Kathleen Mortimer

Identifying the components of effective service advertisements

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the components that make up an effective service advertisement.Design/methodology/approach – This is achieved by examining a sample of service advertisements that have been recognised for their success. The advertisements are analysed with reference to two areas of discussion; the use of rational and emotional appeals and the presence of three executional tools, i.e. physical representation, documentation and showing the service encounter/provider. The methodology uses a combination of case study approach and a content analysis of effective service advertisements. The appeals are classified utilising the Pollay (1983) list of advertising appeals. The three executional tools are taken from an overview of the main conceptual frameworks.Findings – The majority of advertisements utilise emotional appeals for not only experiential but also utilitarian services. They also provide physical representation of the service and an illustration of the service encounte...

Buy, boycott or blog: Exploring online consumer power to share, discuss and distribute controversial advertising messages

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine the concept of consumer power, in particular the power or bloggers in the online environment and how this might be applied to the regulation of advertising.Design/methodology/approach – Utilising Denegri‐Knotts (2006) four on‐line power strategies, a content analysis of weblogs of Tourism Australias “Where the bloody hell are you?” advertising campaign is undertaken. Blogger behaviour towards this controversial campaign is documented and consumer power strategies are examined.Findings – This study reveals that bloggers are circumventing the traditional self regulatory process by distributing information, opinion, and even banned advertising material, thereby forming power hubs of like‐minded people, with the potential to become online pressure groups, augmenting the traditional powers of consumers in the self regulatory process.Research limitations/implications – Limitations include a single case context and its exploration of a single media tool (weblog...

‘IMC is dead. Long live IMC’: Academics' versus practitioners' views

Abstract The purpose of this research is to establish whether academics and practitioners are similar in their perceptions of what Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) is and the role it has to play in todays dynamic landscape. This objective is achieved first by examining the IMC literature to establish the main themes that underpin the construct and to identify the topics that have been most discussed over the past 10 years. These findings are then utilised to perform a content analysis of 10 essays that were published by Campaign magazine in December 2010 by high-profile practitioners under the heading of ‘Whats Next in Integration’. The findings indicate that there are differences in the perception of academics and practitioners on IMC, mainly in the area of internal audiences and its strategic role within an organisation. These findings are of interest to academics, clients, and agencies, as these areas of misunderstanding may be acting as a barrier to IMC implementation. This research identifies significant differences in how IMC is perceived by academics and practitioners in the advertising industry. This identification is important because organisations can only benefit from IMC fully if there is a common understanding across clients, agencies, and academics of what it is and how it works. Misunderstandings can create barriers to full implementation, and it is the responsibility of the industry as a whole to address this and enable meaningful dialogue to take place and progress to be made.

Are services advertised differently? An analysis of the relationship between product and service types and the informational content of their advertisements

This study examines the informational content of service and product advertisements and analyses the relationship between the amount and type of information in an advertisement and the type of product or service being advertised. The influence that service characteristics have on advertising strategy is still not well understood. One theory is that services need to be more tangible in order to assist in the consumer decision-making process and advertising can assist with this by providing factual information. The purpose of this paper is to establish whether this theory is recognized and adopted in advertising practice. This is achieved by performing a content analysis. The results indicate that product advertisements contain more information than services, which indicates a discrepancy between advertising theory and practice. The results also prove that there are variances in the amount and type of information included in product and service advertisements. The paper examines these variances and applies existing classification frameworks to explain them. Areas for further research are also identified.

The relationship between culture and advertising appeals for services

This paper contributes to our limited knowledge of international service advertising. It first compares the type of advertising appeals utilised in service advertisements in both France and the UK. Second, it explores whether the cultural dimensions of the two countries are related to the type of appeals being utilised by using the work of Albers-Miller (1996) who posited links between the advertising appeals identified by Pollay (1983) and individual cultural dimensions utilised in Hofstedes (2001) framework. Such an exploration has been undertaken for business advertising appeals previously but not consumer services. The results indicate first that English advertisements use more rational appeals than French advertisements, as predicted, but that both countries use more emotional appeals than rational for both utilitarian and experiential services. Second, that France, identified as having a higher Uncertainty-Avoidance dimension, makes greater use of the appeals linked with that dimension.

