advertisement. However, the differences between the util-ities attached to the three attribute levels are smaller, as illustrated byFigure 3.

Finally, testing the fourth series of hypotheses, which are concernedwith the headlines of print ads, leads to no significant result: the type ofheadline does not influence any of the three dependent variables.

Table 4: Influence of type of text on effectiveness of print ads

Differences Sum of squares df Mean square F p-value

Attraction Between 0.178 2 0.089 0.151 0.861

Within 7.669 13 0.590

Information Between 13.052 2 6.526 56.407 0.000

Within 1.504 13 0.116

Intention Between 2.966 2 1.483 3.815 0.050

Within 5.052 13 0.389

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Therefore, H4a is confirmed while H4b and H4c are not supported. Again,it could be argued that, in conjoint measurement, significant differencesseldom occur for attributes with small importance weights, as the relativeimportance of an attribute is directly determined from the range betweenits extreme levels (for qualitative features). Moreover, these non-significant results may indicate that the headline is not serving its functionas an advance organiser for those exposed to the ad. However, this study’sexperimental design does not facilitate testing of the relationship betweenthe headline and the other elements of the ad.

Other series of analyses were conducted on each of the three depend-ent variables to control for the three sociodemographic variables (i.e. gen-der, age category and linguistic region). However, only one significantdifference has been found for the interaction effect between the linguisticregion and the type of text for the informational value (F5,26 = 50.443).French-speaking respondents find long text more informational thanshort text or no text, whereas the opposite relationship is true for Dutch-speaking people.

Figure 3: Estimation of part-worth utilities for the information and intention effects according to the type of text (n = 126)

–30–25–20–15–10–5

05

1015202530

Intention (n = 118)

Information (n = 126)

No textShort textLong text

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Discussion and implications

This study confirms the prevalence of the visual and the body copy inprint advertisements. However, those two components of message formathave different functions. On the one hand, the use of pictures is especiallyeffective in attracting consumers and arousing buying intentions. This isin line with previous findings that the visual component of ads affects bothbeliefs and attitudes (Edell & Staelin 1983; MacInnis & Price 1987), andmay lead to both cognitive and affective responses (Mitchell 1986). Visualsare of particular importance for intangibles such as tourism destinations:‘since tourism is uniquely visual, photographs are considered paramountto successfully creating and communicating an image of the destination’(MacKay & Fesenmaier 1997, p. 540). The visual component of ads helpsin building an image through the formation and modification of beliefsand thereby differentiating the market offering. In addition, more than forany other product, images related to tourism destinations have a majorinformational and tautological role: ‘the often heavily romanticized photo-graphs featured in tourism promotion have sufficient semiotic autonomyas to tell prospective visitors what pictures to take with their own cameras’(Chalfen 1980, p. 27). On the other hand, the use of text is very effectivefor conveying information and, to a lesser extent, for arousing a buyingintention. An obvious implication of these findings is that advertisersshould pay particular attention to visual design in persuasive advertisingcampaigns and to textual design in informative campaigns. This is not tosay that they should not be used in combination: ‘the copy text and theillustrations are intended to communicate different but reinforcing mes-sages’ (Jaeger & MacFie 2001, p. 190). In contrast, with picture and text,the two other elements of the message format that were manipulated inthis study, i.e. the logo and the headline, do not appear to play major rolesin print advertisements for tourism destinations. Another managerial rec-ommendation is to use conjoint analysis as a powerful technique for pre-testing ads. The partial utilities that are generated for each attribute levelcan be used to rank different stimuli based on their total utility and tomake simulations based on ‘shares of preference’ for different potentialads. For example, in this study, the ad with the view of park and pond, along text, the logo and an interrogative headline proved to be most effec-tive for persuading people to visit Namur (26.64% share of preferences).

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Of course, this study has a few limitations. First, results are based on aparticular type of product, i.e. a tourism destination. Communication forsuch tourism products is characterised by the need to induce imagerythrough prevailing pictorial content. However, Dann (1996) notices thatthe language of tourism very rarely speaks through pictures alone: ‘wherephotographs are featured, almost without exception they appear in tan-dem with a verbal message’ (p. 188). This would indicate that this study’sfindings could be generalised to other product categories. However, fortangible and less differentiated products such as fmcgs, we expect that thevisual would be less important and effective, especially in conveying infor-mation. In contrast, the logo/brand name and headline would be moreimportant and effective, especially in attracting and persuading consumersto buy the product. This study also has a number of technical and method-ological limitations. Investigating the interaction effects between the fourformat variables was not possible in this study due to the experimentaldesign chosen (i.e. a conjoint task). Such interactions would be worthy ofinvestigation. More particularly, the headline–text and headline–picturerelationships deserve closer scrutiny as headlines are often used to alertthe reader to the main theme of the copy or picture. Moreover, the threedependent variables of our model have been measured with one singleitem each, in order not to overwhelm respondents who were asked to rate16 stimuli in the conjoint task. Using more items to measure each variableand/or using other dependent variables (e.g. ad comprehension or time toprocess the ad) would have been relevant. Finally, we neither checkedsubjects’ established image of Namur before the experiment, nor meas-ured their enduring involvement in tourism and their situational involve-ment for tourism ads, depending namely on whether or not they werealready planning their next excursion or city trip.

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About the author

Alain Decrop is associate professor of marketing and head of the depart-ment of Business Administration at FUNDP (University of Namur). He isa member of CeRCLe (Centre for Research on Consumption andLeisure) and visiting professor at the Catholic University of Louvain(KUL). He holds master’s degrees in history and economics, and a PhD inbusiness administration from the University of Namur. His main researchinterests include consumer behaviour, advertising effects and tourismmarketing.

Address correspondence to: Alain Decrop, Department of BusinessAdministration, University of Namur, Rempart de la Vierge, 8, B-5000Namur, Belgium.


Decrop.qxp 05/11/2007 11:39 Page 525

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+44 (0)1491 411000

Bold thinking forbusy marketers

The story of Shell

How a great brand fell from grace

The speed of the decline in the

reputation of Shell, once one of

the world’s most respected

brands, seems to the outside

world to have been as fast as it

has been shocking.

In this article Shell veteran

PADDY BRIGGS describes how

the first seeds of the brand’s

problems were sown more

than a decade ago and how

subsequent decisions, together

with calamitous external events,

rocked the status of a once

unassailable brand name

IN HIS SEMINAL book on brand

and design, Corporate Identity (pub-

lished in 1989), Wally Olins

describes three different forms of cor-

porate structure: the ‘endorsed’, in

which the corporation has a group of

activities and companies which it

endorses with the group name and

identity (e.g. General Motors); the

‘branded’ where a company operates

through a series of brands which may

be unrelated to each other or to the

corporation (e.g. Unilever) and the

‘monolithic’, in which a corporation

uses one name and visual identity

throughout .

For his example of a monolithic

structure Olins chose Shell. ‘More

than 90 per cent of Shell’s business

throughout the world bears the Shell

name’, he wrote. ‘The reputation of

Shell is symbolised to a quite extraor-

dinary extent by its name and visual

imagery.’ Research around this time

showed not only that Shell was highly

respected but also that the Shell logo

was the most recognised commercial

symbol in the world. Shell was the

brand leader in the oil industry and

also, by some measures, the largest

business of all types in the world in the

Fortune 500 lists. Heady days indeed!

Where did it all go wrong?

In the late 1980s I was working for

Shell in Hong Kong and, increasingly,

in China where we were making every

effort to maximise the benefits of the

unique strength of the Shell identity

that Wally Olins had so accurately

described. By striving to offer the

highest levels of customer satisfaction

in all our many consumer businesses

we were also consciously trying to

ensure the corporate reputation of

Shell was enhanced and valued. When

senior Shell executives visited the ter-

ritory for discussions on a multitude of

large scale China investment projects

their task was hugely aided by the fact

the Shell brand was already known

and respected in Hong Kong. Around

the world there were well over 100

similar country-based Shell companies

pursuing a similar strategy.

The norm in the oil industry is ver-

tical integration – an oil company

manages the full hydrocarbon stream

from exploration for oil all the way to

the point when petrol is put in the

tank of a customer’s car. Until fairly

recently this operation was generally

conducted under one brand name and

this has always been the case for Shell.

In recent years mega-mergers in the

sector have clouded the issue somewhat

and some of the companies have creat-

ed, often temporarily, a more multi-

branded structure. BP dropped the

Amoco from their corporate name as

soon as they could (although they have

kept the brand-equity rich Castrol

name) and Total equally swiftly dis-

carded the FinaElf from their title.

As well as the obvious external ben-

efits of having a single name there are

internal benefits as well. As Olins

described it, ‘A single name [Shell]

and visual identity became significant

as a rallying point for staff … employ-

ees could identify with the whole

enterprise.’

Given the huge commercial benefits

that can accrue from having a brand

name (and visual identity system) as

familiar as Shell’s you would think this

B R A N D I N G

PADDY BRIGGS

50

Market Leader Winter 2004

By PADDY BRIGGS

Paddy Briggs runs BrandAware, a marketing

consultancy that advises on brand reputation and

corporate identity.

2/04 11

:48 Pag

e 50 Life and death in the world of brands

Arrogance, greed, complacency,inconsistency and myopia are thecauses of brand death thatshould appear on the cororner’scertificate. Here is a brilliant treatise from the CEO of one ofthe world’s most celebrated brandowners, Unilever, on the everlasting potential of brandsand how companies wilfully butunknowingly commit ‘brandicide’

It was 2 April 1993 –‘Marlboro Friday’. Not alot happened that day. In

fact, the only thing that hap-pened was an announcementfrom Philip Morris that itwas cutting the price of apacket of cigarettes by 20%.But that was enough.

Stock prices fell off the edgeof a cliff. Heinz, Quaker Oats,Coca-Cola, Pepsico, Procter andGamble, RJR Nabisco and all quotedadvertising stocks plunged wildly, withPhilip Morris itself being the hardesthit. There was genuine panic on WallStreet, and way, way beyond.

Look carefully at most of what iswritten and said about brands and it isclear that, at heart, most experts andcommentators believe that the art ofbranding is little more than animmensely clever technique for per-suading consumers to pay more fortheir goods and services than anyrational person needs.

Brand values, so the argument goes,are first artificially constructed, thenimposed from above on a gullible,consuming public. In this view of theworld, brands certainly have a realvalue – but only to their owners, nevertheir users. The art of branding is ablack art – a means of persuading theinnocent to part with large sums ofmoney in return for something called‘image’ which has no material useful-ness at all.

The markets admire this greatly, ofb i k B

lective senses, rationality will return,choice will once again become basedsolely on price, and the age of thebrand will be over for good.

With these largely unspokenassumptions as background, itbecomes a great deal easier to under-stand Marlboro Friday. If the wholebranding business is such a con trick,at some point the whole thing isbound to come crashing down toearth. The moment one manufacturersignificantly cuts the price of one of itsbrands, hysteria erupts. The game’sup! The bubble’s burst! Time to jumpship!

Long Live the BrandThere were, of course, a great manypeople who, though astonished by therhetoric, remained staunchlyunmoved. Just as the actions of those

h i k d d i b i

B R A N D I N GNIALL FITZGERALD

By NIALL FITZGERALD

Subscribe to Market Leader,the journal where true marketleaders share some of the thinking that helped themreach the top – and stay there.

A single-minded strategic perspective on marketing,brands and business – frombrand strategy to globalisation,and social responsibility to newtechnology.

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�

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�Market LeaderN E W T H I N K I N G , D I F F E R E N T P E R S P E C T I V E S

ISSUE NUMBER 29

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How to

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Mark

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Brand valuation as a management tool Alex Batchelor

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From catwalk to cut-price: Tesco’s fashion success

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Why mergers and acquisitions don’t work

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MEASURING MARKETING

over June - blue

style.qxd 20/0

5/05 14:38 Pag

e 1

Chakrabarti.qxp 16/08/2007 09:00 Page 398

Internet advertising effectivenessThe effect of design on click-through rates

for banner ads

Helen Robinson, Anna Wysocka and Chris HandKingston University

Online advertising has experienced phenomenal growth since its inception in 1994. Thisempirical study investigates the impact of seven creative characteristics of banner ads onthe effectiveness of online advertising using a multiple regression model. A random sam-ple of 209 banner ads was drawn from a sampling frame of advertisers, provided by anadvertising agency specialising in internet advertising for the gaming industry. The find-ings of this study are broadly consistent with past research into online advertising effi-ciency, indicating that the creative characteristics of effective banner ads in the onlinegaming arena include: a larger size, absence of promotional incentives and the presenceof information about casino games. In contrast, banner features such as animation, actionphrase and presence of company brand or logo were ineffective in generating click-throughs. Contrary to expectations, long messages on banners were associated withhigher click-through rates.

