In this issue are published six interesting papers stemming from various parts of the world and indicative of the journal’s global reach.
The first paper by Nam-Hyum Um (USA) concerns the impact of negative celebrity information together with situational and dispositional attribution relative to endorsed brands. Consumer attitudes and beliefs tend to be all important with regard to brand attribution, and thus celebrity information is both significant and important. It would be good to see the study extended beyond a student sample to brand loyal, swinger and non-buyer consumers to assess the attributional and/or situational impact and we look to this subsequent study for which this paper forms an excellent foundation.
The second paper by Feng Shen (USA) concerns market scarcity relative to time restriction in retail advertising and evaluates this relative to two contradictory theories – heuristic cue and the heuristic-systematic model. While the results support an information congruity theory of market scarcity, however, both models may be value dependent on mediated impact through information processing.
The paper by Komulainen et al. (Finland) tackles a subject that tends to be somewhat ignored in the literature – the role of intermediaries in local mobile advertising. Undoubtedly, the agency as an intermediary influences client decisions to use new media. Gained from an experimental procedure, the findings seem intuitive in that the agencies play connecting, mediating and inhibiting roles and exercise influence for agency and client. Moreover, this topic is especially interesting for small local advertisers. Often these advertisers may lack experience and knowledge of advertising generally and mobile advertising in particular. The paper thus illuminates a niche in advertising per se and offers good information relative to smaller firms.
The paper by Verhellen et al. tackles gender role portrayal on Belgian commercial television. Using a large sample of nearly 500 commercials over two time periods, it was anticipated that gender roles would be differentially represented in television advertising and these would represent typical gender stereotypes with the proviso that differences would decrease over time. Despite changes in social structure and regulations, gender stereotypes in advertising tend to be persistent over time. An interesting extension of this study may be to compare and contrast advertisement and gender stereotyping in three or more countries relative to their perceived level of market development and (presumed) market sophistication.
Bruno Schivinski and Darius Dabrowski (Poland) offer an interesting paper on the effect of social media on consumer brand perceptions relative to brand equity, brand attitude and purchase intention across three different industries (alcoholic beverages, clothing and mobile network operators. While user-generated social media positively influenced brand equity and brand attitude, firm-created social media only influenced brand attitude. The measurement model used showed invariance across the three industries which seemed somewhat unexpected.
The final paper by Salmon Yousef (based in PR China) considers promotion mix management from a consumer-focused Islamic perspective. The influences of religious thought need to be taken into consideration by marketing strategists when planning marketing campaigns. While again this seems intuitive in the sense that understanding of the target market or audience should drive campaigns, oftentimes (as seen in ongoing examples of gaffes or mistakes in international campaigns), companies and agencies seem to be slow to learn how to maximize marketing communication outcomes. Yousef reminds readers that the dynamic of market understanding should not and cannot be underestimated.
ESC Rennes School of Business
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