G. Douglas Olsen

The role of brand/cause fit in the effectiveness of cause-related marketing campaigns

Abstract Previous studies of cause-related marketing (CRM) have demonstrated that it can impact consumer choice. We replicate and extend these findings using choice-based conjoint. Two studies involving 329 respondents show that fit between brand and charity can impact choice. In terms of trade-offs against price discounts, donation to a high-fit charity can result in 5–10 times the value of donation to a low-fit charity. We also find, however, that in both studies, the value of CRM does not justify its cost, at least in terms of short-term sales. Implications for the selection of optimal donation levels for CRM campaigns are discussed.

When Profit Equals Price: Consumer Confusion About Donation Amounts in Cause-Related Marketing

A series of five studies examine potential consumer confusion associated with the “percentage of profit” wording often used to describe cause-related marketing in which money is donated to a charity each time a consumer makes a purchase. The initial four studies demonstrate that (1) expressing the donation amount as a percentage of profit leads to widespread confusion and near universal overestimation of the amount being donated, (2) even consumers who have had formal accounting training are susceptible to this bias, (3) participant motivation in an experimental setting cannot account for these results, and (4) people report higher attitudes toward a company and express stronger purchase intentions as a function of the percentage value of the donation but not as a function of whether it is a percentage of profit or price. The authors conclude with a study that explores several potential affirmative disclosures for the percentage-of-profit problem.

How Nothing Became Something: White Space, Rhetoric, History, and Meaning

We seek to advance visual theory in the domain of commercial rhetoric (advertising) by demonstrating how objects and symbols derive meaning from their histories. We do this by examining a single visual trope common in advertising, white space. The choice of white space was purposeful in that it is not a picture and its history is both accessible and traceable. Our sociohistorical theory is supported by showing how specific movements and social forces acted upon the meaning of this particular visual rhetorical device and how this meaning is today shared and understood by both producers of ads (ad agency creative directors) and the readers of ads (ordinary consumers). We conclude with a discussion of the implications of this approach to rhetorical and other major theoretical formulations.

Affective Responses to Images In Print Advertising: Affect Integration in a Simultaneous Presentation Context

Print advertising frequently employs multiple images within a single advertisement, each of which is capable of generating an affective response. Little is known, however, about how these multiple ad components combine to impact overall emotional response to advertising. Evidence from three experiments suggests that when advertisement images are all positive or all negative, the most extreme image determines overall response. When an advertisement contains both positive and negative images, a compensatory mechanism seems to drive overall response. This implies that there may be little advantage to using multiple images of similar valence and intensity, but that a greater number of positive pictures will lead to a more positive response in mixed-valence advertisements.

Investigating the simultaneous presentation of advertising and television programming

An empirical investigation was conducted to evaluate the simultaneous presentation of advertising and television programming. This format was compared to the sequential presentation format in terms of ad-avoidance intention, generation of cognitive responses, and brand evaluations. Results indicate that the simultaneous presentation format reduces ad-zapping intentions. However, the distraction effect of the simultaneous viewing of the program leads to a reduction of the dominant cognitive response generated by the advertising message. Compared to sequential presentation, simultaneous presentation of advertising and programming reduces support arguments and brand evaluations for relatively strong messages, but not for relatively weak messages.

The Impact of Interstimulus Interval and Background Silence on Recall

Three experiments investigate how the interval between target items of information in an audio context influences recall under background conditions of music and silence. In experiment 1, when a goal-directed learning task encouraged allocation of resources to the message, recall increased linearly for both background conditions as the interval increased. However, under the incidental learning task used in experiment 2, increasing the interval from two to three seconds had a deleterious impact on recall, but only in the background silence condition. Experiment 3 suggested that this was due to a surplus of cognitive resources in the background silence condition producing interfering extracommunication thought. Results also support the theory presented that background music borrows resources from the processing of message information in an incidental learning task. Although music impairs processing of brand information and reduces recall at shorter intervals, relative to silence, it increases the interval preceding the onset of excess resources, delaying interfering thought.