Introduction

Since the first banner ads appeared in 1994, the internet advertising indus-try has experienced exceptional growth. The Interactive AdvertisingBureau (IAB) heralded 2003 as ‘the most successful year in association his-tory’, recording full-year revenue as almost US$7.3 billion (IAB 2003).Existing academic research encompasses a broad spectrum of studies oninternet advertising effectiveness measured by direct response and brand-ing metrics. The few studies that have included click-through rate (CTR)as a measure of online advertising effectiveness have examined the rela-tionships between CTR and a series of factors such as web user motives,audience targeting, exposure frequency, copy content and a limited num-ber of design elements of banner ads. Advances in technology have made

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online gambling one of the fastest-growing industries in recent years.While in 1999 there were only 300 online casinos worldwide, this numberhad grown to 1800 by 2004 (Constable 2003; Catty 2004).

This empirical investigation broadens the existing academic knowledgeof online advertising efficiency and, more specifically, contributes to theunderstanding of which creative elements of banner ads impact click-throughs. In addition, this study is the first to examine internet advertis-ing effectiveness in the context of the online gaming industry. It is not theintention of this study to enhance the effectiveness of the advertising ofonline casinos. Rather, it centres on whether the effects of banner designon click-through differ between this market and others. Online gamblingis an example of an industry where those who participate online may nothave considered participating offline. This contrasts with most otherexamples of e-commerce (e.g. purchasing groceries, clothes, books).Hence, an online casino has to build credibility from its banner ads andwebsite alone. Consequently, there might be reason to believe that differ-ent banner characteristics would increase effectiveness more than thosepreviously found in other industries.

Nevertheless, given ongoing concerns and much recent debate over thegrowth of the gambling sector and relaxed restrictions on broadcast adver-tising (from September 2007 in the UK, for example), an understanding ofthe effectiveness of online advertising is of interest to both the casinos andtheir regulators.

Previous research

Internet advertising, and in particular banner effectiveness, in this rela-tively new medium has received considerable attention from academicsand practitioners. The study of online advertising effectiveness has beenconducted through two alternative paradigms. The first, widely used inacademic research, argues that banner adverts should be considered as aform of marketing communication used to raise brand awareness. The sec-ond, predominantly used in empirical research, contends that the internetis a direct marketing medium, and hence a banner ad is likened to acoupon in print media. Accordingly, the success of the banner ad shouldbe measured through the return rate or CTR for the internet (Chandonet al. 2003).


529

INTERNET ADVERTISING EFFECTIVENESS

Dreze and Hussherr (2003) found that internet users avoided looking atads while online, and hypothesised that internet users might perceive ban-ner ads in their peripheral vision. Similarly, Janiszewski (1998) claimedthat peripheral vision allows individuals to recognise objects that arelocated outside their focal point of attention.

Several studies suggest that click-through effectiveness may depend onweb user motives. Briggs and Hollis (1997) argue that ‘the primary factorin generating click-throughs is the nature of the audience and what theinherent interest in the product category may hold for them’. Furtherstudies have concluded that banner ads that complement the user’s webmotives may be more effective (Raman & Leckenby 1998; Rodgers &Thorson 2000; Rodgers 2002; Danaher & Mullarkey 2003).

Practitioners and academics agree that while repetition reduces click-throughs, it builds brands (Broussard 2000; Dynamic Logic, 2000; Gugel2001; Chatterjee et al. 2003; Danaher & Mullarkey 2003; Dreze &Hussherr 2003). A considerable body of research has demonstrated thatsuccessful targeting of online ads improves CTR (Briggs & Hollis 1997;Sherman & Deighton 2001; Chandon et al. 2003; Chatterjee et al. 2003).Relevance of the advertisement to the site may also be a determinant ofclick-through rates. Chang-Hoan (2003) found that those more involved ina product were more likely to click through, but also that users who wereinterested in the site and shown advertisements for products and servicesrelated to those on the site also achieved a higher click-through rate.

The relationship between the banner size and CTR is conflicting.Baltas (2003) found that ‘bigger ads are more effective in attracting atten-tion and (hence more likely to) trigger response’. Chandon et al. (2003)found positive interactions on five banner sizes, although no significantdifference between the two bigger sizes. In contrast, Dreze and Hussherr(2003) tested the standard banner against two other banner sizes andfound the smaller ads performed just as well as the large ones, in accor-dance with Cho (2003) who found no significant relationship betweenbanner size and clicking. Comparably, Rettie et al. (2004) establishedthat banner size impacted click-through and post-impression measuresdifferently.

Research on the impact of price and promotions on click-throughs hasrevealed that none of these various stimuli (gift, rebate or ‘free’ offers) hasa direct effect on CTR (Chtourou et al. 2002; Baltas 2003; Rettie et al.


530


2004). Chtourou et al. (2002) found that the mention of price reduceddirect response. Rettie et al. (2004) discovered that banners which men-tioned neither price nor promotional offers had the most effect on click-through and post-impression rates.

Conflicting evidence exists on the impact of branded banners on click-through rates. Research conducted by Baltas (2003) and Chandon et al.(2003) revealed a negative impact and suggests that ‘unbranded’ bannersmight stimulate greater curiosity, leading to click-through. Similarly,Dahlen (2001) found that familiar (as opposed to unfamiliar) brandsreceived double the click-through. In contrast, Briggs and Hollis (1997)argued that ‘the practice of running unbranded banners ... surely runscounter to the concept of brand building through ad banner exposure’, aview supported by Dynamic Logic (2002).

Dreze and Hussherr (2003) concluded that, in terms of artistic influ-ences, audiences were most affected by the banner message rather thanhow the message was conveyed. They concluded that artistic executionoverall had little effect on both click-throughs and traditional memory-based effectiveness measures, with the exception of animation, whichinfluenced aided brand recall. Baltas (2003) found that banners withlengthy messages and multiple frames (animation) received fewer clicks.He reasoned that these two factors increase the complexity of an ad andhence have a negative effect on the viewer’s attitude towards and responseto the banner. It has also been suggested that animated banners may bemore difficult to remember than static ones (Burke et al. 2005). On theother hand, Chandon et al. (2003) and Lothia et al. (2003) concluded thatanimation improved click-through rates.

Overall, existing research on the relationship between creative charac-teristics of banners and CTR reveals conflicting results. An early study byHofacker and Murphy (1998) suggests that creative factors tend toincrease response rates. The inclusion of clichéd messages such as ‘clickhere’ or ‘click now’, along with animations and cryptic messages, was sug-gested as methods of increasing response rates. More recently, evidencehas shown little support for a positive relationship between artistic vari-ables and direct response (Dreze & Hussherr 2003). Moore et al. (2005)indicate that there may be a conflict between getting a user to attend to abanner while maintaining a favourable attitude towards it. Their researchsuggests that the use of incongruent colour schemes in banners compared


531


to the rest of the website results in more attention being given to that ban-ner, but that the attitude towards the banner was more negative thantowards a banner more congruent with its website.

Research design

The aim of this empirical study is to investigate the impact of sevendesign characteristics of banner ads on the click-through rate using datafrom 209 real banner advertisements hosted on a single website in the con-text of online gaming. The research builds upon past research in the areaof online advertising efficiency and, in particular, a study conducted byBaltas (2003). The study investigates relationships between the CTR andthe seven design elements of banner ads discussed earlier: banner size,message length, promotional incentive, animation, action phrase, com-pany brand/logo and casino games. The design element ‘games’ is alsoincluded to reflect the focus on the online gaming industry.

This study examines the impact of creative elements of banner ads onCTR, the direct response metric used for measuring internet advertisingeffectiveness. Data were provided by an advertising agency (specialisingin internet advertising for the gaming industry) that employs the Adtracksystem, which records impressions, clicks and CTR for each banner on adaily basis. The database comprised an inventory of 70 advertisers andapproximately 1500 banners that had appeared between 2001 and 2004.

A sample of 14 advertisers and their 209 banners was extracted. Theoriginal inventory of 70 advertisers was filtered to 58 advertisers who rancampaigns for at least a three-month period. In order to reduce the sampleto a manageable size, 14 advertisers were selected randomly from the listof 58 remaining advertisers and, finally, the CTR data for the resulting209 banners from the 14 advertisers for a three-month period wereextracted, forming the data set. The three-month period was chosen toensure a substantial database for the ensuing statistical analysis and also tocontrol for the moderating impact of the length of an ad campaign on theCTR.

Click-through rates provide the marketer with considerable advantages,as click-throughs record voluntary behaviour in the actual medium envi-ronment. Furthermore, the data are collected unobtrusively; are based onobserved behaviour rather than self-reporting; and are free from researcher


532


bias and recorded on a census of consumers rather than a sample(Chatterjee et al. 2003).

A standard multiple regression model was used to examine the rela-tionship between the dependent variable (CTR) and the seven creativebanner characteristics to determine which had a significant effect on CTR.

Research findings

Prior to running the regression, the CTR variable was found to be highlyskewed, with few banners obtaining high rates of click-through (the his-togram is shown in Figure 1). An initial run of the regression model pro-duced non-normal errors. In order to overcome this problem, CTR wastransformed by taking logarithms (a common remedial measure for non-normal errors in econometrics, for example see Gujarati (1995)).

The source website employs a total of seven distinct sizes of banner thatwere included in the original model as six dummy variables (the standard

Freq

uenc

y

0.00% 5.00% 10.00%

CTR

15.00%

200

150

100

50

0

Figure 1: Histogram of click-through rates


533


banner size, 468 × 60 pixels, being the base category). One dummy wasdropped due to a collinearity problem. A more conventional approachmight be to include banner height and width in the model (as onereviewer suggested). However, given the design of the source website, itwas impossible to separate the effects of banner size and placement. Abanner of a particular size can appear only in a given place on the web page(e.g. long, thin banners appear only at the top and the bottom of the page).Consequently, it was not possible to separate the effect of placement andsize; therefore generalising the results to other banner sizes would bepotentially misleading. The effect of message length was also captured bya series of dummy variables. Again, at first glance, the number of wordswould be the most obvious measure to use. It was decided to code mes-sage length as a series of dummies for two reasons. First, the messagelengths were clustered around a few lengths. Second, the effect of addinga word or two to the message on click-through is likely to be small; largerdifferences are likely to be found between messages of different lengths.These differences would be more apparent from a comparison of thedummy variable coefficients. An alternative approach would be to use thetotal number of words on the banner, which would permit testing for poly-nomial relationships, as long as there was sufficient variation in messagelength across banners.

The effects of the presence of a logo, a promotional offer, the use of aclichéd phrase and whether the games offered were listed on the bannerwere captured by a series of dummy variables. The study also investigatedwhether animation on banners attracts greater click-through. Rather thanuse another dummy variable, the number of transitions between frameswas used (i.e. 0 = static, 1 = two frames or 1 transition, and so on).

The multiple regression model takes the form of the followingequation:

log CTR = b0 + b1 Bsize 120 ×120 + b2 Bsize 120 × 240 + b3 Bsize 175 × 60 + b4 Bsize 234 × 60 + b5 Bsize 360 × 240 + b6 Smsg + b7 Mmsg + b8 Lmsg + b9 Frames + b10 Promotion + b11 Cliché + b12 Logo + b13 Game + e


534


where:

log CTR is the dependent variable,b0 is the constant,b1 to b13 are the regression coefficients for the corresponding independentvariables as follows:

Bsize 120 × 60 – Bsize 360 × 240 = banner size dummies (basecategory = standard banner size 468 × 60)

Smsg = short message (1–5 words) dummyMmsg = medium-length message

(6–10 words) dummyLmsg = long message (11–15 words)

dummy (base category = very longmessages, 16+ words)

Frames = number of transitions if animated(= 0 if static)

Promotion = promotional incentive dummyCliché = stereotypical action phrase dummy

Logo = company brand/logo dummyGame = casino games offered at an online

casino dummye = residual.

Inspection of a histogram of the residuals, a plot of the residuals againstpredicted CTR (shown in Figures 2 and 3 respectively) and collinearitydiagnostics (shown in Table 1) suggested that the assumptions of normal-ity, homoscedasticity and no multicollinearity were met. The modelexplains 68% of the variation in log CTR. As the dependent variable wastransformed, the regression coefficients can not be directly interpreted asthe effect of a unit change in the independent variable on CTR. Instead,the effect of each variable is calculated using (antilog b) – 1, which gives ameasure of the magnitude of the variable’s effect on CTR, shown in themagnitude column of Table 1 (Gujarati 1995).


