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The purpose of this paper is to examine consumer response to pictures of smiling models in marketing, focusing on the roles of emotional contagion from the smiling models and the perceived typicality of marketing with smiling models.

This paper reports the findings from three experimental studies, comparing consumer response to two versions of an advertisement (Study 1) and a packaging design (Study 2 and 3), including either a picture of a smiling or a non-smiling model. To measure consumer response, a combination of self-report questionnaires and eye-tracking methodology was used.

The pictures of smiling models produced more consumer joy and more positive attitudes for the marketing. The positive effects on attitudes were mediated by consumer joy, and the effects on consumer joy were mediated by the perceived typicality of the marketing with smiling models.

Despite the ubiquity of photos of smiling faces in marketing, very few studies have isolated the effects of the smile appeal on consumer response to marketing objects. By comparing marketing where the same model is shown smiling or with a neutral facial expression, the positive effects were isolated. The roles of emotional contagion and perceived typicality in this mechanism were also examined and implications of the findings for research and practitioners are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the influence of glamour, scopophilia and self-sexualisation in luxury celebrity endorsement.

In step 1, an experimental study was conducted with 100 respondents assessing the response towards manipulated print ad stimuli operationalizing the influence (in general terms) of lay out, endorser’s beauty pattern, body language (cool, smile appeal, sex appeal and disruptive), gazing and landscape. In step 2, respondents evaluated their response towards five perfume print ads retrieved from real advertising campaigns with different brand personalities (DKNY, Moschino, Chanel, Gucci and Boss).

The ideal copy strategy is: a couple of brunette Caucasian endorsers; “close-up” photo; sexy body language; indirect smiling gaze; and urban landscape. Multiple regression models were built for each ad/brand (personality) in order to predict the willingness to pay for a bottle of perfume.

The paper suggests a holistic theoretical framework describing the influence of celebrity characteristics, advertising copy strategy, social-cultural trends and brand variables in the advertising processing.

Advertising copywriters and brand managers must control the role of glamour and the self-consciousness of women seduction power in branding advertising.

Glamour, scopophilia or self-sexualisation are three different concepts which have a lot of sociological implications because they influence the way as the society perceive the role of women as endorsers in advertising, but also in other life dimensions.

This paper fills a gap in the literature, since this paper make an innovative analysis of the influence of these recent post-modernist socio-cultural trends.

While researchers in other disciplines seek to determine the impact that humour has in personal interactions, studies of humour in service delivery are lacking. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether it is beneficial to deliberately use humour in service encounters.

This paper provides a comprehensive review of humour research in multiple disciplines to assess the applicability of their key findings to the service domain. By establishing the antecedents, types, and consequences of humour, the authors build a framework and propositions to help service researchers uncover the potential of injecting humour into service interactions.

The authors find that using humour in service encounters is an ingenious affiliative behaviour which strengthens rapport between service employees and their customers. Humour also permits frontline service employees to better cope with the emotional challenges of their work, thus promising to reduce emotional labour and increase well-being. The effectiveness of service recovery efforts may also grow if employees use humour successfully to soften unpleasant emotional reactions and accept responsibility.

The authors explore cross-disciplinary humour research to apply the findings to the use of humour in service encounters. The authors also attempt to identify situations in which humour usage is most promising or beneficial, as well as its main beneficiaries.

The announcement of their Annual Conference which has been made by the Library Association gives promise of a meeting of quite unusual interest and value. The programme has been shorn of unnecessary redundancies and every subject upon it should lead to fruitful discussion. The only point in connection with the programme which appears to demand consideration is whether in all cases the papers should be read. There are several objections. Such papers occupy a lot of time, are not sufficiently dramatic to be interesting in themselves, however valuable the subject matter may be, and too often it must be confessed they are read in a manner which induces somnolence rather than energetic discussion. It is the exchange of opinion across the floor that matters at a Conference, We hope, therefore, that in certain cases the method of taking papers as read and requiring their writers to speak to them briefly may be followed.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the emotional contagion theory in print ads, and expand the literature of smiling to different type of smiles and gender congruency. Emotional contagion happens when an emotion is transferred from a sender to a receiver by the synchronization of emotions from the emitter. Drawing on emotional contagion theory, the authors expand this concept and propose that smiles in static facial expressions influence product evaluation. They suggest that false smiles do not have the same impact as genuine smiles on product evaluation, and the congruence between the model gender–product in a static ad and the gender of the viewer moderates the effects.

In Experiment 1, subjects were randomly assigned to view one of the two ad treatments to guard against systematic error (e.g. bias). In Experiment 2, it was investigated whether viewing a static ad featuring a model with a false smile can result in a positive product evaluation as was the case with genuine smiles (H3). In Experiment 3, it was assumed that when consumers evaluate an ad featuring a smiling face, the facial expression influences product evaluation, and this influence is moderated by the congruence between the gender of the ad viewer and the product H gender of the model in the ad.

Across three experiments, the authors found that the model’s facial expression influenced the product evaluation. Second, they supported the association between a model’s facial expression and mimicry synchronization. Third, they showed that genuine smiles have a higher impact on product evaluation than false smiles. This novel result enlarges the research on genuine smiles to include false smiles. Fourth, the authors supported the gender–product congruence effect in that the gender of the ad’s reader and the model have a moderating effect on the relationship between the model’s facial expression and the reader’s product evaluation.

