Gary Holmes

Exploring the relationship between celebrity endorser effects and advertising effectiveness

This study provides a quantitative summary of the relationship between celebrity endorser source effects and effectiveness in advertising. The Kruskal-Wallis nonparametric test is used to identify the most influential celebrity endorser source effects on effectiveness. The role of celebrity/product fit, interaction effects, sample type, study setting, and country of study are also included as moderators. Results suggest negative celebrity information can be extremely detrimental to an advertising campaign. The source credibility model composed of celebrity trustworthiness, celebrity expertise, and celebrity attractiveness appears to capture the three most influential source effects on purchase intentions, brand attitudes and attitudes towards the advertisement.

A Model for Reducing Health Care Employee Turnover

Explaining the rationale as to why employees leave their jobs has led to many different strategies to retain employees. The model presented here seeks to explain why employees choose to stay or to leave their place of employment. The information from the analysis will provide managers with well-tested tools to reduce turnover and to ascertain what employees value from their work environment in order to help the organization to retain those employees. The model identifies key factors that management can utilize to provide barriers to exit and retain professional employees in their health care units. Recommendations are provided that reward loyalty and build barriers to exit.

New Thinking on Antecedents to Successful CRM Campaigns: Consumer Acceptance of an Alliance

The nature of a cause-brand alliance (CBA) makes it a unique marketing promotion that creates an association or alliance between the corporation selling a product and a social cause or issue. This study was developed to resolve the equivocal research results of past research. The research results suggest that consumer acceptance of a CBA mediates the relationships between situational contexts (prevalence of the social cause and congruence of the alliance) and consumer attitude toward the corporate alliance partner. This study observed that when prevalence is high, consumers’ acceptance of that CBA is high as well. Surprisingly, congruency did not have a significant impact on acceptance. Reasons for this unexpected finding are explored in detail. Finally, the acceptance of the CBA had a positive effect on consumers’ attitude toward the CBA.

Exploring Impact Philanthropy, Altruistic, Hedonic, and Egoistic Motivations to Support Animal Causes

This study examines altruistic, hedonic, impact philanthropy, and egoistic motivational dimensions in regard to support for an animal sanctuary. A cross-sectional sample of animal-sanctuary supporters is obtained. The findings indicate that impact philanthropy motives are the most substantial motivational dimension, while egoistic motives are the least substantial. Respondents reported hedonic and altruistic motives as the second most influential dimension for supporting the animal sanctuary. Furthermore, hedonic and impact philanthropy motives are strongly associated with sanctuary visitation, while hedonic motives are associated with membership. Gender and age are also examined in this study; results indicate that women are more altruistic than men, a finding supported by past research. Implications of these findings are explored from both academic and managerial perspectives.

An Investigation of Match-Up Effects: Influential Sources of Fit and the Generative Role of Imagination

The purpose of the study is to enhance our understanding of sources of visual–product fit by investigating imagination as a process mechanism in a print ad context. Three studies are presented. In the first study, a scale is developed to measure perceptions of fit. The second study applies the perceptions of fit measure to investigate sources of fit. Findings indicate that this influence resides in the overlap of shared visual–product assumptions. The results of the third study suggest that assumptions common to the visual and the product provide the generative ground for imagination. This common ground facilitates the allocation of cognitive resources for imagining product experiences and augmented features beyond those associated with just the visual or the product only.

The Role of Information-Processing in Facilitating New Product Success: An Empirical Investigation

The growing interest towards the relationship between organizational learning and new product outcomes in the past 15 years has produced a cornucopia of findings that, due to the wide scope of approaches and contexts, occasionally appear contradictory and incompatible. This paper focuses on one aspect of organizational learning — information processing, and attempts to analyze and quantitatively compare existing empirical findings with the goal to clarify the role of organizational group-level information processing in the NPD process and outcomes. Although the majority of existing empirical findings generally support a positive role of information processing and market orientation in facilitating new product success (Baker and Sinkula 1999a and b; Calantone, Cavusgil and Zhao 2002; Hurley and Hult 1998; Slater and Narver 1995; Therm 2002), there are some results that are inconclusive, contingent on exogenous variables, and contradictory (Brockman and Morgan 2003; Gatignon and Xuereb 1997; Moorman 1995; Moorman and Miner 1998a and b). Meta-analytic technique, as “the quantitative synthesis of research findings” (Franke 2001), appears to provide the best approach to estimating the central tendency of the net relationship between the constructs of interest. In addition, this technique aids in identifying possible measurement or contextual moderators that may explain inconsistent quantitative results.

Advertising Relevance: Categorization and a Case for Scale Development

Some advertising studies have used various conceptualizations of relevance, but no study has yet comprehensively investigated and applied a theoretical aspect of relevance to visuals in advertising. This research addresses a need for the ability to measure relevance when it occurs through pairing of visuals and products in advertising.

Consumer Non-Conscious Intrusion Detection Systems: The Link Between Psychological Reactance and Ad Irritation

Past research in marketing has paid little attention to cognitive-based antecedents to irritation in advertising. This paper addresses that gap and uses psychological reactance theory to explain why variations in perceptions of irritating advertising persist among consumers.