Jean M. Grow

“Your Life is Waiting!” Symbolic Meanings in Direct-to-Consumer Antidepressant Advertising

This semiotic analysis demonstrates how pharmaceutical companies strategically frame depression within the hotly contested terrain of direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising. The study tracks regulation of the pharmaceutical industry, relative to DTC advertising, including recent industry codes of conduct. Focusing on the antidepressant category, and its three major brands—Paxil (GlaxoSmithKline), Prozac (Eli Lilly), and Zoloft (Pfizer)—this comparative study analyzes 7 years of print advertising following deregulation in 1997. The authors glean themes from within the advertising texts, across the drug category and within individual-brand campaigns. The findings indicate that DTC advertising of antidepressants frames depression within the biochemical model of causation, privileges benefits over risks, fails to adequately educate consumers, and frames depression as a female condition. The authors close with commentary on the potential implications, with particular focus on the new codes of conduct, and offer suggestions for future research.

Breaking the Silence Surrounding Hepatitis C by Promoting Self-Efficacy: Hepatitis C Public Service Announcements

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is the most common chronic bloodborne virus in the United States. Despite this fact, there is a startling lack of awareness about HCV among individuals who might have contracted the virus. In this study, grounded in self-efficacy theory, we analyze public service announcements for HCV. Using focus groups to contextualize the responses of individuals living with HCV, we conclude that stigma and structural barriers pose the greatest challenges for health communicators trying to reach at-risk populations. The findings suggest that expanded use of celebrity appeals, realistic drug-use portrayals, more extensive use of social networking in tandem with nontraditional media, tapping into veterans, and maximizing self-efficacy messages while minimizing fear tactics offer new hope for successful health communication strategies. With 3.9 million people in the United States infected with HCV, this study offers urgently needed communication strategies to address this silent epidemic.

Vanishing Acts: Creative Women in Spain and the United States

This exploratory cross-cultural study examines the experiences of women in advertising creative departments in Spain and the United States. The study, an exploration of the creative environment and its impact on female creatives, is framed by Hofstede’s dimensional model of national culture (Hofstede 2001; de Mooij & Hofstede 2010) and signalling theory (Spence 1974). Interviews with 35 top female creatives suggest that the challenges women face are rooted in the ‘fraternity culture’ or ‘territorio de chicos’ of creative departments in both countries. The data further suggest that the gender-bound cultural environment of advertising creative departments may be a global phenomenon, one that may adversely affect the creative process and impact women’s upward mobility.

Service Learning Across the Curriculum: A Collaboration to Promote Smoking Cessation

