Kunal Swani

Spreading the word through likes on Facebook: Evaluating the message strategy effectiveness of Fortune 500 companies

Purpose – This research aims to investigate the message strategies most likely to promote online “word-of-mouth” (WOM) activity for business-to-business (B2B)/business-to-consumer as well as product/service Facebook accounts. Design/methodology/approach – Using content analysis and HLM, the authors measure the relationship between three types of message strategies and Facebook message “Likes” by analyzing 1,143 wall post messages of 193 Fortune 500 Facebook accounts. Findings – Research findings suggest that B2B Facebook account posts are more effective if they include corporate brand names and avoid “hard sell” or explicitly commercial statements. Furthermore, results suggest that including emotional sentiments in Facebook posts is a particularly effective social media strategy for B2B and service marketers. Originality/value – This study advances the knowledge of social media and online WOM behavior, as well as B2B and service advertising/communication literature, by relating message content to message ...

The Impact of Violent Humor on Advertising Success: A Gender Perspective

Recent academic research has focused on the use of novelty and shock in advertising executions. One manifestation of this approach in American television advertising is the use of aggressive humor; a dramatic change in the way humor has historically been employed. This investigation examines two studies of the responses of men and women to violence in humorous advertising. The results of both studies reveal differences in the responses of men and women suggesting there may be a risk in coupling humor with high physical violence in ads targeted toward female audiences. The second study examines in a path model the role of perceived violations of social norms and perceived humor on the attitudes of men and women toward the ad and the brand. The poor response of women to more violence with humor ads is closely related to their perceived violations of social norms; for men, their more positive response to such ads is related to their perception of humor in the ads with humor and stronger violence.

Understanding responses to comedic advertising aggression: the role of vividness and gender identity

As the use of comedic aggression in advertising has become more frequent, questions about the boundary conditions of its effectiveness become more important. Issues related to the vividness of the aggression, unique audience responses, and legitimacy of the aggression are examined here as potential influences on the impact of comedic advertising aggression. Two experiments are reported that explore how reactions to comedic advertising aggression are influenced by components of vividness (concreteness – aggressive intensity, emotional interest – psychological distance), the audiences gender identity, and whether the aggression was provoked and justified. Feminine identity individuals in close psychological situations react quite negatively to advertising using the highest level of comedic aggression while masculine identity individuals actually prefer the most vivid aggression in some conditions. The response patterns become different for feminine and masculine identity individuals when the aggression is unprovoked and therefore less justified. The results provide guidance about the limits of using comedic advertising aggression.

The Impact of the Great Recession on Financial Services Advertising: An Exploratory Study

ABSTRACT We explore how advertising managers of financial services organizations have responded to the repercussions of the Great Recession in their advertising strategies. To this end, we compare print ads for financial services that appeared in six magazines at two periods in time: 2005, prior to the Great Recession and 2010, after the end of the Great Recession. We content analyzed 755 prints ads and found major differences in the advertising strategies from prerecession to postrecession, particularly in the type of appeals. We further examined these strategic shifts by audience focus (business-to-business and business-to-consumer) and gender focus (male, female, or both).

Financial Services Advertising: Comparing Business-To-Business and Business-To-Consumer Contexts

The distinction between services and goods marketing as also the differences between B2B and B2C marketing are well accepted by scholars and practitioners. Turley and Kelley (1997) content analyzed print ads for services in the B2B and B2C domains, but there has been no update in the intervening fifteen years in spite of a spurt in the advertising volume as also the birth of social media. Our research intends to fill that void and provide an update. Specifically we focused on financial services ads because they are targeted to both B2B buyers and B2C consumers. We analyzed 755 ads that appeared in 6 magazines in 2005 and 2010. We found that financial service ads used different appeals in the two sectors. We also found that websites promoted active involvement more in the B2B sectors. We saw that there was a slight bias towards females in the B2B sector. Lastly the ads were tangibalized differently in the two markets.

How to connect with your best student prospects: Saying the right things, to the right students, in the right media

ABSTRACT Most market segmentation in prior academic research on higher education has been largely based on demographic variables, providing a limited view of potential targeting opportunities. This research employs psychographic measures to differentiate segments based on intangible characteristics such as attitudes, interests, lifestyles, and values, delivering richer insights into student motivations. Results from a survey of over 1,000 students revealed six distinct student segments, each with identifiable differentiating characteristics. The media and information preferences of each student segment are also evaluated, providing guidance for higher education media planning. Psychographic segmentation enables greater understanding of students, more precisely tailored media mixes, and more effective marketing communications efforts.

Does Linguistic Style in Social Media Communications Impact Consumer Engagement? An Abstract

The rise of social media has boosted marketers’ interest in using these platforms to build relationships with customers and as potential tools for spreading word of mouth. While research has examined topics related to consumer-brand relationships on social media (de Vries et al. 2012; Labrecque 2014), the sustained use of social media platforms and their evolving nature merit additional inquiry (Kumar 2015). We extend the literature by investigating how the linguistic style of brands’ social media messages impacts consumer engagement. We look beyond the message content and investigate how the linguistic style of the message affects a consumer’s decision to interact with the brand, taking into account not only what is being said but also how it is communicated.