Susan Auty

Fashion involvement, self‐monitoring and the meaning of brands

This study considers the importance of fashion involvement in the interpretation of brands of jeans as measured by Snyder’s revised self‐monitoring scale, which discriminates between people who are highly motivated to respond to social cues and those who remain “true to themselves”. Over 650 people in the UK aged 14‐34 were shown either a branded or unbranded stimulus. They were asked to record their attitude to 27 pairs of bipolar adjectives using a semantic differential scale. At the same time they completed Snyder’s scale. It was found that self‐monitoring is a significant mediator of meaning with regard to unbranded, but not branded, jeans. A model of choice by elimination of the unacceptable is suggested by high self‐monitoring responses. It has implications for the amount of advertising required to support a fashion brand.

Is Children's Understanding of Nontraditional Advertising Comparable to Their Understanding of Television Advertising?

The dramatic changes in childrens commercial environment call for an updated evaluation of childrens grasp of advertising. The aim of this study is to compare childrens understanding of television advertising with nontraditional advertising (i.e., movie and in-game brand placement, product licensing, program sponsorship, and advergames). The authors interviewed 134 children from second-grade (ages 6–7) and fifth-grade (ages 9–10) classes in the United Kingdom about the nature and intent of different examples of advertising, combining open-ended and cued response formats. As anticipated, children demonstrated a significantly more sophisticated understanding of television advertising compared with nontraditional advertising. Embedded advertising practices (movie and in-game brand placement) were most difficult for children to understand. Thus, children appear to have limited knowledge of alternative marketing tactics and consequently lack the cognitive skills to evaluate them critically. The authors conclude by making suggestions for public policy measures.

“Tribal warfare” and gaps affecting internal service quality

Analogies between internal and external service quality suggest that internal quality can be assessed without too much regard to differences between organizational customers and fee‐paying customers. Research into organizational networks, however, indicates the importance of environmental and atmospheric factors in exchange activities. In this paper we explore the gaps in service quality arising from the conflict between departmental and organizational loyalties. Using methods derived from the external model of service quality put forward by Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry, we consider the value of internal research into service quality and suggest that organizational power struggles and lack of communication lead to misunderstandings about the priorities and resources available for internal service exchanges. The greater empathy generated among the participating departments suggests that improvement can occur when there is closer interaction between “warring” but nevertheless dependent departments. Balanced against this is an overarching need for organizational goals to take precedence and for limited resources to be allocated according to the ultimate needs of the external customer.

Under the Radar: How Embedded Commercial Messages in TV and the New Media Influence Children Without their Conscious Awareness

As marketers seek new, more subtle ways to target the consumer, there has been an increase in the use of covert, interactive and multimedia forms of advertising. Even though these campaigns are largely targeted at adults, children are increasingly exposed to commercial messages embedded within TV programmes, films and video games. This practice is commonly known as brand or product placement and involves paid messages or within-context exposure, which is aimed at influencing audiences (Balasubramanian, 1991). Compared with ‘traditional’ messages on TV, this non-traditional technique results in the blurring of boundaries between advertising, entertainment and information (Gunter, Oates & Blades, 2005; Mallinckrodt & Mizerski, 2007; Wright, Friestad & Boush, 2005). This technique removes temporal markers that have traditionally distinguished selling from entertainment and requires the viewer to become sensitive to the intent of advertisers within this context. When we reflect on children’s immersion in an increasingly commercialized media environment, key questions that emerge are what children understand about non-traditional advertising and how children are influenced by it.