This paper focuses on how pedagogy, service, and scholarship can be combined across the advertising curriculum through service learning, which invigorates collaboration among faculty members, student teams, and advertising professionals. The authors demonstrate how service learning projects integrate curricula using a communitybased client, ultimately leading to scholarship and professional outcomes. Specifically, this study analyzes the launch of a service learning-based smoking cessation campaign on a Midwest college campus. Service Learning across the Curriculum 3 “Creativity without strategy is art. Creativity with strategy is advertising” Jef Richards (1998). Advertising pedagogy that combines strategic and creative processes offers the most beneficial of collaborative outcomes. Despite the positive dynamics from collaboration, “advertising educators still struggle with the realties of implementing teamwork in the advertising classroom” (McMillan, 2000, p. 7). Nonetheless, there are clear advantages to collaboration in the classroom, not the least of which is the ability to create an end product that few students could create individually (Ju & Cushman, 1995). Collaborative outcomes, thus, are the rich end products of dynamic teamwork. Teamwork refers to engaging students in dynamic group processes across a broad continuum, from sharing tasks to functioning as a cohesively integrated unit. Optimally, pedagogical team concepts include collaboration among students, colleagues, and advertising professionals, while intertwining multiple courses across the curriculum. Focusing on a single case study, this article attempts to articulate ideas emerging from one central research question. What is the value of service learning applied across all aspects of academic work from pedagogy, to scholarship, to service? We attempt to explore interactions between colleagues and advertising professionals and to demonstrate how this service-learning project integrates curricula (pedagogy) while using either internal or external community-based clients (service). Further, we address how service learning can invigorate collaboration among faculty members, among student teams and with advertising professionals, leading to scholarship and professional outcomes. Service Learning across the Curriculum 4 Specifically, this case study is grounded in the analysis of a service-learning project for the launch of a smoking cessation campaign on a Midwest college campus. Teamwork Across the Curriculum Working in teams is common practice for advertising professionals and students alike. Beard (1997) suggests that most advertising educators, especially in campaigns courses, require students to work in teams. Hertz-Lazarowitz (1992) outline four basic types of teams in the academic environment: 1) basic teams, which are oriented toward a single outcome; 2) task-based teams, which are divided up by multiple tasks among subgroups within the team; 3) networked teams, which function both horizontally (broad) and vertically (deep) in their division of labor; and 4) integrated teams, which share information and task orientation as a cohesive unit. Reber et al. (2003, p. 33) refer to the end result of this integrated team approach as “promoting an integrated toolkit.” In course-based teams, Maheady (1998) suggests five advantages for doing collaborative team coursework: 1) to enhance academic achievement; 2) to improve interpersonal relations among team members; 3) to enhance personal and social development; 4) to create a more constructive learning environment; and 5) to increase motivation among students. Student teamwork, while highly fruitful, is only one part of the equation (Bosworth, 1994; Foyle, 1995; Johnson, Johnson, & Smith, 1991; Topping & Ehly, 1998). Often student groups tend to be homogenous rather than diverse (Reber et al., 2003). Research indicates that groups that are diverse are more successful (Johnson et al., 1991; Reber et al., 2003; Salvin, 1990). McMillan (2000) states that while there is a fair amount of information about college-level teamwork, there is sparse information on Service Learning across the Curriculum 5 teamwork in professional programs, such as advertising and public relations programs. Further, “there are only limited reports of communications application or of advertising specific uses” (Barnes, 2000, p. 2). New opportunities for teamwork within the advertising curriculum need to be explored. McMillan does an excellent job of taking educators beyond the “ivory tower” (2000, p. 7). Her work suggests that dynamic team structures, function, and management style are inherent to team success. Reber et al. (2003) offer a new model, a “toolkit,” that focuses specifically on strategic communication or integrated marketing communications (IMC). This model attempts to integrate not only various team styles, but also multiple components of communication. Their model suggests rich possibilities for growth by integrating teamwork across the curriculum. They, among others, suggest that the blending of many facets of integrated marketing—from public relations to advertising to direct mail—offer students the opportunity to gain a broader understanding of how communication tools can be applied in applied professional situations (see Caywood, 1997; Dilenschneider, 1991; Moriarty, 1994). Pedagogy has evolved from a fairly stagnant classroom lecture structure to engaging students in pedagogical practices, framed by teamwork and based on bringing the advertising professionals and educators into a more dynamic collaborative framework. During the creative revolution of the 1960s, the creative process ruled. Bill Bernbach and his colleagues ushered in the idea of advertising as art, and science took a back seat. Over time advertising found a balance between art and science, as with most trends. This is evident in the evolution of account planning within agencies and more recently within curricula (McMillan, 2000). This shift reflects not only a balanced Service Learning across the Curriculum 6 approach to creative and research, but it also reflects the growing focus on consumers. To understand consumers and to successfully integrate strategy and creative, “students are required to be versed in a variety of production-based discipline as they practice strategic communication” (Reber et al., 2003, p. 35). Today, consumers are the focal point of advertisers. Whether the consumer is our student, the client whom we bring into the classroom, or the commercial consumer to whom we target our ads, we can ill afford to ignore those who consume our pedagogy or our professional end products—advertising. Leo Burnett, the man known for bringing the inherent drama to advertising once said, “If you can’t turn yourself into your customer, you probably shouldn’t be in the ad business at all” (1995, p. 26). Understanding consumers in imperative for “all students who aspire to a career in advertising” (Barnes, 2000, p. 4). If we cannot evolve beyond the “ivory tower,” as McMillan (2000) argues, the services we provide will lose their relevance and effectiveness. We will be constrained by our own self-imposed limitations. Too often students cannot make the connections between our scholarship and its application within the classroom and the professional world. Some argue that academics too often fail to integrate their scholarship into classroom activities (Pasedoes, 2000; Reber et al., 2003). This study helps to illuminate how the work academics do can be reflected in our classroom and in our scholarship. By engaging students in client-based team projects rooted in service learning, educators have the opportunity to bring teaching, research and service to life as an integrated whole. Service Learning across the Curriculum 7 Service Learning as a Framework There are many different definitions of service learning. Cohen and Kinsey (1994, p. 4) state that service learning is “learning that combines public service with related academic work.” Tim Stanton, director of Stanford University’s Hass Center for Public Service, describes service learning as “a particular form of experiential education, one that emphasizes for students the accomplishment of tasks which meet human needs in combination with conscious educational growth” (in Salvin, 1990, p. 335). Feminist approaches define service learning as “a useful strategy for challenging the power relationships of traditional pedagogy” (Novek, 1999, p. 231). At its core, the goal of service learning is to demonstrate to “students of importance of understanding others” (Barnes, 2000, p. 6). There are a myriad of definitions and terms ranging from service learning to service marketing and to service advocacy, and given the inexactness of the definition and the multiple applications of the term, we use the term service learning in its broadest sense. Service learning emerges out of a tradition that was established by Dewey (1927). His goal of education was inextricably linked to the creation of active citizenship (service) within democracy. Educators embracing Dewey’s model generally apply it to “bring their students into direct contact with various types of contemporary social problems and efforts to solve them” (Novek, 1999, p. 231). Thus, service learning provides educators with the opportunity to engage students in contemporary social problems by engaging their newly acquired skill sets while giving “students opportunities to field-test theories” (Novek, 1999, p. 231). Service Learning across the Curriculum 8 Following in Dewey’s footsteps, Palmer (1990) suggests that service learning provides an opportunity for educators to employ multiple ways of knowing and in that sense form an internalized capacity for relatedness. Palmer states, that “the hallmark of the community of truth is in its claim that reality is a web of communal relationships, and we can know reality only by being in community with it” (1998

Generation-Z Enters the Advertising Workplace: Expectations Through a Gendered Lens

Generation-Z (Gen-Z) is entering the workforce with differing personal and professional expectations from previous generations. Further, those expectations tend to vary by gender. At the same time, workplace environments, and the social structures that underpin the workplace, are slow to change. Advertising is no exception. As educators, we are just beginning our encounter with Gen-Z and their differing habits and expectations. Further, while these young women and men share many common experiences and expectations, their expectations are also influenced by their gendered experiences. Social capital theory helps us make sense of the findings as we explore the gaps between the expectations of Gen-Z and realities of the advertising industry within a changing world. Previous research has largely focused on what the advertising industry expects. However, there is little research exploring what future graduates expect and even less on Gen-Z or these students’ expectations viewed through a gendered lens. This research explores the expectations of 98 Gen-Z students and suggests ways we, as advertising educators, might help them bridge the gap between expectations and the professional realities they will face.