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The purpose of this paper is to provide a model of consumer response to music in broadcast commercials outlining four variables (listening situation, musical stimulus, listener characteristics, and advertising processing strategy) that affect a consumer's attitude toward the advertising music (A_am).

The paper takes the form of an integrative review of the relevant literatures from the psychology of music, marketing, and advertising.

A_am can be positively but also negatively influenced by many factors. Only some of these variables are employed in any typical study on consumer response to music, which may account for some conflicting findings.

The paper discusses factors for effectively using commercial music to affect A_am, with special focus on advertising processing strategy. Advertisers are urged to exercise extreme caution in using music and to always pretest its use considering factors identified in this paper. The paper suggests ways in which the model can guide future research.

The paper integrates diverse literatures and outlines the major variables comprising our model of consumer response to advertising music. Advertisers can use these variables as a checklist for factors to consider in selecting ad music.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how value‐based messaging affects brand associations within a durable goods category.

Brand associations are conceptualized in this paper as brand image, brand attitudes, and consumer quality perceptions. A 2×2 factorial design was employed with cognitive involvement (high/low) and advertising message (brand/value) as the experimental factors.

Results suggest that promotional‐based messaging is detrimental to all three brand associations, with quality ratings witnessing the most significant declines. In addition, the current study observed no significant effects of involvement, as measured by attention to the message, on brand association measures for value‐based messaging when compared with brand messaging.

The current study suggests that promotional‐messaging can be detrimental to brand association measures, compared with non‐value‐based brand messaging within a durable goods category. More research is needed to understand the long‐term effects of different levels of usage of promotional‐based messaging as part of the marketing mix.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how message framing is commonly used by magazine advertisers.

Following the classification suggested by Levin et al., the frequency and nature of message framing in magazine advertising is explored using a content analysis of 2,864 advertisements in a sample of popular US magazines.

Results suggest a lack of consistency between marketing practice and academic findings. Contrary to academic recommendations, advertisers used positive framing in almost all advertising messages. Further, the use of attribute framing and combined attribute and goal framing was more popular than pure goal framing

Although the findings are limited by a judgement sample of US magazines, they do suggest the need for academics to conduct more research on the effectiveness of combined attribute and goal framing techniques.

Of equal importance is the need for practitioners to explore the potentiality of negative framing in their advertising content.

Adopting the Levin et al.'s typology, this paper highlights the need for advertising researchers to engage with practitioners to try to understand current industry practice with regard to message framing. The inconsistencies revealed in this paper point to either an insufficient understanding of message framing by one or both parties or the need for better communication between the two.

This study develops and tests a theoretical research model delineating the relationships between consumers' patriotism and their response to patriotic advertising and the advertised brand, and examines if the research model has the same pattern across different sporting events. Structural Equation Modeling is employed to test the model by using data collected from three different sporting event contexts. The results provide empirical evidence of the positive influence of consumers' patriotism on attitudes towards patriotic advertising and brands in sporting event contexts. A direct effect of patriotism on sports event involvement is found in international mega-sporting events but not in a domestic (or national) sporting event.

Increasing consumer skepticism of corporate behavior has led companies to actively manage and advertise their corporate brands. However, it remains unclear how receptive consumers across different markets are to such efforts. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate differences and similarities between corporate and product advertising by examining consumer ad involvement (AI) levels (a motivational state activated by the personal relevance of stimuli) and its antecedents and consequences for these ad types across two markets with varying degrees of economic development.

Using a 2 (ad type: corporate vs product) × 2 (market type: developed vs emerging) between-subject experimental design, the study was conducted in two markets with varying degrees of economic development, specifically, the USA (n=285) and Pakistan (n=311).

Results show that consumer involvement with corporate ads varies for developed (USA: high) and emerging (Pakistan: low) markets but that it remains the same for product ads across markets. Developed market consumers tend to be as involved with corporate ads as they are with product ads, whereas emerging market consumers are more involved with product ads than with corporate ads. Aside from differences in involvement levels, the findings demonstrate substantial similarities in the antecedents and consequences of consumer involvement for both ad (corporate vs product) and market (developed vs emerging) types.

With advertising and communication campaigns increasingly being standardized across different markets, this study demonstrates that corporate messages do not function similar as product messages across markets. For effective corporate campaigns, ad designs should fit with the motivation levels of the target consumers across markets.

This study demonstrates the differences and similarities between corporate and product AI across a developed and an emerging market.

Social media have become an increasingly important venue for prosocial campaigns. Competing for the public’s attention in the digital space is an ongoing challenge. This study aims to test the influence of ad-context congruence, ad position and ad type (i.e. public service advertising [PSA] vs cause-related brand [CRB] advertising) on the effectiveness of prosocial native advertising on social media.

Two experiments were conducted on different social media platforms (i.e. Twitter and Instagram) with varied prosocial issues (i.e. healthy eating and environmental sustainability).