535


Freq

uenc

y

Regression standardised residual

40

30

20

10

0

–3 –2 –1 0 1 2 3

Figure 2: Residuals histogram

–3 –2

Regr

essi

on s

tand

ardi

sed

pred

icte

d va

lue

–1 0

Regression studentised deleted (press) residual

1 2 3 4

3

2

1

0

–1

–2

Figure 3: Scatterplot of dependent variable against residuals (heteroscedasticity test)


536


Compared to the standard banner size (468 × 60 pixels) only two ban-ner sizes have a significant impact on CTR (at the 5% level). Small ban-ners (175 × 60 pixels) receive 33.9% fewer clicks than standard banners. Incontrast, large banners (360 × 240 pixels) receive 495.4% more clicks thanstandard banners. However, it should be remembered that the size meas-ure used for this study also captures a banner’s position on the webpage,hence not all of the increased click-through can be attributed to the size ofthe banner. Describing or listing the games available on the site also sig-nificantly increases CTR by 43.5%. It allows the website user to find a sitethat appeals to them more quickly as it reduces the time spent searchingfor a particular game.

The regression model also produces some surprising results. Bannerswith short, medium and long messages receive significantly fewer clicksthan very long messages. This result may reflect the finding that largerbanners obtain a higher CTR; long messages tend to appear on larger ban-ners (if only because they fit). Promotional incentives generate signifi-cantly fewer clicks than banners without such incentives. Apparently, the

Table 1: Regression results

Description b Std error t Sig. Magnitude (%) Tol. VIF

(Constant) –0.111 0.293 –0.381 0.704 –10.506

Banner 120 × 120 –0.296 0.168 –1.762 0.080 –25.621 0.828 1.208

Banner 120 ×240 –0.339 0.199 –1.701 0.091 –28.752 0.813 1.230

Banner 175 × 60 –0.414 0.198 –2.089 0.038 –33.900 0.823 1.215

Banner 234 × 60 –0.289 0.165 –1.753 0.081 –25.099 0.830 1.215

Banner 360 × 240 1.784 0.181 9.861 0.000 495.362 0.584 1.713

Short Mgs (1–5W) –0.526 0.252 –2.084 0.038 –40.904 0.441 2.268

Med Mgs (6–10W) –0.438 0.178 –2.454 0.015 –35.467 0.341 2.933

Long Mgs (11–15W) –0.635 0.169 –3.748 0.000 –47.006 0.434 2.306

Animation –0.061 0.036 –1.698 0.091 –5.918 0.858 1.166

Promo incentive –0.792 0.113 –7.012 0.000 –54.706 0.824 1.218

Cliché 0.016 0.114 0.141 0.888 1.613 0.864 1.157

Logo/brand –0.148 0.199 –0.740 0.460 –13.757 0.773 1.294

Games 0.361 0.123 2.924 0.004 43.476 0.674 1.485

R2 0.681

Adj. R2 0.659

F 31.668 (sig. = 0.000)

Note: Tol. = tolerance; VIF = variance inflation factor


537


offer of free bets is not enough to entice online gamblers to try a particu-lar online casino; indeed, such offers would seem to have the oppositeeffect than was intended.

The use of clichéd phrases has no significant effect on click-throughrates; neither does the presence of logos or brand emblems, perhapsreflecting the lack of brand awareness in this subset of the gamblingindustry.

Conclusions and recommendations

This research indicates that the design elements of effective banner adsinclude: a larger size, long message, absence of promotional incentives andthe presence of information about casino games. In contrast, creative char-acteristics established as being ineffective in attracting a direct responseinclude: stereotypical action phrases and the company brand/logo. Thesefindings are generally consistent with past research in the area of onlineadvertising effectiveness.

The largest banner ads are more effective in generating click-throughthan the smaller-sized banners, replicating findings by Baltas (2003),Chandon et al. (2003) and Chtourou et al. (2002), and supporting the indus-try mantra that ‘bigger is better’ (Briggs, 2001a; Dynamic Logic, 2004).However, this study contradicts some earlier findings that banner ads car-rying a shorter message are more effective than those with a lengthy mes-sage. Animation, on the other hand, demonstrated an insignificant effecton users’ direct response (at the 5% level), a point of interest to mediaagencies since animated banners are more costly to produce. Therefore,Baltas’s (2003) contention that a ‘wordy’ animated message increases thecomplexity of the ad, and hence receives a negative response from theaudience, receives only partial support. Moreover, the discovery that ban-ners containing no promotional offer attract more attention than those withsuch incentives, concurs with past studies (Chtourou et al. 2002; Baltas2003; Rettie et al. 2004).

The traditional attention-capturing characteristics of banner ads (suchas action phrases and company brand/logo) play an insignificant role ineliciting a direct response. These findings are consistent with previousstudies on the response to branded vs non-branded banners (Baltas 2003;Chandon et al. 2003). While some commentators have suggested that


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unbranded banners stimulate greater curiosity, hence generating moreclicks, others have argued that unbranded banners contradict the conceptof brand building through banner exposure (Briggs & Hollis 1997). Theevidence from the current study indicates that the presence of ‘games’ ina banner ad positively impacts on CTR. Clearly, online gamblers find thisaspect of the communication important to their decision making, and thusbanner ads for the online gaming sector should comprise ‘casino games’ inorder to increase direct response.

The findings of this study have strong implications for online commu-nications; the evidence stresses the importance of fresh and innovativemessage tactics, given the ineffectiveness of the more conventional designtools employed to stimulate user interest. These results also suggest thatthe effectiveness of banner ad campaigns for online gaming (as measuredby CTR) is governed by the same principles of artistic execution as thosefound in other, non-gambling-related sectors of the internet.

This study used CTR to evaluate the effectiveness of banner ads. Thismetric is one of the oldest methods of evaluating the success of onlineadvertising campaigns and is an appropriate tool for assessing direct mar-keting objectives. However, it has been criticised for not including theadditional effects of online advertising such as branding (Briggs 2001b)and may be considered by some as a limitation of this study. Furtherresearch could investigate the branding-building effects of banner ads.Another limitation of the study is that it included a sample of banner adshosted on a single website, namely an online gaming portal. Futureresearch could extend the scope of the research to a number of websites.

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to participants at the 34th European MarketingAcademy Conference, Milan, the 2005 Academy of MarketingConference, Dublin, the editor and two anonymous referees for helpfulcomments.

References

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Briggs, R. (2001a) Richer, bigger, more interactive advertising research studies.Measuring Success Series, 1(3), US Interactive Advertising Bureau,http//www.iab.com.

Briggs, R. (2001b) The role of creative execution in online advertising success.Measuring Success Series, 1(4), US Interactive Advertising Bureau,http//www.iab.com.

Briggs, R. & Hollis, N. (1997) Advertising on the web: is there response before click-through? Journal of Advertising Research, 37(2), pp. 33–45.

Broussard, G. (2000) How advertising frequency can work to build online advertisingeffectiveness. International Journal of Market Research, 45(4), pp. 439–457.

Burke, M., Hornof, A., Nilsen, E. & Gormon, N. (2005) High-cost banner blindness;ads increase perceived workload, hinder visual search, and are forgotten. ACMTransactions on Computer–Human Interaction, 12(4), p. 423.

Catty, J.P. (2004) Valuing online gaming enterprises. World Online Gambling, June,pp. 12–16.

Chandon, J.L., Chtourou, M.S. & Fortin, D.R. (2003) Effects of configuration andexposure levels on responses to web advertisements. Journal of AdvertisingResearch, 43(2), pp. 217–229.

Chang-Hoan, C. (2003) Factors influencing clicking of banner ads on the WWW.Cyber Psychology & Behaviour, 6(2), pp. 201–215.

Chatterjee, P., Hoffman, D.L. & Novak, T.P. (2003) Modelling the clickstream:implications for web-based advertising efforts. Marketing Science, 22(4),pp. 520–541.

Cho, C. (2003) The effectiveness of banner advertisements: involvement and click-through. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 80(3), pp. 623–645.

Chtourou, M.S. & Guerin, F. (2001) What makes people like, and click on, aninternet banner? European Society for Opinion and Marketing Research, WorldwideAudience Measurement Conference Proceedings, pp. 147–167.

Chtourou, M.S., Chandon, J.L. & Zollinger, M. (2002) Effect of price information andpromotion on click-through rate for internet banners. Journal of Euromarketing,11(2), pp. 23–40.

Constable, N. (2003) This is Gambling. London: Sanctuary Publishing.Dahlen, M. (2001) Banner advertising through a new lens. Journal of Advertising

Research, 41(4), pp. 23–30.Danaher, P.J. & Mullarkey, G.W. (2003) Factors affecting online advertising recall:

a study of students. Journal of Advertising Research, 43(3), pp. 252–267.Dreze, X. & Hussherr, F.X. (2003) Internet advertising: is anybody watching? Journal

of Interactive Marketing, 17(4), pp. 8–23.Dynamic Logic (2000) Frequency plays a significant role in lifting awareness: four or

more exposures doubles the impact of online branding, in Beyond the Click:Insights from Online Advertising Research, http//www.dynamiclogic.com.

Dynamic Logic (2002) Bigger ads do not guarantee effectiveness, in Beyond the Click:Insights from Online Advertising Research, http://www.dynamiclogic.com.

Dynamic Logic (2004) Consumer perceptions of various ad formats, in Beyond theClick: Insights from Online Advertising Research, http://www.dynamiclogic.com.


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Gujarati, D. (1995) Basic Econometrics. London: McGraw-Hill.Hofacker, C.F. & Murphy, J. (1998) World wide web banner advertisement copy

testing. European Journal of Marketing, 32(7/8), pp. 703–712.Interactive Advertising Bureau (2003) The tide has turned for interactive advertising:

IAB celebrates most successful year in association history. Press release online athttp://www.iab.com/news/pr 2003 12 23.asp (accessed 31 March 2004).

Janiszewski, C. (1998) The influence of display characteristics on visual exploratorysearch behaviour. Journal of Consumer Research, 25(3), pp. 290–302.

Lothia, R., Donthu, N. & Hershberger, E. (2003) The impact of content and designelements on banner advertising click-through rates. Journal of Advertising Research,43(4), pp. 410–418.

Moore, R.S., Stammerjohan, C.A. & Coulter, R.A. (2005) Banner advertiser – web sitecontext congruity and color effects on attention and attitudes. Journal ofAdvertising, 34(2), pp. 71–84.

Raman, V.R. & Leckenby, J.D. (1998) Factors affecting ‘webad’ visits. EuropeanJournal of Marketing, 32, pp. 737–748.

Rettie, R., Grandcolas, U. & McNeil, C. (2004) Post Impressions: Internet Advertisingwithout Click-through. Kingston Business School, Kingston University.

Rodgers, S. (2002) The interactive advertising model tested: the role of internetmotives in ad processes. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 2(2), available online athttp://jiad.org/vol2/no2/rodgers.

Rodgers, S. & Thorson, E. (2000) The interactive advertising model: how usersperceive and process online ads. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 1(1), availableonline at http://jiad.org/vol1/no1/rodgers.

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About the authors

Helen Robinson is a principal lecturer in the School of Marketing atKingston University, UK. Previously, she worked in the advertising indus-try, for JWT in London. Her current research interests include advertisingand media planning, marketing communications and internet marketing.Her work has been published in a number of marketing journals.

Anna Wysocka graduated from Kingston Business School with a mas-ter’s degree in marketing, moving on to follow a career as a practitioner inthe field.

Chris Hand is a post-doctoral researcher in the School of Marketing,Kingston Business School. His research interests include the effects ofeCommerce on consumer behaviour, the entertainment industries and the


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application of quantitative methods in marketing. His research hasappeared in journals such as the Journal of Brand and Product Management,Environment and Planning A and the Journal of Cultural Economics.

Address correspondence to: Helen Robinson, Kingston BusinessSchool, Kingston Hill, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, KT2 7LB, UK.




There’sadvertisingtheory.

And there’sadvertisingpractice.

With JAR you get thebest of bothworlds.

The Journal of Advertising Research

www.JournalOfAdvertisngResearch.com

Directions in marketingcommunications research

An analysis of the International Journal of Advertising

Douglas WestUniversity of Birmingham

This paper provides a content analysis of the inputs and outputs of the InternationalJournal of Advertising (IJA) during the period 1992–2006 and was sparked by the25th anniversary of the journal (1982–2006). A total of 348 papers were surveyed using acontent analysis in order to provide researchers and readers with a better sense of the con-tribution of the IJA over the past 15 years. The analysis reveals a journal largely focusedupon topics involving practice and effects with increasingly sophisticated statistical tech-niques employed. Single-authored papers appear to be in decline in favour of two- tothree-authored papers, and author institutions widely domiciled across North America,Asia, the UK, Europe and Australasia.

Introduction

The year 2006 was a significant landmark for the International Journal ofAdvertising (IJA). The publication of issue 4 in 2006 marked 25 years of theIJA (1982–2006), and the purpose of this paper is, in some small part, tocelebrate this achievement in the time-honoured fashion of a journalreview. Additionally, the paper takes a reflective view of marketing com-munications research as demonstrated by a content analysis of the authors,institutions and papers published in the journal over the 15 years up to2006 (1992–2006). The format of the paper is to examine the nature of theinputs (authors and institutions) and outputs (the nature of the paperspublished in the IJA).

