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Food packaging pictures are one of the most important extrinsic cues for consumers to evaluate food products before purchasing. Over the past decades, marketers have used exaggerated pictures to attract consumers' attention, enhance their attitude toward a product and increase their purchase intention. This study examined the interplay of “puff-up” product picture, food type and picture type in influencing consumers' responses via persuasion knowledge.

The research comprises two 2 × 2 factorial experiments. Study 1 tested the interaction effect of puffery (high vs low) and food type (utilitarian vs. hedonic) on consumers' responses using two fictitious brands of prepared food, whereas Study 2 tested the interaction effect of puffery (high vs. low) and picture type (ingredients vs. cooked food) using a fictitious brand of Chinese delicacy.

Results demonstrated that the degree of picture puffery did not influence consumers' responses to utilitarian food and ingredient image. Conversely, consumers were sensitive to puffery when they see hedonic food and cooked-food image. Our findings also suggested that consumers' persuasion knowledge mediates the relationship between puffery and their responses.

The presented findings facilitate marketers to know consumers' attitude about food puffery pictures.

This research is one of the first efforts to empirically explore the influences of persuasion knowledge on food puffery pictures. The importance of this work is underscored by the fact that a growing number of visual exaggerations are adopted on food packaging.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the link between consumer psychology and puffery law in China and the USA, by reporting two empirical studies that investigated whether puff claims had different effects on Chinese and US college students in their perception of advertising truthfulness, brand attitude, and purchase intent.

The first study tested the six levels of puffery, identified by Preston, with two products, cane sugar and bottled spring water. The second study employed four products to test the interaction effects of product type and the “best” puff claim.

It was found that puffery had very limited effects on the participants' brand attitude and purchase intent, and the Chinese consistently reported higher purchase intent than the Americans.

The studies had two primary limitations. First, all the participants were college students. Future studies may want to sample the general population and further examine how factors such as age, education, social class, and product experience influence the perception of puffery. Second, to strive for cross‐cultural equivalence, the ad stimuli used consisted of very simple designs and focused solely on puff claims without much context. The findings outline a possible roadmap to regulatory harmonization based on consumer psychology, which bridges the sharp divide between the two models of puffery regulation represented by China and the USA.

Previous empirical studies on the effects of puffery were all confined to the US context. The paper is the first effort to investigate the effects of puffery in a cross‐cultural context.

This paper aims to investigate visual exaggerations of fragrance advertisements by comparing subjects' expectations resulting from print ads to their subsequent product evaluations. It then considers whether the actual scents fall short, meet or exceed these expectations.

By means of a semiotic analysis the authors capture the corresponding literary attributes of the ads to develop adjective pairs describing the meaning of the ads. Interviews are conducted to assess the meaning that consumers draw from the fragrance ads and the authors supplement these findings by performing a blind olfactory product evaluation of the fragrances. Paired sample t‐tests are used to compare subjects' ad expectations to their subsequent product evaluation of the actual scent.

These results show that the visual cues and imagery in the fragrance ads appear, under certain conditions, to result in product expectations that exceed actual product evaluations, suggesting the existence of visual puffery. The authors also found that the more abstract descriptors of the ad resulted in significantly higher expectations, while the more concrete descriptors resulted in significantly lower expectations than the actual product evaluation.

A small sample size of homogenous consumers limits the generalizability of the results. No measures of attitude effectiveness were taken.

Visual puffery may be effective and help marketers, even in countries where verbal puffery is illegal, to use another means to reach consumers.

This paper investigates an under‐researched area in advertising. A multi‐method approach and primary data are used to assess subjects' ad expectations of a fragrance and the actual product evaluation and demonstrate the existence of visual puffery.

This article aims to examine the US history of practices that mask the marketing content of messages to consumers and of the public policy approaches taken towards such practices.

This research examines both primary sources such as legal challenges and contemporary writings as well as secondary sources.

The US legal/regulatory system has been examining practices that mask the marketing content of communications for over 125 years. Fully masked messages were initially regulated under postal service laws and publisher self‐regulatory codes. Partially masked messages, e.g. testimonials, were examined first by courts and later by regulatory and industry self‐regulatory agencies. These diverse sources of regulation led to diverse approaches and in part explain the modern preference for information disclosure over prohibiting the masking of marketing messages.