Experiment 1 indicated that the congruence between prosocial native ads and social media feeds elicited greater ad involvement and a more favorable ad attitude, regardless of ad position. Experiment 2 revealed that such an impact was contingent on whether the prosocial native ad was a public service ad or a CRB ad. The positive influence of ad-context congruence was pronounced among public service ads but was not observed among CRB ads. Perceived ad involvement mediated the interaction effects between ad-context congruence and ad type on ad attitude and behavioral intention.

The study extends ad-context congruence research to the context of prosocial native advertising on social media. Moreover, it identifies ad type as a boundary condition for the congruence effects and reveals that increased ad involvement is the mechanism underlying the positive effect of congruent PSA.

The purpose of this investigation is to add to the body of knowledge regarding consumer skepticism toward advertising in general, and toward pharmaceutical advertising in particular. The study was conducted in the U.S. and in Germany. Skepticism toward advertising for both prescription and non-prescription pharmaceuticals was analyzed. Additional variables explored include: health consciousness, product involvement with pharmaceuticals, satisfaction with information in pharmaceutical advertising, and the importance of pharmaceutical advertising as a source of information. Furthermore, differences in the cultural value of uncertainty avoidance between U.S. and German consumers were examined and related to skepticism toward pharmaceutical advertising. Three hundred and forty-one Americans and 447 Germans were surveyed. A significant finding of this research revealed that skepticism toward pharmaceutical advertising is lower than skepticism toward advertising in general. Results also indicated that consumers showed no difference in their level of skepticism toward advertising for prescription versus non-prescription drugs. This is a particularly relevant finding as it relates directly to the ongoing discussion in Europe regarding whether or not to lift the ban on advertising for prescription drugs. Skepticism toward pharmaceutical advertising was found to be significantly negatively related to involvement with pharmaceuticals, to satisfaction with the informational content of the advertisements, to satisfaction with the comprehensibility of the advertisements, and to the importance placed on advertising as a source of health information. Regarding cultural differences, U.S. consumers appear to be less skeptical toward advertising in general, and toward advertising for prescription and non-prescription drugs in particular, than German consumers. This may be due to the lower degree of uncertainty avoidance in the U.S. Differences between the two countries related to the additional variables examined in the study are addressed as well. Implications for consumer protection policies are discussed, and recommendations for advertisers of pharmaceutical products are provided. The authors provide a cultural explanation for differences in the degree of skepticism between U.S. and German audiences.

The purpose of this research is to examine the influence of direct comparative advertising on brand information processing and purchase intentions compared with that of indirect comparative advertising in non‐forced exposure conditions.

The overall sample of 240 female consumers (aged between 25 and 51 years, and representative of French women in terms of region and profession) was divided into two equal groups. These two groups viewed a televised montage that followed GfK's pretest methodology for TV advertising (a 20‐minute television show, an advertising break with seven commercials, a short questionnaire, a 20‐minute television show, an advertising break with four commercials, and a longer questionnaire), which favors a low involvement context in laboratory conditions. These two groups were respectively exposed to two 20‐second ads for a well‐known challenger brand (identical except for whether they name the leading brand and its price or “brand X” without price information).

This research provides original evidence that the comparative ad that cites the name and price of the leading brand increases purchase intentions for the sponsored brand, more than an equivalent that uses brand X. This effect operates through an increased probability of message processing, which in turn enhances the perceived compelling character of ad content.

Despite the many studies of comparative advertising in existing literature, little research has been devoted to the potential alternative of replacing a “brand X” designation with the name of a competing brand. Moreover, previous research often includes participants (e.g. students) engaged in deliberate processing of a single advertisement in conditions of artificial exposure.

Previous green research shows conflicting results regarding the relationship between environmental concern and persuasion. It has also largely overlooked the role of situational involvement. The purpose of this paper is to aim to show that message involvement influences attitude towards green advertisements.

To test the proposed model, an experimental study based on a sample of young adults in an emerging economy was used to investigate if situational involvement can produce favourable attitudes towards green advertisements.

Using PLS, it was found that fear and response efficacy increased message involvement which in turn was a significant predictor of attitude towards the advertisement. The findings show that advertisers can use these variables to increase message involvement.

This research extends previous studies on message involvement and expands current knowledge by showing that situational involvement predicts attitude towards green advertising.

In order to analyse consumer response to differing levels of comparative advertising, we have designed a causal model that includes various measurements of advertising effectiveness (cognitive, affective and connative), along with some of the main moderating factors considered in prior academic research. Thus, we carried out an experimental study in Spain using a total sample of 720 consumers spread out over four large geographical areas of the country. The results drawn from estimating the proposed model indicate that the greater the comparative advertising intensity, the lower the consumer’s perception of believability. Likewise, the number of counter‐arguments presented by the consumer increases, which negatively affects both attitudes and purchase intentions. However, the less well‐known brands on the market are those that benefit most from this advertising strategy, increasing the audience’s attention and improving purchase intentions.