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Journal studies

As noted by Pasadeos et al. (1998), studies of scholarly literature can be cat-egorised along six dimensions. Publishing productivity studies include anassessment of the contributions of particular authors and institutions (e.g.Barry 1990); comprehensive reviews set about establishing heuristics or para-digms on the conclusions reached in a large number of studies on a partic-ular topic (e.g. Arndt 1986); meta-analyses utilise data-based conclusions onthe findings from multiple studies (e.g. Crouch 1996); methodological inves-tigations focus upon the research methods used across a number of studieswithin the same topic or in the same discipline (e.g. Kolbe & Burnett1991; Pitt et al. 2005; van der Merwe et al. 2007); and specific journal inves-tigations provide an in-depth review of one or more publications (e.g.Leong 1989; Malhotra 1996). Citation analyses are more concerned by thereferences/footnotes listed in papers (e.g. Baumgartner & Pieters 2003)and co-citation networks (Pasadeos et al. 1998). This study offers a combi-nation of publishing productivity, comprehensive review and methodolog-ical investigation of a specific journal.

Method

On balance, a content analysis was deemed preferable to a survey of theEditorial Advisory Board. A content analysis of publications providesunobtrusive ex post facto evidence of the predilections of authors, review-ers and editors. A largely objective content analysis approach was also pos-sible as most of the variables did not require judgemental coding. Theseelements were top publishing authors, top publishing author institutions,number of authors, domicile, occupation (academic or practitioner), num-ber of words, sample and primary analytic technique. Author genderproved slightly more difficult to ascertain in cases where there was ambi-guity over the first name; this was largely resolved by a careful reading ofprofiles, which generally included references to ‘he’ or ‘she’, and a closeinspection of Asian names by a Chinese research assistant.

The grouping of topics was the most subjective aspect of the studygiven the potential multiplicity of categories. For example, Ewing et al.’s(2002) study of the generalisability and equivalence of advertisingresponse scales might be listed as cross-national, television medium, copy

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DIRECTIONS IN MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS RESEARCH

testing and global campaigns. To address the problem, it was decided tocategorise each paper by the major topic classifications and to address theissue of specific topics by a word content analysis of paper titles.

Five topic classifications were adapted from Yale and Gilly (1988) andcoded by a research assistant. These were: advertising practice (advertisingagency, advertising management issues (e.g. budgeting, reach, sales andresponse), ambient, brand, campaign planning, creative management,direct marketing, e-business, media, and general industry concerns), mar-keting, new media, pricing, PR, promotions, sponsorship, web, wireless;advertising effects (appeals, attention, awareness, attitudes, consumerbehaviour, effects, information processing, involvement, neuroscience,perception, persuasion, preferences, recall, recognition, response); social(children, culture, deception, economy, ethics, food, gender, pharmaceuti-cals, politics, race, socio-economic, regulation); content (appeals, compari-son, copy, corporate, creative, image, information); and method (emphasison research method). The process began with a full briefing of theresearch assistant, who then coded a random sample of 20 papers that werechecked by the author. A small number of ambiguous categorisations werehighlighted by the research assistant and these were resolved by furthercareful reading by both the assistant and researcher.

Several new sub-codings were introduced in an iterative fashion as freshtopics emerged over the period, most notably concerning new media.None of this affected the main codings, as for example papers focused ondigital media remained part of the media and thus ‘advertising practice’.Given the expertise developed in the process, the first 10% of paperscoded were re-evaluated in light of the experience developed.

Lastly, all papers were independently reviewed by the author for finalclassification. As an aside, it had been intended to apply Rust and Cooil’s(1994) proportional reduction in loss (PRL) measure for inter-judge agree-ment/reliability, but surprisingly the process proved to be more of a dia-logue. WordStat was then used to examine the specific words used inpaper titles to identify changes in topic over the period and provide for themore specific identification of ‘minor’ rather than major topics. The past15 years were chosen rather than the entire 25, as the purpose of the studywas not to trace the evolution of the IJA and place it in its historical contextbut rather to trace the recent key trends in marketing communicationsresearch. Research notes and observations were not included in the study.

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Inputs

As noted by Inkpen and Beamish (1994) and Malhotra (1996), any studyof research published in a journal would be incomplete without an analy-sis of authorship. The top publishing authors – those with more than threepublications over the period 1992–2006 – can be seen in Table 1 (figuresare unadjusted for multiple authorships). The table is led by MichaelEwing, with eight publications, followed closely by Tim Ambler. There isthen a small group of three – consisting of Berthon, Pitt and Prendergast –with five each, six authors with four publications each, and nine withthree.

Author institutions publishing in the IJA during the period 1992–2006can be seen in Table 2. Leeds University tops the list with 21, followed bythe University of Texas at Austin with 17 and Hong Kong BaptistUniversity with 15. These three were closely followed by the CopenhagenBusiness School, Massey University and the University of Warwick, eachwith 14. Looking at the trends over the three five-year periods (not shownin the table), the top institutions from 1992–96 were Massey, Warwick,Hawaii and Baruch College; 1997–2001 saw the rise of Leeds,Pennsylvania and the London Business School, with a continued strongpresence from Warwick; 2002–06 saw the rise of the Copenhagen BusinessSchool, Hong Kong Baptist, Texas at Austin and Monash. Of course, thepresence of several of these institutions largely reflects the domicile of theIJA’s top publishing authors.

Table 1: Top publishing authors in the IJA 1992–2006

Number of Number of Number ofAuthor publications Author publications Author publications

Ewing, Michael 8

Ambler, Tim 7

Berthon, Pierre 5

Pitt, Leyland 5

Prendergast, Gerard 5

Gendall, Philip 4

Hansen, Fleming 4

Hoek, Janet 4

Laroche, Michel 4

Lee, Wei-Na 4

West, Douglas 4

De Pelsmacker, Patrick 3

Dibb, Sally 3

Duffy, Martyn 3

Fay, Michael 3

Kaynak, Erdener 3

Meenaghan, Tony 3

Palihawadana, Dayananda 3

Simkin Lyndon 3

Svennevig, Michael 3

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A breakdown of the number of authors, their domicile, gender andoccupation can be seen in Table 3. Taking the period as a whole, both sin-gle authors and joint authors accounted for just under two-fifths of thepapers published. Three-author papers provided slightly under a fifth, andwork authored by four or five was insignificant. Taking the three five-yearperiods separately, it can be seen in the table that there is a sizeable shiftaway from single authorships (24%) towards joint (45%) during 2002–06,and a continual rise in papers authored by three people (from 14% to 26%).

Unfortunately, past inconsistencies in recording practices make studiesof author domicile (location of institution) somewhat difficult, so it was notpossible to ascertain domicile in all cases and was especially difficult in theperiod 1997–2001. As such, Table 3 shows that North America providedthe largest share (overwhelmingly US scholars) followed by Asia, the UK,Europe and then Australasia. As far as can be reliably ascertained, cross-national research accounted for around 10% of studies, with some consis-tency over the period. The rest of the world (in essence South Americaand Africa) provided an insignificant number of papers.

It can be seen in Table 3 that the breakdown by gender was broadlythree-quarters male and one-quarter female over the entire period (2% ofauthors could not be verified). Without apparent explanation, the balanceshifted slightly in the direction of female over the period 1997–2001, withwomen accounting for slightly over a quarter, but this fell back slightlyover 2002–06.

Table 2: Top publishing institutions in the IJA 1992–2006

Number of Number of Number ofInstitution publications Institution publications Institution publications

Leeds 21

Texas, Austin 17

Hong Kong Baptist 15

Copenhagen Business

School 14

Massey 14

Warwick 14

Georgia 11

London Business School 10

Monash 10

Pennsylvania State 10

Concordia 9

Auckland 7

Curtin 7

Baruch College, City 6

Calgary 6

Florida 6

Manchester 6

Miami 6

New York (NYC) 6

Nottingham 6

Antwerp 5

Bentley College 5

California, San Diego 5

Chinese, Hong Kong 5

Hawaii 5

Otago 5

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Finally, turning to occupation in terms of academic versus practitioner, thepapers in the IJA were largely authored by academics, who provided overfour-fifths of all publications. Taking the three five-year periods, solelyauthored practitioner publications appear to be in decline, with only 2% ofall publications during 2002–06. On the face of it this might be a result ofthe raising of the entry barriers with increasingly rigorous review processesthat many practitioners, despite being capable, simply lack the time tocontemplate. However, a personal observation since taking up the post ofEditor in mid-2004 is that hardly any sole-practitioner papers are submitted.

Table 3: Number of authors, their domicile, gender and occupations 1992–2006 bypercentages and five-year periodsa

1992–2006 1992–96 1997–2001 2002–06[n = 348] [n = 116] [n = 126] [n = 106]

Number of authorsOne 38 42 46 24Two 38 41 31 45Three 19 14 17 26Four 4 3 5 5Five 1 0 1 0Total 100 100 100 100

DomicileNorth America 18 26 5 23Asia 14 11 14 18UK 13 12 13 15Europe 10 10 6 14Australasia 7 5 5 10Rest of world 1 0 2 1Cross-national 10 8 10 10Not available 27 28 45 9Total 100 100 100 100

GenderMale 74 78 69 77Female 24 21 27 23Not available 2 1 4 0Total 100 100 100 100

OccupationAcademic 82 79 82 85Practitioner 8 10 10 2Both 9 10 7 11Not available 1 1 1 2Total 100 100 100 100

a Where appropriate, figures have been rounded up.

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One hopeful sign on this general issue (which also concerns many otherjournals and academics) is that joint academic–practitioner papers, whichhad dipped slightly over 1997–2001, rose to just over 10% during 2002–06.

Outputs

The average length of the 348 papers included in the study for 1992–2006are given in Table 4. It can be seen that the mean hovered just over 5000words between 1992 and 2001 but increased to over 6000 in the period2002–06 for an overall mean of around 5500 words for the entire period(median of 6411 and standard deviation 1743).

Following Yale and Gilly’s (1988) categorisation (see above or the notesto Table 4), the main topic covered was marketing communications prac-tice, which accounted for around half of all the papers published. Studieson effects came next with just over a fifth of the published output, fol-lowed by social topics. It should be noted that social topics have taken anincreasing proportion of the IJA’s output, reaching nearly a quarter andequal to effects in the last five years of the period. Content studies slippedconsiderably in their share over the period and papers devoted to methodwere largely insignificant.

Around 70% of papers utilised empirical data over the entire period. Asshown in Table 4, the primary unit of analysis was practitioners, with justunder a fifth of published studies, just ahead of secondary data and adults.Student samples provided a tenth of studies, closely followed by adver-tisements and then a small number of studies focusing on children.Looking at the trends over the three periods, the rise of student samplesto just under a fifth has been the most notable. This contrasts with thegeneral decline in the number of studies analysing advertisements. Oneother striking feature is the large number of ‘other’ (e.g. discursive andobservational) and non-empirical work published between 1997 and 2001.Such work had fallen back to under a fifth by 2002–06.

Of those studies employing empirical data, the primary methodemployed was the survey, which accounted for just under two-fifths of thetotal, followed by content analysis, laboratory/experimental studies andsecondary, with case and qualitative studies very much in the minority.Looking at trends, again the period 1997–2001 provided some starkcontrasts, with rapid falls in content analyses and relatively large rises in

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Table 4: Outputs 1992–2006 by percentage and five-year periods

1992–2006 1992–96 1997–2001 2002–06[n = 348] [n = 116] [n = 122–126] [n = 106]

Word countMean 5,586 5,233 5,329 6,269Median 5,314 4,855 5,152 6,411Standard deviation 1,820 1,904 1,645 1,743Total 1,921,826 607,134 650,135 664,557

Topica

Practice 49 45 58 41Effects 21 20 19 25Social 17 12 14 25Content 6 13 1 4Method 1 2 0 2Other 6 8 8 3Total 100 100 100 100

SamplePractitioners 17 16 17 19Secondary data 16 15 15 18Adults 14 15 6 20Students 10 8 6 18Advertisements 9 15 5 7Children 2 1 2 2Other/non-empirical 32 30 49 16Total 100 100 100 100

MethodSurvey 37 35 35 43Content 15 21 11 14Lab/experiment 9 2 9 14Secondary 6 2 6 10Case 5 5 8 3Qualitative 3 8 2 5Other 25 27 29 11Total 100 100 100 100

AnalysisDescriptive 20 18 22 22Means 14 19 14 11Correlation/regression 12 13 11 13ANOVA/MANOVA 12 3 10 17Factor, discrim., cluster 2 3 2 4CFA/SEM 2 2 2 4Qualitative 2 3 1 2Other 5 7 1 10None 31 32 37 17Total 100 100 100 100

Notes: a = advertising effects (appeals, attention, awareness, attitudes, consumer behaviour, effects, information processing,involvement, neuroscience, perception, persuasion, preferences, recall, recognition, response); social (children, culture, deception,economy, ethics, food, gender, pharmaceuticals, politics, race, socio-economic, regulation); content (appeals, comparison, copy,corporate, creative, image, information); and method (emphasis on research method)

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laboratory/experimental studies and secondary, with significant falls inqualitative. It should be emphasised that each paper was examined to elu-cidate the primary method. For example, a large proportion of the authorsapplying surveys used qualitative methods to underpin the work whereasthis was coded solely as ‘survey’ rather than ‘qualitative’.

