Attitudes and related perceptions about product placement: a comparison of Finland, Italy and the United States

Abstract

The primary goal of our study is to explore cross-national differences in attitudes and perceptions about product placements, after investigating measurement invariance. Our cross-national focus includes three countries that have not been compared previously: Finland, Italy and the USA, which differ significantly in terms of the evolution/maturity of product placement markets, regulatory structures and cultural contexts. Motivated by earlier studies, we investigate the cross-national measurement invariance of scales to measure four research constructs related to the product placement domain (attitude toward credibility of advertising, attitude toward advertising-in-general, attitude toward placement-in-general and attitude toward regulation of placements). Our research also extends earlier work focused on similar constructs from a cross-national perspective. Results from multi-group analyses using a structural equation modeling approach indicate important and statistically significant differences in latent means between the three countries for all four constructs of research interest. Substantive explanations of these differences and their implications for future practice and research are discussed.

Keywords:

• product placement
• brand placement
• advertising
• attitudes
• cross-cultural research
• measurement invariance

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the anonymous reviewers for their comments which were helpful in improving the paper. Siva Balasubramanian also acknowledges helpful comments and suggestions from colleagues and other participants at research seminars at the IIT Stuart School of Business where he presented this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Hall and Hall (1990, 6) state that ‘context is the information that surrounds an event’, and together the two produce a given meaning. Cultures differ with regard to the ‘need for contexting – the process of filling in background data’, with high context cultures needing little and low context cultures requiring detailed background information (Hall and Hall 1990, 7). According to Korac-Kakabadse et al. (2001, 6), high context and low context are terms which refer to ‘the cultural rules around information exchange and, in particular, the degree to which information in a culture is explicit, vested in words or precise and unambiguous meaning (low-context) and the degree to which it is implicit, vested in shared experience and assumptions and conveyed through verbal and non-verbal codes (high-context).’

2. Uncertainty avoidance captures the degree of comfort that members of a given culture have with situations that are new and out of the ordinary (Hofstede 2001). According to Hofstede (2001, 148), cultures high on uncertainty avoidance wish to minimize ambiguity and their members seek ‘structure in their organizations, institutions, and relationships, which makes events clearly interpretable and predictable.’

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nadia I. Sabour

Nadia I. Sabour (MSc, University of Jyväskylä, Finland) is a PhD candidate at the School of Business and Economics, University of Jyväskylä (Finland). Her research interests include marketing communication, product placement and consumer behavior.

Deepa Pillai

Deepa Pillai (PhD, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, USA) is an assistant professor of Marketing at the College of Business and Management, Northeastern Illinois University (USA). Her research interests include product placement, advertising and price discounting.

Giacomo Gistri

Giacomo Gistri (PhD, University of Parma, Italy) is an assistant professor of Marketing at the Department of Political Science, Communication and International Relations, University of Macerata (Italy). His research interests include consumer behavior, product placement, brand crisis and counterfeiting.

Siva K. Balasubramanian

Siva K. Balasubramanian (PhD, State University of New York at Buffalo, USA) is Harold L. Stuart Professor of Marketing and Associate Dean at the Stuart School of Business, Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago (USA). His research interests include product placement, diffusion of innovations and consumers' perceptions of nutrition and foods.