Chingching Chang

Effects of Gender Schematic Processing on the Reception of Political Commercials for Men and Women Candidates

The article tests hypotheses from gender schema theory (Bem, 1981) in the context of political television commercials for men and women gubernatorial candidates. Subjects viewed authentic commercials for three pairs of candidates, each pair comprising a man and a woman candidate competing for office. The experimental design varied the tone of the commercials (positive, negative, neutral) in addition to candidate gender. Findings included enhanced recall of ad information from content domains of family and appearance in the case of women as opposed to men candidates, and enhanced recall from the domain of campaign activities in the case of men as opposed to women candidates. Mens attack ads on women elicited greater emotional reaction than womens attacks on men.

Should Women Emote? Perceptual Bias and Opinion Change in Response to Political Ads for Candidates of Different Genders

Are responses to campaign advertisements for female political candidates more favorable when the emotional tone of the ad is neutral rather than negative or positive? Findings from an experiment indicate that, broadly speaking, neutral ads for women are perceived as more socially desirable. They also produce a smaller third-person effect and more favorable attitudes than emotional appeals, whether positive or negative. These findings are discussed in terms of their support for third-person effect theory and their practical implications for campaigners.

The relative effectiveness of comparative and noncomparative advertising: Evidence for gender differences in information-processing strategies

Drawing on gender differences in processing strategies and elaboration thresholds, this study showed that comparative advertising encouraged greater levels of brand-evaluation involvement among men but not among women. Instead, for women, attention-gaining comparative appeals encouraged inferences regarding the ads manipulative intent. Furthermore, these gender differences in processing led to evaluative consequences. For men, the greater brand-evaluation involvement brought about by comparative appeals led to more favorable ad and brand evaluations and greater purchase intentions. For women, the heightened perceptions of manipulative intent brought about by comparative appeals resulted in negative ad and brand evaluations and reduced purchase intentions. Finally, the attribute alignability of competing products moderated the gender-dependent effectiveness of comparative and noncomparative appeals.

News Coverage of Health-Related Issues and Its Impacts on Perceptions: Taiwan as an Example

This article examines how health news gets framed and the influence of exposure to news framed differently. A content analysis of Taiwanese newspapers indicates that health news in general, and H1N1 flu news in particular, is more likely to use alarm rather than coping frames. According to an experiment, exposure to H1N1 flu news in an alarm frame evokes greater fear and increases perceived severity and vulnerability, though it does not help develop prevention and treatment efficacy. A survey of the general public also shows that attention and exposure to televised news coverage of the H1N1 flu are associated with greater levels of worry and perceptions of the severity of and vulnerability to this health problem, but they are not related to issue knowledge, detection, or prevention efficacy. Thus, it is important for news coverage to provide information that increases the audiences efficacy when alerting it to health threats.

Cultural Masculinity/Femininity Influences on Advertising Appeals

ABSTRACT This study explored the question of whether masculinity/femininity at the cultural level can influence responses to advertisements employing image and utilitarian appeals, presumably through its effect on individual-level self-construals with regard to masculinity/femininity. An experiment showed that participants from the United States, considered to be a predominantly “masculine” culture, liked the utilitarian appeal advertisement better and rated it more believable than the image appeal advertisement. In addition, they liked the image appeal advertisement more and found it more believable when it was preceded by a utilitarian appeal advertisement than when it came first. In contrast, participants from Taiwan, considered a predominantly “androgynous” culture, responded equally well to both advertising appeal types, and presentation order did not influence their evaluations. Ethnographic interviews were included to provide emic perspectives from consumers, depicting the subjective significance of experiences for consumers in both cultures. Cultural masculinity/femininity appears to be an important factor to consider when formulating advertising appeals.