Turning to analytic technique, by far the most popular has been descrip-tive statistics (e.g. frequencies, percentages and cross-tabulations),accounting for a fifth of all analyses over the period 1992–2006 (seeTable 4). Comparison of means came next, closely followed by correlation/regression and analysis of variance (ANOVA) and multivariate analysis ofvariance (MANOVA). Factor, discriminant and cluster analysis, confirma-tory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling (SEM), andqualitative analyses comprised relatively few of the analyses undertaken,with around 2% of studies respectively. In terms of trends, descriptivestended to largely maintain their share, whereas papers using simple com-parisons of means declined, with rises in ANOVA/MANOVA, factor, dis-criminant, cluster and CFA/SEM. Akin to method, it should be noted thatonly the primary method has been reported here and a large number ofpapers utilised multiple techniques.

To provide further insight into the specific topics covered in the IJAover the period, a frequency analysis of the words used in paper titles wasundertaken. Only words that were deemed to add to the analysis wereincluded, therefore ‘advertising’ (appearing 212 times) and ‘marketing’(31 times) were removed, along with ‘United States’ (21), ‘China/Chinese’(17) and ‘UK’ (13), and all extraneous words irrelevant to topics werefiltered out of the analysis. It can be seen in Table 5 that studies examin-ing effects dominated paper titles for most of the period, with a frequencyof 47 between 1992 and 2006. The list is inevitably a little jumbled, beingthe output of a straight word count. However, it is clear that advertisingpractice and effects are heavily implied in the words used, as indicated by‘effects’, ‘television’ and ‘brands’, along with some social issues indicatedby ‘tobacco’ and ‘children’. As for trends, the most striking elements indi-cated are the rise and relative fall of branding and the rise of ‘food’, the‘web’ and ‘promotion’. Inevitably, any firm conclusions are circumspectgiven keywords do not necessarily convey the meaning of the paper.

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Conclusion

This review of the inputs and outputs of the IJA over the period1992–2006 was sparked by the 25th anniversary of the journal. A total of348 papers were surveyed using a content analysis, which providesresearchers with a better sense of what they have been contributing to thejournal over the past 15 years. Journals can only select papers from thosesubmitted, therefore this review says as much about what interestsresearchers as it does about the predilections of editors and reviewers.

The IJA emerges as a journal largely focused upon topics involving prac-tice and effects based upon samples of practitioners, secondary data andadults. However, student samples have been regularly published and haveconsiderably grown in number during 2002–06. Single-authored papersappear to be in decline in favour of two-authored papers, with a strongtrend towards papers written by three authors. This may reflect both thehighly productive nature of teams and the relative ease of working withnew technologies. Author institutions are widely domiciled across NorthAmerica, Asia, the UK and Europe, with a lesser but significant presencefrom Australasia. While there has been a rise in the use of more sophisti-cated statistical techniques (e.g. discriminant and structural equation

Table 5: Top keywords in paper titles, 1992–2006 and by five-year periodsa

1992–2006 1992–96 1997–2001 2001–06

a The cut-offs are arbitrary but reflect points where the lists are both manageable and meaningful

Effect(s) 47

Television/TV 26

Brand(s) 25

Agency(ies) 24

Attitudes 19

Consumer 18

Media 16

Food 14

Market 12

Sponsorship 12

Information 10

Perceptions 10

Tobacco 10

Web 10

Effect(s) 12

Agency(ies) 12

Television/TV 11

Attitudes 9

Tobacco 6

Consumer 5

Media 5

Information 5

Perspective 5

Expenditures 5

Brand(s) 14

Effect(s) 9

Agency(ies) 8

Television/TV 6

Sponsorship 6

Perceptions 6

Attitudes 5

Media 5

Market 5

Children 5

Responses 5

Social 5

Effect(s) 26

Television/TV 9

Consumer 9

Brand(s) 8

Media 6

Food 8

Web 5

Promotion 5

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modelling), papers employing basic statistical techniques continue tomake up about a fifth of the output, perhaps as these often communicatemanagerially friendly information. Papers are getting longer and recentemerging topics include food, new media and promotions.

It is hoped that this review of work published in the IJA over the period1992–2006, undertaken to celebrate its 25 years of publishing, will haveprovided readers and authors with a better sense of the journal and a smallsense of the current trends in marketing communications research in gen-eral, despite the limitations of the single journal sample. But what of thefuture? It is the job of authors to decide what topics they wish to pursueand submit to the IJA for, as with all other journals, the inputs and outputsof the journal are the product of the overall research community. Havingsaid that, it should be pointed out that the journal has a public policy/socialmarketing orientation, therefore topics such as marketing communicationseffects related to issues such as obesity and alcohol consumption are par-ticularly welcomed, along with papers addressing the full spectrum of mar-keting communications tools (i.e. not just advertising). Finally, in terms ofmethod, it appears that qualitative work and field experimentation areunder-represented in the IJA.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Yan Mei for her research assistance andMatthew Coombs, Colin McDonald, and Stephen Whiteside for theirvaluable advice on previous versions of this paper.

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Ewing, M.T., Caruana, A. & Zinkhan, G.M. (2002) On the cross-nationalgeneralisability and equivalence of advertising response scales developed in theUSA. International Journal of Advertising, 21(3), pp. 323–343.

Inkpen, A.C. & Beamish, P.W. (1994) An analysis of twenty-five years of research inthe Journal of International Business Studies. Journal of International BusinessStudies, 25(4), pp. 703–713.

Kolbe, R.H. & Burnett, M.S. (1991) Content-analysis research: an examination ofapplications with directives for improving research reliability and objectivity.Journal of Consumer Research, 18(2), pp. 243–250.

Leong, S.M. (1989) A citation analysis of the Journal of Consumer Research. Journalof Consumer Research, 15(4), pp. 492–497.

Malhotra, N.K. (1996) The impact of the Academy of Marketing Science onmarketing scholarship: an analysis of the research published in JAMS. Journal ofthe Academy of Marketing Science, 24(4), pp. 291–298.

Pasadeos, Y., Phelps, J. & Bong-Hyun, K. (1998) Disciplinary impact of advertisingscholars: temporal comparisons of influential authors, works and researchnetworks. Journal of Advertising, 27(4), pp. 53–70.

Pitt, L.F., Berthon, P., Caruana, A. & Berthon, J.-P. (2005) The state of theory in threepremier advertising journals: a research note. International Journal of Advertising,24(2), pp. 241–249.

Rust, R.T. & Cooil, B. (1994) Reliability measures for qualitative data: theory andimplications. Journal of Marketing Research, 31(1), pp. 1–14.

van der Merwe, R., Berthon, P., Pitt, L. & Barnes, B. (2007) Analysing ‘theorynetworks’: identifying the pivotal theories in marketing and their characteristics.Journal of Marketing Management, 23(3/4), pp. 181–206.

Yale, L. & Gilly, M.C. (1988) Trends in advertising research: a look at the content ofmarketing oriented journals from 1976–1985. Journal of Advertising, 17(1),pp. 12–22.

About the author

Douglas West is Professor of Marketing at the Birmingham BusinessSchool, the University of Birmingham, and editor of the InternationalJournal of Advertising. He has published work in the International Journal ofAdvertising, the Journal of Advertising, and the Journal of AdvertisingResearch, among others. He is joint author of Direct and Interactive Marketing(Oxford University Press, 2001) and Marketing Strategy: creating competitiveadvantage (Oxford University Press, 2006).

Address correspondence to: Douglas West, Birmingham BusinessSchool, University of Birmingham, University House, Edgbaston ParkRoad, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK.


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International Journal of Advertising

CALL FOR PAPERS

Special Edition on Advertising, Markets & Demand

Guest EditorTim Ambler, Senior Fellow, London Business School

The debate surrounding the effect of advertising in mature, established markets has a tendency to polarise views. Some argue that brand advertising within mature markets (for example, fmcg/cpg) works at brand level within discreet product categories. That is, advertisingenables brands to compete against each other within specific categories but it is a zero-sumgame that does not affect the overall size of the category in which it operates.

Others may concede that brand advertising predominantly concerns brands, but such advertisinghas a wider and cumulative effect on the overall size of the category. In other words, rather thanjust creating consumer demand for one brand at the expense of another, advertising is seen ascreating demand for and, therefore, growing the size of the overall category.

Part of the debate depends on the definition of the market. For example, brand advertising mayaffect the size of the spirits market but not alcoholic drinks taken as a whole. And then we haveto consider category marketing such as the classic ‘drink more milk’ campaign. Milk as a wholewould not usually be considered to be a brand. And what is the effect on markets as a whole, ormature markets as a whole? To what extent is demand as whole driven by advertising?

The issues encompassed by this debate lie at the heart of public policy discussions about theextent to which advertising should be restricted, most notably tobacco, alcoholic drinks and, inrelation to obesity concerns, food.

This special issue of the International Journal of Advertising (IJA) seeks to gather together the latest research evidence on the effect of advertising in mature markets to help academics, advertising practitioners and all those involved in the public policy process better understandthe intricacies of an inevitably complex debate. Empirical and/or theoretical papers are invitedby the IJA on the effect of advertising in mature markets overall as well as the effect of advertising in specific mature markets (for example, alcoholic drinks, food etc).

Papers selected for this special issue will be eligible for the annual Best Paper Prize of $1000, asvoted by the Editorial Board.

SubmissionsThe closing date for submissions is 15 February, 2008.

All submissions must conform to the guidelines of the International Journal of Advertising. For details see www.InternationalJournalofAdvertising.com.

Manuscripts should be sent to the guest editor at the following address:[email protected].

For all enquiries contact the Production Editor, International Journal of AdvertisingWorld Advertising Research Center,Farm Road, Henley on Thames, Oxfordshire, RG9 1EJ

Tel: 01491 418688, Email: [email protected]

www.internationaljournalofadvertising.com

West.qxp 05/11/2007 11:39 Page 555

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The subject for this issue’s Commentssection is international advertisingissues and challenges. Two well-respected international advertisingresearchers have provided commen-taries, which I believe will be of inter-est to our readers.

Charles R. Taylor, from VillanovaUniversity, provides a commentary thatoffers a series of suggestions forimproving the quality of internationaladvertising research. His helpful rec-ommendations include: (1) buildinginternational collaborations; (2) offer-ing multiple contributions in the samearticle; (3) providing sounder theoreti-cal foundations; (4) employing theorieswith broad strategic foci; (5) utilisingtools and techniques that allow theexamination of associations and causal-ity; and (6) demonstrating the practicalbenefit of the research for both adver-tising researchers and practitioners.

The other commentary, by BarbaraMueller of San Diego State University,looks at corporate social responsibilityand the marketing of food productsaround the world. Childhood obesity isbecoming a global problem, somebelieve exacerbated by food advertis-ing to children. She makes suggestionsregarding the ways in which foodmarketers can act in a more ethical andsocially responsible manner. Barbaraalso suggests that consumers them-selves have certain responsibilities,including: (1) educating themselvesmore effectively about diet and nutri-tion; (2) being more active in theirlifestyles; and (3) making sound deci-sions on healthy food choices for them-selves and their children.

As always, we hope that you willfind these essays both informative andvaluable. We welcome your commentsat [email protected].

Comments

Edited by Professor John FordOld Dominion University, Virginia, USA

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Overcoming barriers topublishing internationaladvertising research in topjournalsCharles R. Taylor

In spite of recognition of the globalisa-tion of business over the past severaldecades, it seems that international

advertising has never quite been a ‘hottopic’ among academic researchers. Acontent analysis of international adver-tising articles conducted by Zou (2005)showed that only a very limited num-ber of articles were published in somehighly prestigious general marketingand business outlets, such as theJournal of Consumer Research, Journal of

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Marketing, Journal of InternationalBusiness Studies and Journal of MarketingResearch. Moreover, the number ofSSCI citations for international adver-tising articles was somewhat less thanone might expect. While many articlesthat advance international advertisingappear in prestigious journals specialis-ing in advertising or international mar-keting, it is, nonetheless, important toscholars who choose to work in an areato know that their best work can bepublished in top general journals.

