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Explores gender specific attitudes toward the ad and attitudes toward the brand under varying degrees of female nudity in ad treatment conditions. Shows that while female nudity is extremely common in women′s magazines, men are not only far more positive than women in their attitude toward an ad using explicit female nudity, but also stronger in their positive feelings toward the product and the brand. Finds that women are far more tense than men when exposed to overt female nudity in ads. Discusses implications for advertising strategy.

This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated. The original article can be seen here: 10.1108/eb024737. When citing the article, please cite: Michael S. LaTour, Shaker A. Zahra, (1988), “FEAR APPEALS AS ADVERTISING STRATEGY: SHOULD THEY BE USED?”, Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 2 Iss: 4, pp. 5 - 14.

Uses an upscale female sample to extend previous research on women′s perceptions of their role portrayal in advertising media. Indicates that serious disenchantment with perceived portrayal of women still exists for this important group of consumers. Measures various attitudinal, company image, and purchase intention responses in addition to salient demographic and role orientation variables. Discusses the implications for advertisers using female models in their advertisements.

Assesses the effect of an international business person′s accent on Guatemalan subjects′ perception of the business person′s effectiveness, credibility, competence, friendliness, as well as the Guatemalan subject′s intentions to buy. Graduate students at a Guatemalan university listened to tape recordings of three presenters speaking Guatemalan Spanish and three presenters speaking Spanish with a foreign accent. The findings suggest that, for the Guatemalan audience, a sales pitch in Guatemalan Spanish evoked more favourable judgements on all measured dimensions than the same sales pitch in foreign accented Spanish. Females, however, evaluated the Guatemalan Spanish presenters more positively and evaluated the foreign accented presenters more negatively than their male counterparts.

Review of various models of the fear communication process and research on the effectiveness of fear appeals indicates that fear arousal is a complex, individually unique emotion. Inconsistent results concerning the impact of fear appeals in consumer behavior are noted. Issues arising from employing fear appeals in advertising are outlined and practical guidelines for their use are presented.

Discusses the adoption and diffusion of product innovations among consumers. Examines the Cultural Anchoring model of diffusion, which comprises five sub‐areas: innovation process, trial/adoption process, diffusion process, assimilation/cultural anchoring, and aftermath. Surmises that certain technological innovations may foster a highly involving psychological dependence, with the individual′s self‐concept becoming strongly linked to his or her mastery over a new technology

Examines a new addition to thinking on adoption and diffusion of service innovations – the Cultural Anchoring Diffusion/Assimilation Model. Suggests that certain service innovations may encourage a type of psychological dependence that leads an individual′s self‐concept to become linked to his or her usage of a new service. Recommends, as a result of this model, several strategies for service marketing managers.

Compares adult women’s perceptions of sex role portrayals in advertising across demo‐graphically‐diverse samples from the USA, New Zealand, Japan and Thailand. Tests a structural equations model using EQS. The findings indicate that there were varying degrees of criticism across the samples with regard to sex role portrayals, company image and purchase intentions. Finds a significant structural linkage between criticality of role portrayals and company image as well as between company image and purchase intention. Identifies the existence of “feminist consciousness” across the various samples and also examines its impact on perceptions and intentions to purchase. Presents implications for global advertisers.

Using social capital theory (SCT), the purpose of this research is to determine the success of social networking in societies that may be lower in social capital, for example in Poland, versus those which are higher in social capital, such as the USA.

This paper uses a partial least squares approach with a cross-cultural sample. The complete sample consists of 556 participants for this study across the USA (n = 258) and Poland (n = 298).

Results indicate that social media success is lower in Poland and that this result is related to lower social networking capital in Polish society. However, the proposed model shows that social media functionality can overcome some of the barriers.

Limitations include a very specific set of countries rather than a larger set of countries and sample, survey methodology which could be augmented with a mixed methods approach and convenience sampling which ensured homogeneity and matching.

Based on this research, media designers should attempt to keep information quality high but even more importantly, they should increase interactivity. For Poland in particular, well-designed interactivity can mitigate societal barriers to success of social media, as it can enhance trust in such platforms.

Because of Poland’s history of more than 40 years of communism, the newer generations may eventually become more adaptive to social networking tools and such acceptance could lead to greater social capital, which is important for Polish society from a business perspective as well.

The most important contribution of this research is that it theoretically and empirically establishes the importance of SCT in relation to social networking across two different countries.

The dynamic landscape of healthcare has seen significant changes in marketing by the various types of healthcare providers. This research aims to explore the impact of emotions in healthcare advertising.

Two consumer panel experiments investigate the role of hope and empathy appeals in fostering positive evaluations toward healthcare providers (medical centers for serious illnesses).

Study 1 shows that two types of emotion-based healthcare appeals are more effective than non-emotional appeals. Study 2 compares the relative effectiveness of hope versus empathy appeals with medical expert or typical person (patient) testimonials.

Findings demonstrate that in a healthcare context, an expert testimonial enhanced the persuasiveness of a hope-based appeal, whereas testimonials from unknown patients were not effective.

Understanding the role of emotions in healthcare advertising is increasingly important as healthcare providers compete on care and quality outcomes and advertising agencies vie for the attention of consumers.