Marketing managers would benefit from understanding that genuine smiles can encourage positive emotions on the part of consumers via emotional contagion, which would be very useful to create a positive effect on products. The authors improved upon previous psychological theory (Gunnery et al., 2013; Hennig-Thurau et al., 2006) showing that a genuine smile results in higher evaluation scores of products presented in static ads. The theoretical explanation for this effect is the genuine smile, which involves contraction of both zygomatic major and orbicularis oculi muscles. These facial muscles can be better perceived and transmit positive emotions (Hennig-Thurau et al., 2006).

The purpose of this paper is to examine how influencers' visual content affects consumer attitudinal and behavioral responses to influencer advertising. The proposed model includes smile intensity of influencers as the independent variable, warmth and admiration as the mediators and product category (Study 1) and orientation of advertising messages (self vs social, Study 2) as the moderators.

Two experimental studies (Study 1 and 2) were conducted. A total of 337 online panelists were collected via Qualtrics in Study 1 and responses from 409 online panelists were collected via Qualtrics in Study 2.

The results of two experimental studies showed that smiling influencers increased perceptions of warmth and feelings of admiration, thereby evoking positive consumer attitudes and behavioral intention. The strong positive impact of smiling on responses to influencer advertising was present regardless of product categories (Study 1) and the orientation of advertising messages (Study 2).

This study empirically examined the role of visual content on consumers' attitudinal, emotional and behavioral responses to influencer advertising by adopting theoretical models in social psychology. This paper also provides strong managerial implications for marketers who seek the most effective strategies for leading consumers to evaluate influencers positively and ultimately, accepting marketing messages favorably.

This paper aims to investigate how to improve the effectiveness of charitable advertising by matching emotional appeal (happy-faced vs sad-faced beneficiary) and message framing (recognition vs request) within advertising messages.

Two experiments examining real donation allocations were conducted. Study 1 established the “match-up” effect between advertising image and message. Study 2 replicated the findings of Study 1 as well as testing the mediating role of hope and sympathy.

The authors provide empirical evidence that consumers allocate a greater donation amount to a charity when they see an image of a sad-faced child combined with a request message (e.g. “please donate”), or an image of a happy-faced child combined with a recognition message (e.g. “thank you”). Notably, these effects are mediated by the emotions of hope and sympathy, respectively.

This research highlights the importance of matching images of beneficiaries with the appropriate advertising copy. Depending on whether a charity seeks to position itself in a positive perspective to evoke hope, or alternatively, portray itself in relation to a sadder landscape that elicits sympathy, the respective choice of recognition or request messages can help boost donation outcomes.

Charities and non-profit organizations can develop more effective charitable advertising by purposively matching specific emotional appeals and message framings when designing advertisements.

The research illustrates a novel mechanism that shows when and how combining image and message can influence the effectiveness of charitable advertising.

The present study aims to further examine the persuasive effect of pictures in a print ad according to the recipient’s ability to process the information and to observe to what extent the presence of a picture could negatively influence recipients’ attitude toward the ad’s verbal claim.

Two studies were designed to manipulate the presence vs absence of an attractive/unattractive picture, the kind of verbal claims (affectively based vs rationally based) and the recipient’s ability to process the ad (cognitive load vs no cognitive load).

Main findings showed that the presence of an attractive picture elicited an unfavorable attitude toward the functional verbal claim when recipients were not cognitively charged. Furthermore, it proved to be a mediator of the influence of pictures on attitude toward the ad. The positive influence of an attractive picture on product evaluation and purchase intention was greater under a cognitive load but showed contrasting results for price perceptions. For the unattractive picture, cognitive load was found to be a moderator only when recipients had to infer the product price.

The present research emphasized the negative influence of attractive pictures on functional verbal claims and the moderating role of cognitive load on pictorial stimuli either acting as peripheral or central cues in the persuasive process.

Practitioners may want to consider that an attractive picture in advertising is not always the best route for persuasion, especially when the verbal ad content emphasizes the product’s properties.

The present study provides new insights regarding the role of pictures in advertising persuasive effectiveness. Until now, no research had addressed the extent to which the presence of a picture could affect processing of an ad’s verbal claims. Additionally, the present study expands research on persuasive communication and affirms the necessity of more intensively investigating the role of pictures in advertising under the rubric of information processing level.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: to analyse the use of emotional appeals in business-to-business (B2B) bank advertisements and to understand business owners’ perceptions of such appeals.

In Study 1,834 print advertisements collected from British newspapers were content analysed. In Study 2, semi-structured interviews with 17 business owners operating a business current account with a British bank were carried out.

Emotional appeals are embedded in B2B financial services advertisements, and business owners acknowledge the presence of emotional appeals; however, the perceived congruency between emotional appeal and financial services could not be established as participants reported a largely utilitarian, need- and benefit-driven decision-making process.

Accurately measuring emotions aroused through advertisements is considered a limitation. In addition, the sample of participants considered for this research project was small and medium-sized business owners.

Emotional appeals should be used in conjunction with detailed rational information about financial products, as emotional appeals only arouse interest. Relationship is considered crucial in capitalising on the emotionally appealing advertisements. Customers must feel appreciated and loyalty should be rewarded.

The paper responds to numerous calls for more research into the role of emotional influences on the relationships in a B2B context and on the behaviour of business customers.