The question as to why interna-tional advertising research has histori-cally seemed somewhat less thanglamorous, is an important one to ask.It seems the answer lies in a combina-tion of factors, ranging from the greaterdifficulty of applying sophisticatedtheories and methodologies in cross-national studies to the need for moreinteraction from scholars from aroundthe world who are interested in thetopic. I would like to spend theremainder of this article outlining whyI believe the time is ripe to see moretruly outstanding cross-national adver-tising studies published and what canbe done to facilitate this process. Weare already seeing the beginnings of atrend in which a greater number ofpapers on international advertisingthat have strong theoretical groundingand apply advanced methodologies arebeing published. However, I believethat this trend could be accelerated ifresearchers avoid some past obstaclesat each stage of the research process. Iwill organise my thoughts on this mat-ter based on the typical sections of anacademic paper, starting with authorinformation.

Author informationIt has been known for some time thatmore perspectives from all over theworld are needed in order to advanceour knowledge of international adver-tising. Clearly, more truly internationalcollaborations, in which co-authors col-laborate on more aspects of theresearch than just data collection, areneeded. Joint effort in conceptualisingthe paper, developing theory, ensuringequivalent data are collected, and writ-ing up implications can lead to richerperspectives that help to advance thefield.

The good news with respect to col-laborations is that it is probably easierto find co-authors than ever before. Inaddition to more communication viathe internet, networking opportunitiesare available at the meetings of organi-sations such as the European Academyof Advertising, the American Academyof Advertising and the IAA. Each has agroup of consistent attendees who areinterested in international issues. Ibelieve it is particularly important forthose interested in international adver-tising to attend meetings outside oftheir home region in order to hear dif-ferent perspectives and meet prospec-tive collaborators.

Abstract and introductionIn conceptualising papers on interna-tional advertising, I would urge authorsto consider the need to make multiplecontributions to the literature in a sin-gle paper. I have often heard reviewersof international papers complain thatauthors are just applying what hasalready been learned to another con-text (often a single country), rather


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than focusing on theory developmentand/or or truly insightful managerialimplications. Notably, internationalstudies that have public policy impli-cations seem to be in short supply.Studies that make a strong case thatthey are making multiple contributionsare at an advantage in leading journals.

Literature reviewA clear problem in the study of inter-national advertising has been the largenumber of papers that start out byreviewing the standardisation vs localadaptation ‘debate’ and then frame thestudy in this context. This ‘debate’now represents a false dichotomy thatdoes not do justice to the insights pro-vided by the extant literature. Moreimportantly, this approach is an inade-quate conceptual framework for truetheory development, but is often usedin this manner. A good literaturereview should originate as a means oftruly summarising the current state ofknowledge in an area and should alsoclearly set the stage for the conceptualframework that will guide the study.

Theoretical frameworkPerhaps the greatest obstacle to inter-national advertising work appearing inthe most prestigious journals is theperception that much work in the areahas not been theoretically sophisti-cated. It is true that many internationalstudies have focused on isolatedcultural dimensions as opposed toelaborate, sophisticated theories.Developing theory that incorporatescultural aspects will remain important,but it should not be the sole focus ofresearch streams.

Of particular importance in terms ofpublishing in general journals is apply-ing theories with a broad strategicfocus. The good news for internationaladvertising scholars is that, more thanever before, theoretical advancementin related areas is providing newopportunities. For example, globalmarketing strategy theory (Zou &Cavusgil 2002) and global consumerculture theory (see Arnould &Thompson 2005) are promising frame-works that have components that areapplicable to advertising. These per-spectives, along with applying insightfrom strategic management perspec-tives such as I/O theory and theresource-based view of the firm, holdconsiderable promise. Additionally,more applications of consumer behav-iour theories to the advertising con-text, such as theory of reasoned actionand the elaborations likelihood model,would be worthwhile.

MethodologyI have gone on record elsewhere(Taylor 2005) suggesting that a widervariety of methods should be used ininternational advertising research. Inthe past, content analyses oftenaccounted for a high proportion ofpublished studies. This appears to bechanging, as the last few years haveseen more survey and experimentalresearch published. Nevertheless,there is room for more studies aimed atexamining measures of association andexamining possible causality. Whilethere is still a place for innovativedescriptive research, it is appropriatelybeing held to a high standard.


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Another issue is that when culturaldimensions are posited to have animpact on a dependent variable, theyshould be measured among the sub-population that is sampled. Becausesome aspects of culture can bedynamic and some groups within anoverall culture can vary, it strengthensa study examining culture if it actuallymeasures the sample’s cultural charac-teristics.

Results and conclusionsThe question of the degree of noise ininternational data sets has been a keyobstacle to research getting published.While it has been recognised for sometime that cross-cultural studies shouldapply advanced techniques to ensur-ing equivalence is established beforedata are collected, it now should beregarded as essential for them to makeuse of post hoc techniques such as con-firmatory factor analysis or a Raasche-based technique to assure reviewersand readers that the data are clean.

In terms of the results section aswell as the conclusion, it is paramountto make the general contribution toacademic knowledge clear to thereader. Here, demonstrating andreiterating the promised contributionsin the introduction is essential.

Postlude: cause for optimismThere is little doubt that there isincreasing awareness of what trulyglobal perspectives can bring to aca-demic research. I am encouraged byhearing Journal of Marketing editorRoland Rust speak about the priorityhe gave to internationalising his

Editorial Review Board because it wasin the best interests of both the journaland the discipline. I believe it is nocoincidence that the Journal of Marketinghas concurrently seen its SSCI citationimpact factor rise to new heights. It isalso encouraging to see the increasedprominence of the InternationalJournal of Advertising in the field as itspages are sought after by scholars fromaround the world. In the face of suchdevelopments, which show academiarecognising the true importance ofinternationalisation, it is important forthose of us interested specifically inthe international/cross-national/cross-cultural aspects of the field to strive todo quality work that gets noticed bythe field at large.

References

Arnould, E.J. & Thompson, C.J. (2005)Consumer culture theory (CCT): twentyyears of research. Journal of ConsumerResearch, 31(4), pp. 868–892.

Taylor, C.R. (2005) Moving internationaladvertising research forward: a newresearch agenda. Journal of Advertising,34 (Winter), pp. 7–16.

Zou, S. (2005) Contributions tointernational advertising research: anassessment of the literature between1990 and 2002. Journal of Advertising,34(1), pp. 99–110.

Zou, S. & Cavusgil, S.T. (2002) The GMS:a broad conceptualization of globalmarketing strategy and its effect on firmperformance. Journal of Marketing, 66(4),pp. 40–56.

Charles R. Taylor is the John A. MurphyProfessor of Marketing at VillanovaUniversity.


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Just where does corporateresponsibility end andconsumer responsibilitybegin? The case ofmarketing food to kidsaround the globeBarbara Mueller

Much has changed in the corporatelandscape over the past few decades. Agrowing number of firms have come torecognise that it takes more than justengaging in ethical business practicesand generating profits to navigate theminefield of today’s global market-place. Corporate social responsibilityhas become the buzzword of the day.Several factors are driving corporatesocial responsibility: the unendingparade of corporate scandals that hasrocked the business world, the result-ing increase in regulatory scrutiny, theintense 24-hour-a-day worldwidemedia coverage, and, in particular, con-sumers’ increasing expectations of bigbusiness.

As consumers, we rightfully expectthat the manufacturers of the foodsand beverages we consume apply thehighest standards of ethical behaviourwith regard to each element of themarketing mix. We assume that theproducts we purchase are both freshand pure, that we are charged a fairprice for these goods, and that they aremade available to us where we requirethem. Moreover, we expect that pro-motional materials on behalf of theseproducts are neither false nor mislead-ing. But, increasingly, we expectmarketers to go beyond this – toadditionally take on responsibility forour consumption behaviour. The

epidemic of obesity around the globehas put the spotlight on marketers offoods and beverages.

In particular, those targeting chil-dren have come under heavy criticism.The statistics relating to obesity arehard to argue with. A recent EuropeanUnion report shows that one in fiveEU schoolchildren is now overweight– a total of 14 million – a figure thatincludes at least three million obese(Lobstein et al. 2005). Things don’tlook much better across the pond. Inthe United States, since the 1970s, theprevalence of obesity has nearlyquadrupled for children between theages of 6 and 11 (from 4% to 15.3%),and more than doubled for youthsaged 12–19 – from 5% to 10.4% (KaiserFamily Foundation 2004). However,childhood obesity is not unique towestern countries. The prevalence ofoverweight and obese children inChina increased 28 times between1985 and 2002 (Walsh 2006).

The finger for this problem hasbeen pointed directly at food mar-keters. The food industry’s global adbudget is a whopping $40 billion.Children around the globe are bom-barded with an unprecedented ava-lanche of food advertisements. Whiletelevision advertising remains mar-keters’ prime tool for selling food tokids (Spake 2003), there are a multi-tude of other promotional practicesdesigned to make children desire spe-cific products, including websites, in-school marketing and movie tie-ins.The concern is that the bulk of foodproducts being aimed at kids are fastfoods, soft drinks and snacks – in short,foods high in calories, sugar and fat.


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Governments and health advocatesworldwide are cracking down on themarketing tactics they blame for theexplosion in childhood obesity. In2004, the UK Government publishedhealth recommendations giving foodand beverage industries until 2007 toact more responsibly, or face formallegislation. In France, marketers offoods or beverages using radio or tele-vision are forced to choose betweenadding a health message to their com-mercials or paying a tax to fundhealthy eating messages. Ireland hasbanned celebrities from food andbeverage ads aimed at children, andrequires that sweets and soft-drinkspots broadcast in programmes withhalf the audience under the age of 18carry a warning that snacking on suchfoods can damage teeth.

Markos Kyprianou, EU Commis-sioner for Health and ConsumerAffairs, also launched a ‘Platform forAction’ against obesity. While empha-sising that he ‘prefers not to legislate’,Kyprianou stated that he would notrule out the possibility of EU regula-tion of the food industry if ‘nothingconcrete comes out of the platform’(Lobstein et al. 2005). In the US, theFederal Trade Commission recentlyissued subpoenas to 44 food manufac-turers in order to gather informationfor a forthcoming report to Congresson how companies market so-calledjunk foods to kids. Congress also plansto hold hearings on the media’s mar-keting of such foods to youngsters.The cause has been taken up by otherbodies, as well: the Alliance forChildhood, the Campaign for aCommercial-free Childhood, and the

Center for Science in the PublicInterest. The latter two groups haveeven threatened food marketers withlawsuits over their marketing tactics.While outright bans on marketing foodto children have been debated in manycountries, it is notable that bothSweden and Quebec, which havebanned all advertising to children, stillface high obesity rates.

Some self-regulatory bodies, foodmarketers and advertising agencieshave begun to take action in responseto this changing environment. TheInternational Chamber of Commercerecently issued guidelines on responsi-ble marketing for food and beveragecompanies. In the US, major food com-panies as well as the AmericanAdvertising Federation, the AmericanAssociation of Advertising Agencies,and the Association of NationalAdvertisers formed the Alliance forAmerican Advertising. The alliance’spurpose is to fight efforts to limit themarketing of foods to children, defendthe industry’s First Amendment rightsto advertise to children, as well as topromote its willingness to police itself.The US advertising industry’s self-regulatory body, the Children’sAdvertising Review Unit – which ischarged with monitoring ads targetingchildren under the age of 12 –announced intentions to enforce a newlevel of oversight for food ads.Individual marketers, as well, havetaken steps. Kraft Foods announced itwould stop running print and broad-cast ads for products such as Oreos andChips Ahoy!, aimed at 6–11 year olds.The Kellogg Company stated it wouldphase out advertising its products to


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children younger than 12 unless thefoods meet specific nutritional guide-lines. These voluntary changes will applyto about half the products that Kellogg’smarkets to children worldwide.

Governments are also taking action.Self-regulatory bodies are draftingguidelines. And some food marketersare indeed attempting to take the highroad by promoting their products in amore socially responsible manner – orceasing their promotion altogether. Butwhat role does the consumer play in thegrowing epidemic of childhood obesity?What about ‘consumer responsibility’?

