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A number of types of scarcity messages are often used in Internet advertisements, but all these types have not been directly compared to each other.

College students (n = 789) were surveyed about five advertising choices for luxury skin-care products consisting of scarcity messages of high-demand, low-stock, limited-time, countdown timer and regular advertising without any scarcity message. Outcomes were product classification attitudes of functional and symbolic and psychological attitudes of persuasion knowledge and advertising skepticism.

The study found that high-demand message had greater functional attitudes and greater symbolic attitudes than regular advertising. Limited-time message had greater symbolic attitudes than regular advertising. High-demand message had lower advertising skepticism attitudes than regular advertising.

The authors recommend that when a luxury skin-care product is in high demand, that marketers should use high-demand messages in their advertising. Marketers of luxury skin-care products may also benefit from using limited-time message advertisements.

This is the first study to directly compare the scarcity message advertising types of high-demand, low-stock, limited-time, countdown timer with regular advertising without any scarcity message.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how advertising is used by real estate companies as an instrument for managing the adverse effects of a catastrophe.

Through a theoretical analysis, types of post-disaster advertising messages were identified. On the basis of the likely variations in post-disaster advertising, a content analysis was conducted of a sample of 4,150 property print advertisements to identify advertising messages related to the earthquake. Finally, the message changes in these earthquake-related advertisements were evaluated and compared with the dimension of time to explore the development of advertising strategies.

The authors found that 12 types of advertising messages were used by developers in response to the Wenchuan earthquake. The initial advertising strategy was mainly to manage public relations, then the strategy was to reduce or compensate for the increased earthquake risk perceptions of buyers.

The findings provide valuable references for helping enterprises adopt effective advertising messages and strategies to reduce the negative effects of disasters.

There are only a few studies on advertising campaigns, especially in the real estate industry, that have been conducted in the wake of catastrophes. This study sought to expand upon the scarce findings in this particular field.

The purpose of this paper is to present an empirical assessment of the diffusion of advertising messages on microblogging sites. The diffusion properties of advertising messages are quantified based on the following three aspects: diffusion breadth, depth, and speed. Furthermore, this study examines the influence of message- and advertiser-level factors on the diffusion of advertising messages.

The study data comprises 20,000 advertising messages that are randomly drawn from a popular microblogging web site in China. Five message-level factors and four advertiser-level factors are constructed based on the information retrieved from the microblogging web site. Generalized linear modeling is adopted to examine the effects of such factors on the diffusion properties of advertising messages.

The positive driving forces underlying the diffusion of advertising messages on microblogging sites include message length, the advertisers’ in-degrees, and their reputation. The diffusion of advertising messages is hampered by typicality, affectivity, the completeness of the information of the advertising messages, and advertisers’ out-degrees.

To achieve optimal diffusion on microblogging sites, advertisers should select the appropriate time windows for releasing advertising messages. Moreover, advertisers should actively increase the number of fans, use less typical and less emotional words in advertising messages, and eliminate unnecessary URLs in such messages.

This study contributes to the diffusion theory by identifying the mixed effects of different information attributes on the diffusion of advertising messages on microblogging sites, and examining the roles of advertisers’ structural characteristics in the diffusion of advertising messages. Furthermore, the results illustrate how consumers cope with the advertisers’ sales presentations on microblogging sites.

This study aims to examine the effects of risk disclosure and call to action (i.e. encouraging individuals to consult a health provider before they make any purchase decision) on young adults’ cognitive and behavioral responses to dietary supplement advertising.

A 2 (risk disclosure: absence vs presence) × 2 (call to action: absence vs presence) between-subjects online experiment was conducted with 124 college-attending young adults.

Including risk disclosure in probiotic supplement advertising increased young adults’ perceived message credibility, intentions to ask a medical doctor and sense of confidence in decision-making. The addition of call to action in probiotic supplement advertising improved perceived message credibility, trust in advertised brand, favorable attitude toward brand, intention to ask a medical doctor and purchase intention; however, a significant joint effect was not found between risk disclosure and call to action.

Although risk disclosure and call to action are significant techniques in pharmaceutical and health-care marketing, they have been overlooked by both research and practice of dietary supplement marketing. This study closes this gap by providing empirical evidence to generate a clear idea about the benefits of including risk disclosure and call to action in dietary supplement advertising.

Differences in cultural values may result in perceptual differences and thus necessitate the use of different advertising message strategies in different cultures. This paper tests the relationship between cultural values and advertising message strategies employed in service advertising using the affective response approach, rather than content analysis. The results show that Hong Kong advertisers use significantly more transformational messages than in US services advertising. Advertising message strategies and cultural values often relate in a non‐random way. Informational message strategy and realistic culture are found to be strongly associated. When societies are more materialistic, advertisers are more likely to use transformational messages due to the high correlation between materialism and brand image. The result also shows that masculine culture, and cultures with long‐term orientation, idealism or low individualism are more likely to adopt transformational message strategy.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the application of advertising variation and repetition strategies in the context of communicating about social issues in least developed countries (LDCs).

Study 1 used a between-subjects experimental study using 106 students which were exposed to either the varied advertising condition (a negative appeal followed by a positive appeal or vice versa) or repetition condition (two negative appeals). In Study 2, a total of 111 students from Tilburg University and 95 students from Addis Ababa University participated in the study. A random ordering of experimental envelopes assigned the students to one of the following message order conditions (negative appeal–positive appeal, negative appeal–negative appeal, positive appeal–positive appeal and positive appeal–negative appeal).

