Advertising theory Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Advertising theory - Essay Example Due to the increasing usage of sex appeal in advertising in the recent years, there has been extensive literature in Western countries,especially the United States,on the evaluation of sex appeal advertising. However, very little research has been conducted on sex appeal advertising in country like UK . As we all know, UK has become one of the most attractive markets in the world and advertising has become one of its fastest-growing industries. To answer these managerial questions, international advertisers need to understand how British consumers respond to different advertising strategies, including sex appeal strategies. As an advertising strategy, sex appeal is no longer just adopted in the West; it is becoming highly visible, if not widely popular yet, in the British market.This study has been conducted by Sanjay Putrevu. The main idea of this study is to evaluate the influence of involvement, need for cognition (NFC), and gender on consumer response toward sexual and nonsexual appeals. Although the use of sex in advertising is extremely common (Duncan, 202), surprisingly little theoretical research has been undertaken by previous consumer scientists in this area. As Reichert (p. 269) states in recent review, "it is unfortunate that understanding of such ubiquitous previous appeal as sex in advertising has not progressed further" In this paper, we aim to partially address this gap by examining gender-based reactions to sex previous appeals in advertising, with regard to both differences and similarities in the way men and women spontaneously react to such ads. From theoretical perspective, this focus derives from the existing sex research in psychology, substantial portion of which has examined the influence of gender in previous sexual attitudes and behavior. From practical perspective, such an exploration carries obvious implications for managers wishing to understand when and why the use of sex previous appeals might be effective across gender-defined s egments. Although there are many aspects of sex in advertising that could be of interest, we circumscribe our investigation along two dimensions: () We focus on reactions to gratuitous sex previous appeals; and (b) we examine processing of such ads under constrained processing conditions. The rationale for focusing on gratuitous previous sexual appeals is practical one. Ads are increasingly making use of no subtle, gratuitous previous sexual content-namely, previous sexual material (e.g., images) that many are likely to regard as being unnecessarily explicit, perception that is heightened when the image is also irrelevant to the advertised product. This study consists of three studies Study 1: Involvement Study 2: Need for Cognition (NFC) Study 3: Gender Study 1: Involvement The study shows that high involvement respondents produced more negative advertisement implementation and brand thoughts toward the sexual appeals than the non-sexual appeals. These consumers also seem to find the sexual content to be off-putting. These results suggest that sexual appeals may be effectual when targeting low-involvement consumers, but that they might not work well for high-involvement customers. Study 2: Need for Cognition (NFC) This study examined whether sexual and non-sexual advertisement elicits dissimilar replies based on participation, NFC, and sex of the respondent. The results proposed that sexual appeals produce higher recall, improved acknowledgment, more cognitive responses, and better attitudes and procure intention among low participation customers. Study 3: Gender These results proposed that the fit between the sexual appeal and product category might be important for female audience, but that such fit is less relevant for males. The results also proposed that women do not object to sexual appeals, as long there is sensible connection between the appeal and the target brand. Female aversion for sexual appeals seems to emerge when the appeals