Without question, exercise habitsand overall activity levels play a directrole in weight management and main-tenance. In the EU, one-third of chil-dren aged 2–11 participate in less than60 minutes of activity per day, and halfof those aged 6–11 receive less thantwo hours per week of physical educa-tion in school (International ObesityTaskforce 2002). The Centers forDisease Control reported that 25% ofUS children engage in no free-timephysical activity at all (Jacques 2006).There are several explanations for theobservation that children today are lessactive than those of previous genera-tions – among them the increased useof cars, a reduction in the time childrenspend playing outdoors, and theincrease in sedentary activities, such asplaying computer games and watchingtelevision. Today, young kids every-where watch an inordinate amount oftelevision. In Germany the averageviewing time of children aged 2–13 is1:31 hours a day, and among 14–19 yearolds, viewing totals 1:49 hours per day(Zubayr & Heinz 2006). In China,

youngsters watch an average of 1.8hours of television per weekday and4.2 hours on weekend days (Chan &McNeal 2004). Finally, in the US, it isestimated that 8–18 year olds spendabout 3:04 hours per day watching thetube (Rideout et al. 2005). It must bepointed out that youngsters loggingthat much time on the couch are likelyto become overweight, regardless ofwhether they are exposed to advertise-ments for chips or carrots. Clearly, oneoption for parents is to simply turn thetelevision off and encourage their kidsto go outside and get some exercise.

Another factor related to obesity isnutritional intake – which is ultimatelya matter of personal choice. The USdocumentary film Super Size Me, whichreceived tremendous media attention,chronicled the deterioration of film-maker Morgan Spurlock’s health dur-ing a month-long experiment eatingnothing but McDonald’s food. Thefilmmaker gained 24 pounds duringthe 30-day period by super-sizing hismeals and consuming 5000 calories aday. Receiving significantly less cover-age was an independent film entitledMe and Mickey D, which followed SosoWhaley as she spent 90 days on a‘McDonald’s diet’. Whaley dropped36 pounds by eating 2000 calories aday at the fast-food restaurant. NotesWhaley, ‘I couldn’t just walk in thereand say, I’ll take a cinnamon bun and aCoke … I know a lot of people arereally turned off by the whole thoughtof monitoring what they are eating, butthat’s part of the problem. The realkey was moderate exercise, andmaking healthy choices’ (quoted inLopez 2005). Clearly, the problems


aren’t with what’s on the McDonald’smenu, but the choices made from it.

At the start of his film Super Size Me,Spurlock asks ‘where personal respon-sibility ends and corporate responsibil-ity begins’. Me and Mickey D’s creatorWhaley has a brilliant response to thisquery: ‘As far as I’m concerned, per-sonal responsibility for your own lifenever ends. Besides, I don’t need somecorporation to be “responsible” for meand my actions.’ The staggering increasein childhood obesity around the globeis cause for significant concern. How-ever, to lay the bulk of the blame at thefeet of multinational food marketers isunjust. The prevalence of obesity ismulti-causal and combating it requiresa multifaceted approach – one that in-cludes the marketer and the consumer.Greater corporate responsibility – inthe form of offering healthier products,promoting them via media to theappropriate age audience, with mes-sages that contain balanced nutritionalinformation that youngsters can under-stand – is certainly called for. However,consumers must also take increasing res-ponsibility – by learning more about dietand nutrition, increasing activity levelsfor the whole family, and ultimately bymaking healthier food choices, both forthemselves and their offspring. As istrue for the marketing of other productcategories, consumers cannot com-pletely shirk their responsibility.

References

Chan, K. & McNeal, J. (2004) Advertising toChildren in China. Hong Kong: TheChinese University Press.

Food Facts (2004) Health groups warn:children at risk for junk food marketing.Nutrition and Food Science, 34(1), p. 42.

International Obesity Taskforce (2002)Obesity in Europe: the case for action.London: European Association for theStudy of Obesity. Available online athttp://www.iotf.org/media/euobesity.pdf(accessed 10 September 2007).

Jacques, J. (2006) Childhood obesity: causesand considerations. OAC News, 2(1). Avail-able online at http://www.obesityaction.org/resources/oacnews/oacnews5/coverstory.php(accessed 10 September 2007).

Kaiser Family Foundation (2004) The Roleof Media in Childhood Obesity. Washington:Kaiser Family Foundation, p. 1.

Lobstein, T., Rigby, N. & Leach, R. (2005)EU platform on diet, physical activity andhealth. London: European Association forthe Study of Obesity. Available online athttp://www.easoobesity.org/docs/report81.pdf (accessed 8 September 2007).

Lopez, K.J. (2005) Soso, so good: can womanlive on Mickey D’s alone? Availableonline at http://www.nationalreview.com/interrogatory/whaley_200506230747.asp(accessed 10 September 2007).

Rideout, V., Roberts, D. & Foehr, U.(2005) Generation M: Media in the Lives of8 to 18 Year Olds. Washington: KaiserFamily Foundation.

Spake, A. (2003) Hey kids! We’ve gotsugar and toys. US News and WorldReview, 17 November, p. 62.

Walsh, B. (2006) No longer starving inChina. Time, 18 August. Available onlineat http://time.bloggs.com/global_health/2006/08/no_longer_starv.html (accessed16 February 2007).

Zubayr, C. & Heinz, G. (2006) Tendenzenim zuschauerverhalten undfernsehgewohnheiten im jahr 2005.Media Perspektiven, 3, pp. 125–137.

Barbara Mueller is a professor in theSchool of Journalism & Media Studies atSan Diego State University.


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It’s not just PR: public relations insocietyW. Timothy Coombs and Sherry J.Holladay (2007)Blackwell Publishing, £17.99

The authors claim that this book pro-vides a balanced view of public rela-tions as neither flawless nor sinister,with practical debates about the powerissues in PR theory and practice. Theyfurther claim that the book investi-gates corporate issues in PR, and howpublic relations can be used by mar-ginalised and activist groups. I thinkthe book does exactly these things,although at times I was disappointedwith some of the content.

While I would not use such glowingterms as those employed by DebraWorley and Doug Newson – who bothclaim that the book shines a light onPR practice – it does articulate thevalue of public relations from a PRpractitioner perspective. For this rea-son alone, I would recommend it as agood read for all those in management,whether in the public, private, volun-tary or the activist domain. I wouldcertainly recommend it to my studentsat undergraduate, postgraduate andprofessional level, and it would be onthe ‘additional reading’ list for studentconsumption, although I would

recommend that it is read with qualitybooks that give a more critical approachof the profession, such as L’Etang andPieczka (2006) or Moloney (2006).

The book is generally well written,with good copy flow (in the early chap-ters). Chapter 1 provides an excellentoverview of the negative perceptionsof the PR profession, from which theauthors develop their ‘commonthemes in critiques of public relations’.I liked the balance of material pre-sented in the chapter on media con-tent analysis, anti-PR book reviews,references to PR Watch, discussion ofthe models of public relations and aprofessional/academic defence of theindustry.

Chapter 2 provides a discussion onethics in public relations. It is a well-constructed chapter providing someinteresting views and insights into pro-fessional regulations, and three generalperspectives of teleology, deontologyand the ethic of care. The authors alsoinclude more theoretical discussion onsuch issues as Grunig’s models, domi-nant coalitions, boundary spanners,publics and stakeholders and thepower of the PR professional.

Chapter 3 starts with a comment onthe history of American PR and itscorporate-centric focus, before movingto the more interesting debate on

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stakeholders and power. There is avery well explained analysis of stake-holder power and legitimacy, withsome examples from Greenpeaceand the American EnvironmentalProtection Agency.

The chapter then has 15 pages ofhistorical case studies recalling thepower of activism in American history.While I enjoyed this section (as a his-torian), some readers will ask why, in2007, we still have to read about theMuckrakers, abolitionism and temper-ance. Some might also question whythe only example of modern activismdiscussed was that of the AmericanFamily Association and their attack onthe Ford Motor Company for allegedpro-homosexual activity.

Chapter 4 is another chapter whichcreated interest but some disappoint-ment. There are very good discussionson issue management and social mar-keting theory, with good explanationof models such as Chase-Jones (1979),Crable & Vibbert (1985) and McGuire(1981). These discussions are sup-ported with some interesting casestudies. However, in this chapter, theauthors move to a less formal writingstyle in the description of the 2005–06Ready.gov website, and then introducecase studies and opinion on Nazi anti-Semitic communication and the Nazianti-tobacco campaign. The style andcontrast of writing, and the bizarre mixof case studies, does tend to detractfrom the book’s contribution.

Sadly, the final chapter on the globaleffects of public relations was descrip-tive, offering little new knowledge or

insight. The focus is public diplomacy,global activism and corporate socialresponsibility. Amazingly, it fails to dis-cuss terrorism and the use of publicrelations by terrorists and govern-ments. At the very least, I would haveexpected some discussion on terroristpropaganda, with hopefully somecritical analysis on how new publicrelations has led to peace from conflict.

So, in summary, an American PRtext with a pro-PR stance. A book Iwould recommend to practitioners andstudents, but not to fellow academics.It is interesting and informative insome chapters, but let down by differ-ing styles of writing and some datedcase studies.

References

L’Etang, J. & Pieczka, M. (2006) PublicRelations: Critical Debates andContemporary Problems. Mahwah, NJ:Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Crable R.E. & Vibbert, S.L. (1985)Managing issues and influencing publicpolicy. Public Relations Review, 11(2),pp. 3–15.

McGuire. W.J. (1981) Theoreticalfoundations of campaigns, in Rice, R.E.& Paisley, W.J. (eds) PublicCommunication Campaigns. NewburyPark, CA: Sage.

Moloney, K. (2006) Rethinking PublicRelations: PR Propaganda and Democracy(2nd edn). London: Routledge.

Andrew PurcellSchool of Communication, Universityof Ulster; Fellow of the CharteredInstitute of Public Relations.


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BOOK REVIEWS

The New Influencers:A Marketer’s Guide to theNew Social MediaPaul Gillin (2007)Quill Driver Books, £12.50

As a marketing academic, I am consis-tently frustrated by popular press (or‘airport’ books as we snobs in academiacall them) about marketing, particu-larly lately due to the reality that mar-keting as a business function seems tobe morphing into something almostforeign compared with the traditionalnotions that I learned as a student andnow impart as a professor. I find myselfhaving two responses to these booksand these changes: (1) am I just gettingold and fear change?; and (2) thechanges happen so fast and furiousthese days that I find it impossible tokeep up with them all. I’m like the oldlady trying to relive her ‘doubledutch’1 days, but unable to find thehole in the feverishly swinging jumpropes. I’m left on the sidelines waitingfor my opportunity to jump into thefray, into the discussion about thesegreat new tools and tactics, while theyounger, thinner kids slide in effort-lessly and just start jumping.

It is with this previously held levelof annoyance for practitioner booksabout marketing that I began to readThe New Influencers by Paul Gillin. Andimmediately the book began to annoyme. Consumers were referred to as‘passive’ on the first page and the age-old misconception that marketing servesmerely a message communication

function crops up early and often.Most practitioner-authors make themistake of using the term ‘marketing’when in fact they are referring to‘advertising’ or ‘public relations’. Theyrelegate the job of the ‘marketer’ tocommunicator and manager of the‘message’ while ignoring all the otherfunctions that marketing performssuch as setting prices, brand manage-ment, distribution strategy, and envi-ronmental monitoring. You would behard pressed to find one of theseauthors state that Southwest Airline’ssuccess is largely due to the fact thatthey use the same plane for everyflight (the 737), which is just as much amarketing strategy decision as the factthat Southwest has good customerservice policies and happy employees.

Unfortunately, for me and my ilk,this general ignorance with the fullfunctioning of marketing as a businessfunction seems to be largely our(marketing academics) fault. The mar-keting function is consistently margin-alised at both corporate and thebusiness education levels, in favour offinance, accounting, and informationsystems, which don’t seem to sufferthe lack of understanding to whichmarketing consistently falls prey.Accountants may be dweebs but mar-keters make kids start smoking. In theultimate stroke of irony, the field ofmarketing seems to suffer from badPR.

Having made my preconceived neg-ative biases known, I must admit thatthis is a good book, despite its limitedview of the role of marketing in thefirm as well as some other minor flawsthat I will of course also point out. In

1Double dutch is the sport of jump roping usingtwo jump ropes going simultaneously.


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fact, I enjoyed the book so much that Icontacted its author and asked him ifhe would be willing to collaborate onfuture projects. I think more collabora-tion between marketing pundits andmarketing academics would be benefi-cial to both sides. We would learn howto jump in faster and they would learnto widen their vision to include thewhole scope of marketing.

This book focuses on what Gillincalls the ‘new social media’, whichrefers to blogging, podcasting, socialnetworking, and wikis. Within thesenew social media, there are Influencersand Enthusiasts. Gillin’s basic thesis isthat marketers must learn to listen tothese groups in order to better under-stand their customers, better tailormessages to relevant stakeholdergroups, and better manage negativepress or product failures. In traditionalmarketing circles, we call these peopleopinion leaders and have been profess-ing for years that these consumersshould be cultivated, listened to,plugged in to new product develop-ment, and otherwise considered part-ners in the process.