Study 1 shows that for many social issues, an advertising variation strategy (a negative appeal followed by a positive appeal) is more effective than an advertising repetition strategy (two negative appeals) in terms of recall. Study 2 builds on these findings by differentiating between taboo and non-taboo issues. This distinction is important because many social issues, such as HIV, domestic violence and child abuse, for instance, are taboo in LDCs. Interestingly, the findings of Study 1 are reproduced for non-taboo issues but not for taboo issues. If an issue is a conversational taboo in a certain culture, then an advertising repetition strategy that only uses positive appeals is more effective than an advertising variation strategy.

The use of students as participants may be a limitation of both studies. Because the reactions of students to specific message appeals may be age-related, concerns regarding the generalizability of the findings are justified.

Overall, the results of this paper provide useful information to social advertisers on when and how to use different types of advertising strategies in LDCs.

Luxury brands seek to differentiate themselves from competitors by engaging in corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices. Although many luxury brands participate in CSR activities, it is unclear if luxury brands communicate these CSR activities to consumers. Therefore, this study aims to explore two questions: are luxury jewelry brands communicating CSR (including women’s empowerment) in their advertising? And how should luxury jewelry brands communicate CSR messages in their advertising?

This paper uses a content analysis of luxury jewelry print advertisements and in-depth interviews with 20 female jewelry consumers analyzed using grounded theory to construct the luxury brand CSR advertising strategies theory.

Very few (3%) of print advertisements contain CSR messages, including femvertising and the theory presents four paths for brands to consider when promoting CSR practices, namely, ethical sourcing, cause-related marketing product, a signal of product care and quality and signal of an authentic relationship with the consumer.

The model provides four potential CSR advertising strategies and guidelines luxury jewelry brands can use to create successful advertising campaigns.

Luxury jewelry advertising has not been empirically examined and the study fills gaps in the understanding of luxury brands’ communication strategies. It adds to the knowledge and theorizing of the use and appropriateness of CSR appeals in a luxury brand context.

In recent years, neurophysiological tools have been vastly applied in sport marketing research. Eye tracking, a pervasive sensor technology, has received a growing interest to examine the effects of advertising through sport on viewer attention. While there is a plethora of evidence in advertising that supports the positive effects of various advertising types and locations on viewer attention in various sport contexts, little is known about the role of a prosocial overlay ad on viewer attention when watching televised football matches. Therefore, this research aims to examine the differences in viewers' attention (i.e. fixation and duration) with regard to game attractiveness and colors of the prosocial message during televised football matches.

To identify the research gap, the authors first reviewed the relevant sport marketing and neuroscience research on advertising effectiveness. The authors selected a prosocial message displayed. Adopting an experimental research design and using eye tracking, this study examined the impacts of game attractiveness and colors of message on viewer attention to the prosocial message displayed on an overlay advertisement during a football match.

The authors found that the colors of prosocial messages and game attractiveness had significant effects on viewer attention to the prosocial message.

In this study, the authors sought to add advertisement color, as well as game attractiveness, to the extant knowledge in marketing literature as effective advertising factors in capturing viewers' attention. These variables can offer marketers new insights in designing effective advertisements for the context of televised sports events in a specialized field.

The study aims to identify and explore the antecedents to short message service (SMS) advertising acceptance as an effect to the entire process of communicating the SMS ad.

The study follows a sequential mixed-methods approach, starting with qualitative interviews, to build the research model following the grounded theory approach and then a quantitative survey study to apply the model to two types of ads (discount and notification ads).

Perceived value, ad trust and channel acceptance are crucial to the attitude towards SMS ads. Relevance, content, brand equity and perceived usefulness are significant triggers to perceived value and trust, with an emphasis on importance of brand equity in trusting discount ads.

Accurate targeting and personalisation are crucial to ensure that SMS ads are useful and relevant to recipients. SMS advertising is more effective when the recipients are already connected with the brand. Including the brand name as the sender increases both value and trust. Transparency and adequate information are important for gaining trust especially for discount ads.

The study proposes an integrative model for SMS advertising acceptance after a rigorous consideration of all elements in the process of communicating the SMS ad following the GTA. The study also highlights the differences between the acceptance models for discount and notification ads.

This paper aims to examine when and how the number of “likes” can exert significant influence on consumer evaluations of social media advertising. It sheds a novel perspective on how social media “likes”, advertising disclosures and the presence of firm-serving motives influence advertising effectiveness.

Study 1 examines how the number of “likes” influences consumer attitudes towards the sponsoring brand by strengthening advertising credibility, when social media ads are effectively (vs non-effectively) disclosed. Study 2 further establishes how the influence of the number of “likes” for effectively disclosed ads varies depending on whether the company states (vs does not state) its firm-serving motives.

The authors found that a social media ad displayed with a higher number of “likes” is perceived to be more credible, which can then yield more positive attitudes towards the brand. However, the use of effective disclosures moderates this relationship. To offset this effect, companies can restore the value of “likes” by stating their firm-serving motives openly when they develop social media advertising messages.

The study offers a novel perspective on how consumers evaluate the number of displayed “likes” in the context of other social media features.

The study shows how social media marketers can become more effective in taking advantage of the number of “likes” that they accumulate on social networking site platforms.

The study illustrates a novel mechanism behind how and when the number of “likes” can influence the effectiveness of social media advertising.