They are known, in advertising circles as ‘Delebs’ (deceased celebrities) . . . “Unbeknown to them, Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Steve McQueen and Gene Kelly, among others, recently presented products in ads for high- and low-equity brands.” A new paper in the Journal of Business Ethics describes experiments which have, for the first time, examined […]
Tag: advertising
Cigarettes That Are Visually Offputting (research study)
A number of countries have passed laws which require cigarette manufacturers to show ‘denormalising’ images on their packaging. To take things a step further, why not make the cigarettes themselves more unappealing? This was the question tackled by a joint Australian – New Zealand research team in 2015. A set of potentially unpleasant cigarette designs […]
How Sexy can a Paper Clip get? (study)
In 2016, Prof. Dr. Georg Felser of Harz University of Applied Sciences, Germany, undertook a unique research study aimed at establishing whether everyday objects can be somehow be imbued with ‘sexiness’ in order to enhance returns in advertising campaigns. His experimental study found that, yes, they can – even if the object is paper clip. […]
TV commercial ‘zapping’ – its driving factors (study)
If you’re in the business of advertising – especially TV advertising – you might be keen to identify the driving factors behind so-called ‘zapping’ (viewers changing channels with the specific intent of avoiding commercial breaks) A 2017 study in the Journal of Advertising Research presents an extensive analysis of the subject and pinpoints a ‘significant […]
Advertisements for desserts – should they include bite marks?
Those in the business of marketing desserts might be interested in new research from Donya Shabgard at the University of Manitoba, US, who has investigated, possibly for the first time, the influence of an advertisement’s dessert portrayal on consumer perceptions of desirability. Specifically, should advertisements show desserts with a bite taken out of them or […]
Round numbers, sharp numbers, and their perceived credibility
If someone told you that a soap was “99.44% pure” would you be more likely to believe their claim than if they rounded the number to “99% pure”? A 2006 paper in the journal Advances in Consumer Research authored by professors Robert M. Schindler (Rutgers University-Camden) and Richard F. Yalch (University of Washington) entitled: ‘It […]
Assessing the Perceived Personalities of Rocks
Of these three rocks, which would you say is the most ‘confident’ ? How about the most ‘sincere’ or ‘intelligent’? Just such questions were asked in a recent study by Dr. Mark Avis (Massey University, New Zealand), Dr. Sarah Forbes (University of Birmingham, UK) and Dr. Shelagh Ferguson (University of Otago, New Zealand). Their study […]
An fMRI study of surrealistic advertising
First, a quick look at (some of) the scientific works which have investigated how fMRI might help in the understanding of the human brain’s responses to Surrealism. [1] Matching reality in the arts: self-referential neural processing of naturalistic compared to surrealistic images. (Perception. 2012;41(5):569-76.) (surrealistic pictures here) [2]The Neural Basis of Object-Context Relationships on […]
Verbal Smell References In Radio Advertisements
“You can almost smell the smoky and delicious aroma of your steak grilling to perfection” – says the radio ad for your local restaurant. But can you really ‘almost smell’ the aroma when you hear the ad? If so, how could you quantify that? A team of investigators at Virginia Tech have investigated just such […]
In Adland – less is more (no less)
Many may jump to the conclusion that ‘Uninformative Advertising’ simply provides a route by which a manufacturing corporation can ‘burn its money’ – but this may not always be the case, as explained in a new paper from the Yale School of Management. Professors Dina Mayzlin and Jiwoong Shin have identified ways in which advertising […]