That this new breed of opinionleaders have taken to the internet andhave the potential to create ‘blogswarms’ only magnifies the necessityfor marketers to get and remainplugged in to this highly influentialgroup of consumers. I fear marketingacademics will read this book and say‘we’ve known that for years, what’snew about it?’ My response to us (I’mincluding myself, see previous com-ments) is that if we’ve known about itfor so long why haven’t we been ableto communicate it effectively enough

to MBAs and executive education par-ticipants so that they are actuallyimplementing these tools?

Gillin relates an amusing anecdotefrom Stowe Boyd, a well-known blog-ger, who said he took a social mediadog and pony show on the road for anAmerican Marketing Association presstour but ‘dropped out early after itbecame clear that his audience wasn’tinterested’ (p. 205). He blames thelack of interest on marketers’ preoccu-pation with traditional lead generationand a feeling of being overwhelmed atthe thought of jumping in to the worldof blogs and podcasting. I would arguethat the audience members weren’tinterested because of the languagebarriers I discussed earlier. Marketersaren’t just about message delivery as isstated on p. 204; their responsibilitiesreach far wider.

Finally, is the ‘new social media’ anAmerican-centric phenomenon? As Iread the book, I kept in mind that Iwas reviewing the book for an interna-tional audience. It struck me more sothan if I were reviewing for anAmerican publication that almost allthe examples and interviewee choiceswere American. It made me wonder ifwhether this social media phenome-non was decidedly American in termsof reflecting certain cultural valuessuch as need for community, reachingout to strangers because of fractureswithin our physical social networks(high divorce rates, high mobility rates,etc.), or our overwhelming need to talk.I made a presentation to a knowledgemanagement forum entitled ‘Wikis arefrom Venus, Blogs are from Mars’, out-lining what I saw as very gendered


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BOOK REVIEWS

communication styles reflected inthese two tools.

While Gillin makes the point sev-eral times that ‘thou shalt comment’, itis still up to the communicator (theblogger in this case) to engage thecomments. He or she can choose notto. This communication pattern wouldbe seen by Deborah Tannen and oth-ers as ‘masculine’ because the conver-sation is still dominated by the speakerwith the reader/responder still rele-gated to optional status.

In summary, I found this book veryinformative, easy to read and digest,and most importantly for me as anacademic, stimulating in terms of howthe field of marketing could be bet-ter served if only marketers, bothacademic and managers, were toembrace the potential of these NewInfluencers.

Susan DobschaAssociate Professor of Marketing,Bentley College, Massachusetts

EX LIBRISMalcolm White

There’s nothing as fantastic in mybook as a book you can’t put down. Weall have our own personal favourites(mine is Wilkie Collins’ Woman inWhite), but how often is your personalfavourite a business book?

Is there anyone out there who hasfound themselves reading MalcolmGladwell’s Tipping Point or Blink intothe wee small hours? Anyone who hasmissed a meal to devour JamesSurowiecki’s The Wisdom of Crowds inone bite? Heard of anyone gettingcaught under the bedsheets, torch inhand, while finishing Freakonomics?

Fine books though they are, Ithought not.

But there is a different type of busi-ness book that has the stuff it takes tobe a personal favourite, for me anyway.They are books that I am always dip-ping into, that I can happily get lost inthe thick of, and that I can browse forhours regardless of the passing hours.Books which help me and inspire me

and excite me, and they do all of thisfor me at work.

Given the kind of deep emotionalengagement I’m talking about, itmight surprise you to know that I’mreferring to the humble referencebook, or rather to a number of humblereference books.

Reference books tend to get a badpress if you ask me. They are theworkhorses of the book world. On thefootball pitch they would be theplayer’s player, not the gifted insideforward. Of course among their num-ber would be counted the trusty dic-tionary and the well-thumbedthesaurus, but the ones I’ve got inmind are much more special than this.

First among my favourites is TheChronology of Words and Phrases: AThousand Years in the History of English,by Linda and Roger Flavell. Unlikethe magisterial Oxford EnglishDictionary, which starts from a particu-lar word and then tracks down its


debut, The Chronology of Words andPhrases starts from the other end of thetelescope. It starts from historicalevents. It then pinpoints the genesis ofparticular words, peculiar to theirpeculiar times. Take ‘pandemonium’for example, a word that makes its firstappearance as Satan’s palace inMilton’s Paradise Lost, and means‘dwelling place of all demons’. A prod-uct of its time: from 1642 to 1651,England and John Milton weregripped by the turmoil, despair, chaos,the pandemonium you might say, ofthe English Civil War.

Then there’s the wonderful A Wordin your Shell-Like: 6,000 Curious andEveryday Phrases explained, edited byNigel Rees. It’s packed full of famouscatchphrases, ad slogans, and everydayphrases. Did you know, for example,that Sherlock Holmes never actuallysaid ‘Elementary, my dear Watson’?

Proverbial Wisdom from Around theWorld, edited by David Crystal, is mythird choice. There’s much to enjoyhere, including the stark warning fromDenmark that ‘She is a foolish womanwho blames her own cabbage’.

But what links these three bookstogether is that they remind us thatwords are magic. Words, mysteriouslyand magically, give shape to ideas.

In my line of work, that makes thesedull reference books ‘unputdownable’page-turners.

References

Collins, W. (2003) The Woman in White (firstpublished 1860). London: PenguinBooks.

Crystal, D. (2006) As They Say in Zanzibar:Proverbial Wisdom from Around the World.London: Collins.

Dubner, S.J. & Levitt, S.D. (2006)Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Exploresthe Hidden Side of Everything. London:Penguin Books.

Flavell, L. & Flavell, R. (1999) TheChronology of Words and Phrases: AThousand. Years in the History of English.London: Kyle Cathie.

Gladwell, M. (2000) The Tipping Point: HowLittle Things Can Make a Big Difference.London: Little, Brown and Company.

Gladwell, M. (2005) Blink: The Power ofThinking Without Thinking. London: AllenLane.

Milton, J. (2003) Paradise Lost (firstpublished 1667). London: PenguinBooks.

Rees, N. (2004) A Word in Your Shell-Like:6,000 Curious and Everyday PhrasesExplained. London: Collins.

Surowiecki, J. (2004) The Wisdom of Crowds:Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Fewand How Collective Wisdom ShapesBusiness, Economies, Societies and Nations.London: Abacus.

Malcolm White is chairman of the AccountPlanning Group (APG), and a co-founderof the progressive communications agencykrow.

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Global economy andadspend prospects

Colin MacleodResearch Director, WARC

Within weeks of the OECD calling for an interest rate cut in the US, theFederal Reserve duly obliged in the middle of September with a half-point reduction – the first in four years and the largest since 2002. Themove was clearly designed to put an end to the crisis in the US sub-primemortgage industry which has been threatening to spill over into the widereconomy and is already beginning to impact elsewhere in the world.Meanwhile, the US housing market continues to remain depressed. Thenumber of houses built in July fell to a ten-year low, while the number ofrepossessions had almost doubled in 12 months. The labour market hasalso taken a turn for the worse with the news that the number of new jobscreated in August was 4,000 fewer than in July – the first month-on-monthdecline for four years – and forecasters are now downgrading their predic-tions for US economic growth this year. After increasing at an annual rateof 4% in the second quarter, the OECD now sees third-quarter growthslipping to 2%, and the final quarter to just 1.5%. For 2007 as a whole, theOECD is now forecasting 1.9% growth, compared with its May predictionof 2.1%.

After a strong first quarter, eurozone GDP in the second was up just0.3% quarter-on-quarter – with growth in both France and Germany beingwell below expected levels. In Italy, the situation was worse, with theeconomy expanding by just 0.1%, compared with expectations of around0.4%. Across the eurozone, growth should pick up in the second half of theyear, but the so-called ‘credit crunch’ has meant that banks here, and else-where, are becoming increasingly cautious when it comes to lendingmoney. As a result, consumer spending, and company profits, are likely to

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be hit. Business investment in the region has also weakened, slipping backin the second quarter after a 2% increase in the first.

The slowdown in the economy has meant that the predicted 1.6% con-stant price growth in US adspend this year, forecast back in the spring, hasnow been cut to 0.7% in WARC’s European Advertising and Media Forecast.By contrast, the increase in the German VAT rate at the start of the yearhas not had the expected negative impact on the economy and the 2007adspend forecast here has been revised from a 0.7% decline to growth of1.2%. The US economic climate should improve next year, and, helped bythe presidential election, adspend growth there is forecast at 2% at con-stant prices.

GAT.qxp 05/11/2007 11:39 Page 572

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GLOBAL ECONOMY AND ADSPEND PROSPECTS

Table 1: Annual % change in adspend at constant prices (US, Canada, Japan)

1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 (f) 2008 (f)

US 5.6 4.9 6.6 6.5 10.0 –10.8 0.0 1.2 4.9 –0.3 1.4 0.7 2.0

Canada 3.6 7.2 8.6 1.3 3.0 –0.3 –0.1 3.6 3.4 2.7 6.0 3.9 3.4

Japan 5.8 2.8 –4.3 –1.8 8.0 –1.1 –5.9 0.2 3.2 1.6 0.1 1.1 0.8

Table 2: Annual % change in adspend at constant prices (UK, Germany, France, Italy)

1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 (f) 2008 (f)

UK 5.3 7.9 7.3 4.7 9.3 –5.0 –0.7 2.3 6.4 1.7 –0.8 1.5 1.4

Germany 0.1 1.9 4.2 4.6 6.4 –9.4 –10.2 –5.9 –0.3 –0.7 2.0 1.2 0.8

France 1.0 2.5 1.0 9.8 8.3 –6.5 –3.3 –1.5 2.6 1.3 1.9 1.6 1.5

Italy 5.5 9.2 8.1 12.1 14.8 –5.3 –6.1 0.5 5.2 1.2 –1.4 0.9 1.3

Source for all tables: WARC European Advertising and Media Forecast (www.warc.com/EAMF)

Adspend figures exclude direct mail

GAT.qxp 05/11/2007 11:39 Page 573

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%

Figure 1: Annual % change in adspend at constant prices (US, Canada, Japan)

–12

–10

–8

–6

–4

–2

0

2

4

6

8

10

JapanCanadaUS

2008(f)

2007(f)

20062005200420032002200120001999199819971996

%

Figure 2: Annual % change in adspend at constant prices (UK, Germany, France, Italy)

–12

–9

–6

–3

0

3

6

9

12

15

ItalyFranceGermanyUK

2008(f)

2007(f)

20062005200420032002200120001999199819971996

GAT.qxp 05/11/2007 11:39 Page 574

Grimes.qxp 16/02/2007 13:46 Page 220

World AdvertisingResearch Centereverything you’ll ever want to know about

the advertising business…

See for yourself at www.warc.com and take a 7 day free trial

...all in one place.

International Journal of Advertising

CALL FOR PAPERS

Special Edition on the Advertising and the Brain

Guest EditorsDr Gemma Calvert, Reader in Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Bath, UK

Dr Peter Kenning, Professor of Marketing, University of Muenster, GermanyDr Carl Marci, Chief Science Officer, Innerscope Research, USA

Advertising works in two ways: it may trigger some immediate response and/or change the

respondent’s brand memories in some way that influences later behaviour. This special

issue of the International Journal of Advertising (IJA) seeks to draw on new findings from

both neuroscience and psychology (N&P) to help academics, agencies and advertisers

better understand how advertisements are processed, how brand memories are stored and

the subsequent behavioural effects. The objective of the IJA special issue is to investigate

how to deploy neuroscience and insights from psychology to produce advance MARCOMS

theory and practice.

Empirical and/or theoretical papers are invited by the IJA on any aspect of N&P in relation

to advertising with a greater weighting towards neuroscience. For guidance, here are some

suggested topics:

1. N&P and how advertising works (e.g. contribution to brand equity).

2. N&P and selective perception.

3. Effectiveness of MARCOMS and N&P.

4. N&P and the effectiveness of media planning.

5. Negative messages (such as political advertising) compared to positive and N&P.

6. N&P communications processing in different media (e.g. print, TV, radio, sales

promotions).

7. N&P communications research methods – best practice.

8. Case studies illustrating the practical use of N&P.

9. Interaction effects between media and N&P.

10. Ethical issues and implications in the use of N&P in the MARCOMS business.

Please note that papers that are selected for this special issue will be eligible for the annual

Best Paper Prize of $1000, as voted by the Editorial Board.

SubmissionsAll submissions must conform to the guidelines of the International Journal of Advertising.

For details see www.InternationalJournalofAdvertising.com.

Manuscripts should be sent to the guest editors at the following address:

[email protected]. The closing date for submissions is 1 February, 2008.

For all enquiries contact the Production Editor, International Journal of AdvertisingWorld Advertising Research Center,Farm Road, Henley on Thames, Oxfordshire, RG9 1EJ

Tel: 01491 418688 Email: [email protected] www.internationaljournalofadvertising.com

Extended deadline

1 February 2008

GAT.qxp 05/11/2007 11:39 Page 576

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