Services advertising: the agency viewpoint

Although there is an increasing amount of research in the services advertising area, results from content analyses suggest that there is a discrepancy between services advertising theory and practice. Explores this discrepancy by interviewing creative directors in UK advertising agencies to establish their views. More specifically, the interviews examine first how the directors classify products and services and secondly how they think services should be advertised. The results reveal that the directors are not influenced by the product/service characteristics. The main influence on the creative work is the advertising objective. If any classification takes place it utilises the utilitarian/experimental divide or the involvement continuum. These exploratory findings provide an explanation for the discrepancies found in previous studies and bring into question the relevance of examining services advertising separately from advertising in general. Advertising may be one element of the marketing mix that is not influenced by service characteristics.

The internal and external challenges facing clients in implementing IMC

Purpose Although integrated marketing communication (IMC) is generally accepted as the way forward by academics and practitioners, there is a shortage of research into the challenges that clients face in implementing the process, particularly in the UK. This paper aims to address these issues by examining how UK clients perceive the barriers to implementation, with reference to the conflict theory of decision-making and the social exchange theory from the change management literature. Design/methodology/approach The study adopted a critical realism approach and collected data through an on-line questionnaire to an expert panel of UK clients, which generated some rich qualitative data. The experts were asked to comment on four statements developed from the literature which captured the main challenges identified in previous research. Findings The results indicate that UK clients are facing similar barriers to those evident in other countries more than a decade ago. Three main obstacles are identified. First, some clients still find IMC difficult to understand and therefore may avoid change because of the high level of risk involved. Second, marketing departments lack control or influence over other parts of the organisation, due in some cases to lack of representation at board level. Finally, agencies do not have a clear role in the implementation of IMC. Originality/value The paper is of value because it specifically investigates the UK client perspective, which is presently sparse in the literature and updates the knowledge on barriers to implementation. It underpins this discussion with reference to change management theories. The paper also examines the support being provided by industry bodies and questions their effectiveness.

Identifying entrepreneurs through risk taking behaviour: illegal downloading

Purpose – This paper aims to explore, and is the first in a series, whether it is possible to use risk-taking activities as way of identifying potential entrepreneurs. The research examines the motivations of individuals to engage in deviant consumer behaviour, in this case illegal downloading and the link between this behaviour and possible entrepreneurial characteristics. Design/methodology/approach – The methodology approach was of a quantitative nature using a 32-item questionnaire disseminated to 215 undergraduate students at a UK university. Findings – Although there was strong evidence of entrepreneurial traits existing across the participants, including risk-taking propensity, no relationship could be found between risk-taking propensity and illegal downloading. Reasons put forward for these findings were that the level of risk involved was too low to be identified as such by the downloaders, even though the non-downloaders were worried about being caught and, therefore, were not participating in ...

Partner or supplier: An examination of client/agency relationships in an IMC context

Abstract There is growing evidence from practitioners that the advertising industry is in a state of crisis. As campaigns become more integrated and multi-disciplinary, the relationship between advertising agencies and clients is being tested to its limits and is presently considered to be at an all-time low. Agencies feel less valued and are being excluded from C-suite discussion. Clients feel that agencies do not appreciate the changing landscape and how the customer experience is now key. Both sides recognise the need for more trust and collaboration. This study applies the agency theory and the social power theory to understand the pressures that the relationship is under. It looks for evidence that IMC is creating a movement away from a business alliance relationship by comparing qualitative data collected from both agencies and clients, using NVivo to identify themes. The findings identify four themes which illustrate this shift towards a supplier relationship: the client ownership of the customer journey, the lack of a strategic role of agencies, the challenges of agency collaboration and difficulties of agency specialisation.

Towards a global framework for advertising self regulation

One of the forces which has indelibly shaped marketing is the internet. It has not only changed the way we communicate, but our marketing practices and our advertising self-regulation process (Kerr, et al 2012). Most advertising self-regulatory frameworks are country specific and typically an artefact of culture and the national regulatory environment (Boddewyn 1989; Rotfeld 1992). The importance of protecting consumers from deceptive advertising is universal, and in trying to regulate a global medium, we need to integrate national concerns into global guidelines and international best practice. Currently there is no global framework for advertising self-regulation, even though there is an urgent need to both protect consumers in this unregulated environment and ensure marketers’ obligations for legal, decent and truthful advertising are met.