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To date, the cultural and societal effects of controversial advertising have been insufficiently considered. This study aims to investigate how advertising that uses violent representations of women transgresses the taboo of gender-based violence.

This study encompasses a visual analysis of the subject positions of women in five violent advertising representations and a critical discourse analysis of the defensive statements provided by the client organisations subsequent to the public outrage generated by the campaigns.

The authors identify taboo transgression in the Tease, Piece of Meat and Conquered subject positions, wherein women are represented as suggestive, dehumanised and submissive. Client organisations seek to defend these taboo transgressions through the use of three discursive strategies – subverting interpretations, making authority claims and denying responsibility – which legitimise the control of the organisations but simultaneously work to obscure the power relations at play.

The representational authority that advertisers hold as cultural intermediaries in society highlights the need for greater consideration of the ethical responsibilities in producing controversial advertisements, especially those which undermine the status of women.

Controversial advertising that transgresses the taboo of violence against women reinforces gender norms and promotes ambiguous and adverse understandings of women’s subjectivities by introducing pollution and disorder to gender politics.

This paper critically assesses the societal implications of controversial advertising practices, thus moving away from the extant focus on managerial implications. Through a conceptualisation of controversial advertising as transgressing taboo boundaries, the authors highlight how advertising plays an important role in shifting these boundaries whereby taboos come to be understood as generative and evolving. However, this carries moral implications which may have damaging societal effects.

Informed by social representation theory, the study aims to explore how marketing workers represent their activities on social media.

A naturalistic data set of 17,553 messages posted on Twitter by advertising workers was collected. A sample of over 1,000 unique messages from this data set, incorporating all external links and images, was analysed inductively using structured thematic analysis.

Advertising workers represent marketing work as a series of fun yet constrained activities involving relationships with clients and colleagues. They engage in cognitive polyphasia by evaluating these productive differences in both a positive and negative light.

The study marks a novel use of social representation theory and innovative social media analysis. Further research should explore these relations in greater depth by considering the networks that marketing workers create on social media and establish how, when and why marketing workers turn to social media in their everyday activities.

Marketing workers choose to represent aspects of their work to one another, using social media. Marketing managers should support such activities and consider social media as a way to understand the lives and experiences of marketing workers.

Marketing researchers have embraced digital media as a route to understanding consumers. This study demonstrates the value of analysing digital media to develop an understanding of marketing work. It sheds new light on the ways marketing workers create social relationships and enables marketing managers to understand and observe the social aspects of effective marketing.

This essay refers to working practices in advertising agency research as a source of reflection on representational practices in the wider worlds of consumer research. The representational conventions of “the essay” allow the paper’s exploratory theme to be developed through the use of several speculative but connected analogies. “Divergence” refers to the differing conventions of representation that obtain within advertising agencies. The counterpoint between artistic representation and empirical fact that was a foundation of Oscar Wilde’s writing is used to indicate an important aspect of this divergence. Finally, the hermeneutic circle of consumer research is offered as an integrating perspective. The essay thus explores divergence in the representational practices of advertising and consumer research in order to explore the preconditions for convergence.

In a number of recent multi-billion dollar cases brought against cigarette manufacturers, plaintiffs have in part alleged that the cigarette manufacturers (1) conspired not to compete on the basis of health claims or the introduction of potentially safer cigarettes since the 1950s, and (2) engaged in fraudulent advertising by making implied health claims in advertisements selling ‘low tar’/‘light’ cigarettes. In this type of litigation, defendants’ actions could be due to alleged illegal behaviour as asserted by plaintiffs, or be the result of market forces that may have nothing to do with allegedly inappropriate acts. We examine the economic evidence relating to these allegations, taking into account some of the major influences on cigarette company behaviour. In particular, our analyses show that much of the cigarette manufactures’ behaviour can be explained by Federal Trade Commission and related government actions, rather than conspiracy or fraudulent acts. We find the economic evidence is inconsistent with an effective conspiracy to suppress information on either smoking and health or the development and marketing of potentially safer cigarettes. Regarding ‘lower tar’ and ‘light’ cigarettes, the economic evidence indicates that the cigarette manufacturers responded to government and public health initiatives, and that disclosing more information on smoking compensation earlier than the cigarette companies did would not have had any significant impact on smoking behaviour.

This study aims to explore the impact of women empowerment and gender-stereotypical advertising exposure on consumers’ attitudes and purchase intents.

The quantitative research approach was used to assess the women-empowerment and gender-stereotypical advertising on consumers’ attitudes and purchase intentions, explicating the most effective approach in marketing communication in the Arab context, specifically Egypt. Administrated questionnaires were distributed online cross-gender through the use of convenience sampling. The targeted average sample size sought was minimum of 370. Once the data was acquired, partial least square path modelling of structural equation modelling was conducted to test the hypotheses.

