Surendra N. Singh

Enhancing Helping Behavior: An Integrative Framework for Promotion Planning

Charitable organizations play a vital role in society, as evidenced by their enormous economic and social impact. Yet, for many of them, soliciting adequate resources to carry out their mandates is a continuing struggle. Confronted with a growing need for their services, fierce competition from other charities and shrinking support from government agencies, charities may turn to marketers for help in developing effective promotional strategies. Unfortunately, marketing literature is unable to provide meaningful guidance because scant research attention has hampered a fuller understanding of why people help. A study integrates relevant research in marketing, economics, sociology and social psychology to advance theoretical understanding of helping behavior. In addition, research propositions regarding specific promotional strategies that charitable organizations can employ to elicit help are presented.

Web home pages as advertisements

I f you belong to a commercial enterprise with a Web presence, how do you view your company’s home page? Frankly, your views do not matter. Like Richard Serra’s award-winning sculpture, which had to be removed from the New York City Federal Building in the face of public pressure, what really counts is what your audiences think about your home page. And we have reasons to believe that your audiences might be viewing your home page primarily as an advertisement designed to entice them to experience the site. At first glance, the proposition that a Web home page is an advertisement may seem somewhat farfetched. But thinking of a home page in advertising terms not only makes sense, it has far-reaching and profound implications for the design and evaluation of Web sites. In this article, we will flesh out the details of the home-page-as-an-ad proposition and describe the implications of this communications view. Web Home Pages as Advertisements Surendra N. Singh + Nikunj P. Dalal

An Examination of Different Explanations for the Mere Exposure Effect

This article investigates two competing explanations of the mere exposure effect—the cognition-based perceptual fluency/misattribution theory (PF/M) and the affect-based hedonic fluency model (HFM)—under incidental exposure conditions. In two studies, the classical mere exposure effect is replicated in the context of banner advertising. The findings rule out the cognition-based PF/M and suggest that the spontaneous affective reaction resulting from perceptual fluency is a crucial link between fluency and evaluation. The studies provide strong evidence that the spontaneous affect influences evaluative judgments through a more complex process, likely by coloring the interpretation of the fluency experience and the nature of resulting metacognitions relating fluency to liking. Theoretical and managerial implications of the findings are mentioned.

Recognition Versus Recall as Measures of Television Commercial Forgetting

The authors report the second in a series of experiments on recognition as a dependent variable in the study of learning and forgetting of television commercials. They investigate the impact of time since exposure, commercial length, and commercial repetition on recognition and unaided recall scores. The results indicate that recognition scores are not indiscriminately high, as commonly is argued, and that they do decline with time, contrary to what often is assumed. The data, in fact, show that recognition scores are more sensitive and more discriminating than, and covary with, unaided recall scores. The evidence indicates they warrant more consideration by advertisers.

Recognition as a Measure of Learning from Television Commercials

Recognition has not received extensive acceptance by practitioners as a response variable for learning of television commercials. The authors review some of the distinctions between recall and recognition, and some of the problems associated with each. In a laboratory experiment they developed and tested a measure of recognition useful for low involvement situations in which a recall level of learning may not be necessary. Data and implications about the usefulness and limitations of the measure are presented.

Arousal and Advertising Effectiveness

This paper contends that television programs generate physiological arousal and that programming induced arousal can be used as a mediating variable to explain the impact of programming on the ensuing commercials. It systematically explores how television programming induced arousal can influence the learning of, and attitudes and behavior toward, the commercials embedded in the programs.

Using the Theory of Signal Detection to Improve Ad Recognition Testing

Recognition tests are a very popular means of assessing the memory effectiveness of advertisements. Unfortunately the recognition scores obtained by current methods reflect both the memory for an advertisement and the response biases of the respondents. The authors introduce the theory of signal detection (TSD) which can be used to secure independent estimates of memory and response bias in recognition tests. They discuss how TSD can be used to improve ad recognition testing.

Forced-Choice Recognition Tests: A Critical Review

Abstract Recognition measures are commonly used to test the memory effects of advertisements. Unfortunately, there is a significant amount of response bias (particularly false claiming) involved with the simple “yes”/“no” type recognition tests currently being used by the advertising researchers. Recently a different procedure, called forced-choice recognition test, has been suggested as a means of removing the response bias. The present paper briefly reviews the past attempts made by the advertising researchers to secure a valid measure of recognition memory and then evaluates the efficacy of forced-choice recognition tests as a means of eliminating response bias in an advertising context.

Research-Related Burnout among Faculty in Higher Education

We investigated the effects of intrinsic motivation to do research and perceived lack of rewards contingent on doing research on burnout or disenchantment from research. Findings, based on a survey of 328 faculty at a major university, indicate that these two variables account for 74% and 81% of the variance in scores on a scale relating to burnout among 260 tenured and 68 untenured professors, respectively. The effect of perceived lack of rewards contingent on doing research on burnout was moderated by the tenure status.

Enhancing the Efficacy of Split Thirty-Second Television Commercials: An Encoding Variability Application

The split 30-second commercial format has become a regular feature of todays television advertising. Yet, little is known about the effectiveness of commercials presented in the two halves of a split: 30. The authors report findings from a laboratory experiment in which the similarity of commercials presented in the two halves of a split: 30 format was systematically varied. In a factorial design, subjects were exposed to either two identical: 15s, two very similar: 15s, or two very different: 15s for the same brand. Memory of the advertised brand was measured after either a short interval (within a few minutes of message exposure) or a long interval (the next day). Results provide preliminary support for the assertion that presenting identical: 15s leads to better memory after short intervals and presenting different: 15s produces better memory after long intervals. The findings are explained through a variation of the encoding variability theory.