Rafi M. M. I. Chowdhury

Affective Responses to Images In Print Advertising: Affect Integration in a Simultaneous Presentation Context

Print advertising frequently employs multiple images within a single advertisement, each of which is capable of generating an affective response. Little is known, however, about how these multiple ad components combine to impact overall emotional response to advertising. Evidence from three experiments suggests that when advertisement images are all positive or all negative, the most extreme image determines overall response. When an advertisement contains both positive and negative images, a compensatory mechanism seems to drive overall response. This implies that there may be little advantage to using multiple images of similar valence and intensity, but that a greater number of positive pictures will lead to a more positive response in mixed-valence advertisements.

Investigating the simultaneous presentation of advertising and television programming

An empirical investigation was conducted to evaluate the simultaneous presentation of advertising and television programming. This format was compared to the sequential presentation format in terms of ad-avoidance intention, generation of cognitive responses, and brand evaluations. Results indicate that the simultaneous presentation format reduces ad-zapping intentions. However, the distraction effect of the simultaneous viewing of the program leads to a reduction of the dominant cognitive response generated by the advertising message. Compared to sequential presentation, simultaneous presentation of advertising and programming reduces support arguments and brand evaluations for relatively strong messages, but not for relatively weak messages.

Religious Orientations and Consumer Ethics: The Mediating Role of Personal Moral Philosophies

This study examines the roles of intrinsic religiosity, quest religiosity and personal moral philosophies (idealism and relativism) as predictors of consumers’ ethical beliefs. An online survey was conducted with 500 US consumers to identify these relationships. The results indicate that intrinsic religiosity and quest religiosity lead to negative beliefs regarding unethical consumer actions (actively benefiting from illegal actions, passively benefiting from the mistakes of the seller and actively benefiting from legal but questionable actions) and positive beliefs regarding pro-social actions mediated through idealism. Quest religiosity also leads to positive beliefs regarding unethical consumer actions (passively benefiting from the mistakes of the seller) mediated through relativism. Supplementing these indirect effects, intrinsic religiosity and quest religiosity have direct influences on some, but not all, dimensions of consumer ethics. Considering the mediating roles of idealism and relativism in relation to the effects of religiosity on consumer ethics, policies and practices that enhance idealism and reduce relativism should be supported to encourage ethical consumption.