Results show that male consumers and female consumers react to a certain extent differently to women-empowerment and gender-stereotypical advertisings. For instance, gender-stereotypical advertisings effect attitude for both genders; it effects male consumers’ purchase intentions, but not female consumers. Women empowerment advertising is insignificant on brand attitude and purchase intention among male consumers; among female consumers, it has significant impact on brand attitude, but not purchase intention. Nevertheless, both categories of advertising contribute to male consumers’ and female consumers’ perception and attitude towards gender role portrayal.

This study provides noteworthy insights and perspectives on women-empowerment (Femvertising) and gender-stereotypical advertising effects on cross-gender consumers in the Arab region (a region of strong masculine culture values). The emerged conclusions aid as a reference and guide for scholars and practitioners to develop effective advertising that create prospect depictions and build inspired female customer base.

This paper examines visual representation in marketing communication from a distinctive, interdisciplinary perspective that draws on ethics, visual studies and critical race theory. An ontological approach is offered as an alternative to phenomenologically based approaches in marketing scholarship that use consumer responses to generate data. Suggests ways to clarify complex issues of representational ethics in marketing by applying a semiotically‐based analysis that places ontological identity at the center of societal marketing concerns. Analyzes representations of the exotic Other in disparate marketing campaigns, including advertising, tourist promotions and music, as examples of bad faith marketing strategy. Music is an important force in marketing communication, yet marketing studies have rarely considered music and its visual representations as data for inquiry. Feels that considering visual representation within marketing from an ontological standpoint contributes additional insight into societal marketing and places global marketing processes within the intersection of ethics, aesthetics and representation.

Plus-size women represent a large consumer segment that has grown in popularity with the fashion industry, retailers and advertisers. Despite advancements in clothing availability for plus-sized women, the shopping experience for these women (compared with that of straight-size women) often still falls short. The current experience leaves plus-sized women feel like a second-class, minority group despite the fact that the majority of women in USA are considered plus-size. The purpose of this study was to assess how US-based, value- and mid-market online clothing retailers position their plus-size female clothing sections in their site navigation.

This study assessed the websites of N = 68 popular plus- and straight-sized US-based, value- and mid-market retailers to evaluate the placement of, and options available in, their plus-sized clothing sections.

Findings revealed that the majority of retailers completely separated out the plus-sized section from the straight-sized section and that the language used to describe plus-size clothing was body-focused (versus clothing-focused for straight-size clothing sections). Theoretical and practical implications for marketers, advertisers and retailers are discussed.

This is the first study to assess the separation of plus- and straight-sized clothing sections in online retail spaces. As brands begin to consider combining plus- and straight-sized clothing sections (see Old Navy), it is important to assess how wide-spread the separation of sections currently is in online retail environments.

Highlights the need for services advertising to receive more attention from marketing practitioners.Adapts a previously‐developed classification scheme of services for advertising. Assesses service characteristics of relevance in advertising. Develops a series of guidelines for managers seeking to develop effective services advertising.

This purpose of this paper is to explore how Western design, fashion and aesthetic styles influenced advertising practice in Turkey in the post-Second World War era. Specifically, the authors focus on the key targets of the consumerist ideology of the period, women and discuss the representations of females in Turkish advertisements.

Data were analysed using a combination of social semiotic and compositional analysis methods. Compositional analysis focused on the formal qualities and design elements of the ads; social semiotic analysis sought to uncover their meaning potentials in relation to social, cultural, political and economic dynamics of the period. The advertisements of a prominent Turkish pasta brand, Piyale, published in the local adaptation of the American Life magazine, between 1956 and 1966, constitute the data set.

The analysis reveals that Piyale followed the stylistic and thematic trends prevailing in American and European advertisements at the time and crafted ads that constructed and communicated a Westernized image of Turkish women and families. In line with the cultural currents of the 1950s and 1960s, the ads emphasize patriarchal gender roles and traditional family values and address the woman as a consumer whose priority is to please her husband and take good care of her children.

This study contributes to the advertising history in non-Western contexts and provides an understanding of the influence Western advertising conventions and fashion trends had on developing country markets. The findings indicate that Western-inspired representations and gender roles dominated advertisements of local brands during the post-war period.

This paper offers an ethical analysis of visual representation that provides criteria for and sheds light on the appropriateness dimension of marketing communications. It provides a theoretically informed framework for recognizing and understanding ethical issues in visual representation.

An interdisciplinary conceptual review and analysis focuses on four representational conventions, synthesizing ethical concerns, to provide a broader context for recognizing and understanding ethical issues in marketing representation: face‐ism, idealization, exoticization and exclusion. This framework is discussed and applied to marketing communications.

It argues that valuations of communication appropriateness must be informed by an awareness of the ethical relationship between marketing representations and identity. It is no longer satisfactory to associate advertising solely with persuasion, rather advertising must be seen as a representational system, with pedagogical as well as strategic functions. We conclude by discussing the theoretical, research, and managerial implications that arise from an ethics of visual representation.

Urges moving beyond an advertising=persuasion model to encompass representation and culture in marketing communication studies. Contributes to understanding the ethical implications of marketing communication. Challenges marketers and researchers to broaden their conception of marketing communication to one more consistent with an image economy.