The Effectiveness of Using a Global Look in an Asian Market

ABSTRACT Adopting a global look has been an important strategy for marketing in multinational and local markets. This research explored the use of two global-look strategies in Taiwanese advertising: the use of Western models and English brand names. First, a content analysis revealed that Western models were used to promote products in 46.81 percent of magazine advertisements, whereas English brands were featured in 53.90 percent of the advertisements. Variables such as distribution area and product categories were shown to influence the use of these strategies. Second, an experiment examined the advantages and disadvantages of adopting global-look strategies in advertising. The use of Western models and English brand names enhanced the perceived globalness of the brand and encouraged participants to infer that the product originated from a developed Western country. However, a global look is not always persuasive. On the one hand, using Western models enhanced the perceived quality of the product. On the other hand, participants showed an “in-group bias” by rating products with Chinese brand names, as opposed to English brand names, higher on brand friendliness, brand trust, self-brand connections, and brand liking. The findings are discussed in terms of the implications for marketing.

Imagery Fluency and Narrative Advertising Effects

This article identifies important cognitive processes associated with processing narrative ads (comprehending narratives and generating mental imagery of depictions in the narratives) and related subjective experiences (perceptual/conceptual fluency, comprehension, and imagery fluency). In line with the idea that perceptual/conceptual fluency facilitates comprehension fluency and further improves imagery fluency, this study presents a model in which factors influence imagery fluency either indirectly through influences on perceptual/conceptual and comprehension fluency or directly. Findings from two experiments support the model; picture type (narrative versus product picture) and narrative type (highly versus less accessible) indirectly alter imagery fluency through their influence on comprehension fluency, whereas individual characteristics (experiential versus rational processing orientation) directly alter it, which further affects ad and brand attitudes.

Country of Origin as a Heuristic Cue: The Effects of Message Ambiguity and Product Involvement

This research applies the heuristic-systematic model to understand how country-of-origin (CO) cues can affect the way consumers process advertising messages and evaluate advertised products under different conditions. Findings of Experiment 1 show that, when product information is ambiguous, consumers are more likely to engage in heuristic processing, relying on CO cues to infer product quality and form their product evaluations. However, when product information is unambiguous, consumers engage in systematic processing and evaluate the product based on their assessments of product attributes. Findings of Experiment 2 further suggest that product involvement affects the extent to which consumers engage in heuristic processing when message ambiguity is at different levels. Specifically, mediational analyses indicate that, when product information featured in an ad is ambiguous, a low-involving product engages consumers in heuristic processing. Furthermore, when product information is unambiguous, a low-involving product engages consumers in systematic processing, whereas a high-involving product involves participants in an additivity processing style in which CO cue-based heuristic processing and attribute-based systematic processing co-occur.

Guilt regulation: : The relative effects of altruistic versus egoistic appeals for charity advertising

This article examines how egoistic (versus altruistic) appeals in charity advertising help regulate guilt and result in more favorable ad attitudes and donation intentions. The proposed affect forecasting and regulation model depicts the process by which guilt states are mitigated more effectively by egoistic appeals, because they strengthen the affect forecasting belief that giving to charity leads to happiness. Such enhanced affect forecasting beliefs further improve ad attitudes, which lead to greater donation intentions. This research tests the proposed model by exploring three possible types of guilt: existing guilt (Study 1), integral guilt (Study 2), and incidental guilt (Study 3).

Repetition Variation Strategies for Narrative Advertising

This paper explores the effectiveness of repetition variation strategies for narrative advertising and argues that repetition strategies that involve varying plots will be more difficult to comprehend, and thus less persuasive than fixed plot strategies. Experiment 1 compared three strategies: using the same plot twice, using different plots, and using one continuous plot. As expected, the different plots strategy resulted in less favorable ad attitudes than the other two strategies. Experiment 2 compared the same three strategies, except that this time the character sets were kept the same in the different plots strategy. Results indicated that it was more difficult for participants to comprehend ads using the different plots/same characters strategy than those employing the other two strategies, and ad attitudes and brand attitudes were less favorable with that strategy as well. The role that ease of comprehension plays in mediating the relationship between variation strategies and ad/brand attitudes was also established. Experiment 3 compared all four strategies. Results showed that it was more difficult to comprehend ads that used different plots, regardless of whether characters were altered or not, than those that used the same or continuous plots strategies. The two different plots strategies also resulted in less favorable ad and brand attitudes than the same or continuous plots strategies.