Joyce M. Wolburg

A Psychographic Analysis of Generation Y College Students

ABSTRACT Generation Y is regarded as the elusive new youth market, whose members are as resistant to advertising efforts as were members of Generation X before them. To investigate various factors that influence the use of advertising among the college segment of Generation Y, a survey was administered to a random sample of 368 college students. Questions probed self-identity, relevance of depictions in the media, and the informational value of advertising across eight media. Results show that gender and a variety of personality traits such as introversion/extroversion affect both the perceived value of advertising as an information source and the relevance of depictions in the media. Depictions in movies and television were rated significantly better than depictions in advertising. Implications are drawn for both media planners and marketing strategists trying to communicate with this elusive group.

Understanding the “Social Gifts” of Drinking Rituals: An Alternative Framework for PSA Developers

Abstract Binge drinking behavior has been described as the most significant health hazard on college campuses today. Using definitions of ritual behavior drawn from the literature, the authors conducted focus groups, depth interviews, and participant observations to explore the ritualized nature of alcohol beverage consumption among college students at two large universities. The themes that emerged provide an understanding of the rituals associated with college student drinking. With the drinking-as-ritual interpretation as a theoretical framework, the authors discuss how developers of public service announcements (PSAs) could capture and contextualize drinking rituals and thus make PSAs more relevant to the target audience. They provide examples of PSAs that could be tested.

How responsible are “responsible” drinking campaigns for preventing alcohol abuse?

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to question the misplaced efforts to curb alcohol abuse through “responsible” drinking messages from the alcohol industry, asking how responsible this strategy really is.Design/methodology/approach – This article cites published research that calls into question the effectiveness of “responsible” messages, particularly those that situate the problem of alcohol abuse within drunk driving and underage drinking without addressing heavy consumption. Examples of “responsible” messages are drawn from websites of three major beer companies.Findings – Problems with “responsible” drinking are identified, including the fact that such messages place the problem within the user rather than the product. “Responsible” messages also give permission to drink heavily as long as underage and driving is not involved. “Responsible” drinking messages enable drinkers to shift responsibility to others, which gives carte blanche to binge drinking.Practical implications – There is little d...

The need for new anti‐smoking advertising strategies that do not provoke smoker defiance

The misguided effort to change the smoking behavior of college students using the same anti‐smoking messages created for young teens apparently stems from the misplaced marketing belief that ads designed to prevent young teens from smoking can also effectively encourage college‐student smokers to quit. When college students were asked to respond to current anti‐smoking messages, non‐smokers championed the anti‐smoking cause while smokers responded with defiance, denial, and other counter‐productive behaviors. These studies show that persuading legal‐age young adults to quit would require new message strategies which show greater respect for the individual, greater support for the effort in quitting, and ways to counter faulty logic.

Misplaced marketing: Why television is the “wrong” environment for public service advertising campaigns

Notes that research has shown that advertising efforts to promote social causes rarely reach meaningful levels of effectiveness. Points out that while the media provide the right emotional climate for advertising messages that encourage consumption, it follows that the media provide the wrong environment for messages that discourage consumption or other behaviors. Concludes that money spent might best be redirected to other prevention efforts that more directly accompish the social progam’s goals.

Time: The “Silent” Cultural Value in American Television Advertising

The depiction of time as a cultural value has received rather limited attention in the advertising literature, despite its presence in ads either explicitly or implicitly. This study attempts to fill that void by offering a framework for analyzing the many ways that time is depicted in television advertising. The key time elements noted are Limited Time, Marking Time, More Time, Oriented Time, and Sequenced Time. While the framework emerged from a sample of ads in the United States, it can alert advertisers to important differences in time concepts within other cultures and among different ethnic groups.

Advertising, Society, and Consumer Culture

This study integrates scientific findings about the Global Warming Potential (GWP) - for example, the roles of pollution, population growth, agricultural development and sustainable resources - with advances in economic theory and methods, so as to explain how and why climate and economy are complementary at the local, national and global levels. The primary purpose of this work is to provide analytical bases for the creation of pragmatic, ecology-environment-economy policies, rather than to overwhelm the reader with technical processing that does not offer any comprehensive examination of the effects of the economy upon the environment, and vice versa. Modelling and data processing are treated as secondary requirements and follow, rather than precede, the framework developed in this book.

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

Condoms, cigarettes, and cell phones: does brand advertising increase generic demand?

Purpose – This article aims to stimulate discussion of how the advertising of brands affects the product category by creating generic demand.Design/methodology/approach – The article outlines the authors personal viewpoint.Findings – Although greater emphasis has been given to generic advertisings effect on brands, there is evidence that brand advertising can stimulate generic demand.Practical implications – The article takes the discussion of the issue to a different level.Originality/value – The article not only explores ways of increasing generic demand, it also provides theoretical explanations for how it can occur.

Smoking cessation: why do smokers fail?

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to probe three explanations for the difficulty that cigarette smokers have in quitting: the addictive nature of the product; the failure to deliver messages with effective quit strategies; and the resistance to enacting smoking bans in bars and restaurants. It aims to argue that the latter two issues result in misplaced marketing.Design/methodology/approach – This article examines data from published research, interviews with smokers who have successfully quit, and government statistics to have a clearer picture of the issues.Findings – Smokers are exposed to anti‐smoking messages created to discourage youth from starting to smoke, but smokers seldom encounter smoking cessation messages that offer realistic quit strategies. Instead, too many messages offer overly simplistic solutions. Furthermore, smokers in many states continue to find smoking permitted in bars – a place that typically triggers the desire to smoke due to associations between drinking and smoking. ...