Search results

Few studies illustrate how contextual effects (e.g. assimilation and contrast) in pay-per-click ad design may impact consumers' attitudes and purchase intention. To fill this research gap, the authors provide theoretical predictions and empirical evidence on how ad design may prompt an assimilation and/or a contrast effect that may influence consumers' attitudes toward the ad and the brand and purchase intention. They also investigate whether the impact of contextual effects on consumers' decisions depends on the level of vividness in the ad.

A 2 (vividness: dynamic motion vs. static page) × 2 (information design: assimilation vs. contrast) × 2 (aesthetic design: assimilation vs. contrast) between-subjects experimental design is used to examine the effects of vividness, information design and aesthetic design. Conditional process analysis is used to assess the mediating role of attitudes toward the ad and the brand in the relationship between contextual effects and purchase intention.

For dynamic ads (i.e. high vividness) but not for static ads (i.e. low vividness), combined information contrast and aesthetic contrast designs generate a more favorable attitude toward the brand and a higher purchase intention than do combined information assimilation and aesthetic assimilation designs. Notably, combined information contrast and aesthetic contrast designs have the strongest effects than any other combination of assimilation and contrast designs of information and aesthetics. Attitudes toward the ad and the brand are significant mediators between contextual factors and intention to purchase.

The study examines the effectiveness of online ads from a new theoretical angle based on the attributes of pay-per-click ads.

The results suggest that when advertisers decide to use dynamic ads, they should adopt a contrast design for both the ad information and its aesthetics.

This study fills a research gap in the contextual effects literature, including providing evidence of an underlying process in the relationship between certain contextual effects and purchase intent. It also extends previous findings of assimilation/contrast in information design to aesthetics design and advances the literature on vividness by examining a moderation effect of vividness.

This article presents a study of the trademark lawsuits in Singapore involving the Polo/Lauren Company, L.P. (“PRL”) in their attempts to stop various competitors and businesses from using the word “polo” and/or a device of a polo player. Hitherto, there has not been any concerted study of these lawsuits that seeks to analyse the legal principles underpinning the case judgements and translate them into actionable marketing insights using both legal and marketing perspectives. Applying both of such perspectives through the domains of trademark law, consumer attitudes towards counterfeiting and marketing perspectives, such as targeting, promotion and pricing strategies, this article will distill practical and managerial implications for marketers in the luxury brand industry.

An interdisciplinary approach is adopted, using both legal and marketing frameworks to analyse the decisions, reasoning and implications from the PRL trademark lawsuits.

There are key practical considerations for marketers and luxury brand managers to consider, both at the conception and during the life cycle of the luxury brand, in order to optimise the level of legal protection under the trademark regime. These include the use of invented words and imaginary content in trademarks, exercising a balancing of various considerations in the use of “composite marks”, and the selection of market pricing, promotion and distribution strategies, which are elaborated in the article.

Given the commonality of the subject matter involved in the trademark lawsuits involving PRL (i.e. the use of the word “polo” and/or the device of a polo player), this study has chosen to focus only on these lawsuits in the context of the Singapore market, and based on Singapore's legal framework, to glean thematic and practical insights. Further studies based on other types of businesses, geographical markets and legal frameworks could be explored to form a better basis for the applicability and comparability of the findings.

While there have been case studies and analyses performed on some of the individual PRL trademark lawsuits around the world, this will be the first study to look at the series of Singapore PRL lawsuits in a holistic and interdisciplinary perspective.