Modern analysis of these practices ignores their history and the historical evolution of their regulation. This article not only reveals a rich regulatory history, but also suggests that modern policy should treat the broad array of masking practices consistently and correct current policy approaches that are based on historical development rather than modern public policy analysis and concerns.

Purpose – This paper extends the literature in the environmental disclosure area by examining annual report disclosure practices of Australian companies within the combined voluntary and mandatory environmental disclosure system. Design/methodology/approach – Content analysis was used to investigate the environmental disclosures over three consecutive years in the annual reports of companies that would be subject to environmental regulation and/or perceived to be environmentally sensitive. Findings – The study finds that Australian listed companies have a propensity to disclose higher levels of positive environmental disclosures in the voluntary sections of the annual report than in the statutory sections of the annual report. Research limitations/implications – These results suggest that regulatory authorities may need to acknowledge the usefulness of mandatory disclosure requirements as a potential means of counter‐balancing the voluntary disclosure system. It has been argued that the annual report is not the sole disclosure medium used by companies Further research may not only investigate these issues but also add weight to arguments for more environmental accountability. Practical implications – The results suggest that companies adopt different disclosure approaches when the disclosures are potentially under surveillance or increased scrutiny via legislated environmental disclosure requirements. Originality value – This research provides evidence that companies continue to use greater levels of self‐puffery within a voluntary reporting environment than within a mandatory reporting environment, and suggests that stakeholders may be more likely to receive information that is less favourable to the corporation (and potentially more decision‐useful to stakeholders) within a legislated disclosure environment.

To achieve a full understanding of the role of marketing from plan to profit requires a knowledge of the basic building blocks. This textbook introduces the key concepts in the art or science of marketing to practising managers. Understanding your customers and consumers, the 4 Ps (Product, Place, Price and Promotion) provides the basic tools for effective marketing. Deploying your resources and informing your managerial decision making is dealt with in Unit VII introducing marketing intelligence, competition, budgeting and organisational issues. The logical conclusion of this effort is achieving sales and the particular techniques involved are explored in the final section.

An updated version of the original (1985) text, the book covers all aspects of marketing and selling bank services: the role of marketing; behaviour of customers; intelligence, planning and organisation; product decisions; promotion decisions; place decisions; price decisions; achieving sales. Application questions help to focus the readers' minds on key issues affecting practice.

This monograph argues that boardroom marketing must be integrated with purchasing and distribution activities in a synthesised role focused on customer policy. The author sees this as the next step forward and argues that such a new alignment in company thinking would enable it to take account of the host of societal pressures it encounters, as well as improving management approaches toward channel members. Issues of independence/interdependence, professionalism, educational imperatives, and materialism are all examined and a customer policy audit proposed with suitable guidelines. It is a radical and provocative think‐piece worthy of widespread attention amongst senior marketeers, purchasing and distribution executives.

The clean beauty phenomenon is gaining momentum and beauty brands are getting creative with on-pack sustainability claims. With the increasing focus on sustainability from both brands and consumers, sustainability communication has the potential to raise the profile of sustainable production and consumption. Further attention is needed on the creative approach behind on-pack sustainability marketing communications as companies no longer focus on single eco labels but instead use a bundle of claims to advertise their commitment to sustainability which finds consumers confused and brands open to accusations of greenwashing. This chapter explores on-pack sustainability communications in the beauty industry through the lenses of creative marketing communications which need to be both original and appropriate. This study contributes to the longstanding debate on the role of sustainability claims in marketing communications and addresses the role of on-pack sustainability claims design and creativity.

New Zealand has gone through a radical metamorphosis since free market economics were introduced in the mid‐1980s. Marketing managers are particularly interested in the views of consumers about issues dealing with marketing activities. Negative views could signal consumer backlash against free market activities. This study examines the views of consumers from 1986 to 2001 on a range of issues dealing with marketing and consumerism. The results clearly show that consumers are less negative about marketing and consumerism issues since 1986. It seems likely that New Zealand has evolved in terms of the consumerism life cycle over the last 15 years. Marketing managers should continue to remain proactive in their responses to consumer discontents. Implications for New Zealand and for other countries are addressed.