Veroline Cauberghe

Context effects of TV programme‑induced interactivity and telepresence on advertising responses

This study investigates the context effects of TV programme embedded interactivity on the attitude toward an advertisement placed within the interactive programme. In the 2 (two way communication) × 3 (user control) experimental study, 246 respondents participated. The results show that the impact of actual interactivity on attitude toward the advertisement is mediated by perceived interactivity. Subsequently, telepresence (the feeling of being present in the mediated environment) has a crucial mediating role to explain the context effect of perceived interactivity on attitude toward the advertisement. With regard to the underlying mechanism, the results show that telepresence is positively correlated with the amount of positive programme thoughts. In addition, the positive programme thoughts have a positive effect on the attitude toward the ad, above and beyond the effect of positive thoughts about the advertisement.

How advertising literacy training affect children’s responses to television commercials versus advergames

This study examined childrens advertising literacy level for traditional versus embedded advertising formats by comparing their cognitive and affective advertising literacy level for television commercials vs. advergames. The study also explored how cognitive and affective advertising literacy further attenuate advertising effects by investigating the mediation impact of cognitive and affective advertising literacy on the relation between the ads format and the purchase request. Third, the study investigated how an advertising literacy training session moderates these effects. The results of this experimental study showed that advergames lead to a higher purchase request rate among children than television commercials. However, only affective but not cognitive advertising literacy mediated the effect of the advertising format on purchase request. In addition, a training session was shown to accelerate childrens cognitive (but not their affective) advertising literacy for advergames, but not for television commercials.

The effectiveness of regulatory (in)congruent ads: the moderating role of an ad’s rational versus emotional tone

In a 2 (ad tone: emotional versus rational) × 2 (ad’s regulatory focus: prevention versus promotion)× 2 (viewer’s self-regulatory focus: prevention versus promotion) between-subjects experimental design, the effectiveness of fair trade campaigns is tested. The results show that, in the case of a rational ad, regulatory congruence (versus incongruence) effects were found (though only for prevention focused people), whereas in the case of an emotional ad, regulatory incongruence (versus congruence) effects were found (though only for promotion focused people).

Marketing through Instagram influencers: the impact of number of followers and product divergence on brand attitude

ABSTRACT Findings of two experimental studies show that Instagram influencers with high numbers of followers are found more likeable, partly because they are considered more popular. Important, only in limited cases, perceptions of popularity induced by the influencers number of followers increase the influencers perceived opinion leadership. However, if the influencer follows very few accounts him-/herself, this can negatively impact popular influencers’ likeability. Also, cooperating with influencers with high numbers of followers might not be the best marketing choice for promoting divergent products, as this decreases the brands perceived uniqueness and consequently brand attitudes.

Can't see the forest for the trees? The effect of media multitasking on cognitive processing style

Media multitasking represents an important aspect of the recent evolution in media consumption habits. While some experimental research exists, it has primarily focused on the detrimental effects of multitasking on task performance. We go a step further by examining the impact of media multitasking on information processing style. Study I demonstrates that media multitasking, compared to sequential media consumption, leads to a more local perceptual processing style. Furthermore, the frequency of media switching predicts the level of perceptual processing. Study II extends these findings by showing that media multitasking also affects conceptual processing style. Specifically, media multitasking leads to lower-level (or more concrete) construal of behaviors in a subsequent task. It further shows that conceptual rather than visual switching between media drives the observed differences in conceptual processing. These findings suggest that, as a growing phenomenon, media multitasking behavior may substantially alter the way media viewers process media content.

Promoting Dental Hygiene to Children: Comparing Traditional and Interactive Media Following Threat Appeals

Until now, social marketing campaigns mainly targeted children using traditional media. However, little is known about the effectiveness of computer games to communicate health-related information to children. This study compares the impact of an interactive game as a medium to provide health information and improve childrens dietary habits to the impact of more traditional media. Using a 2 × 3 between-subject factorial design with 190 children (7–9 years old), this study investigates the effect of threat messages (weak vs. strong) concerning dental hygiene on behavioral outcome (snack choice), and how this effect is moderated by the type of medium used to communicate subsequent health information after the threat appeal (computer game, information brochure, narrative story). Results show a positive significant effect of perceived threat on childrens adaptive behavior. However, this effect only remains significant when afterwards children are exposed to a narrative health-related story. When children play a game or read a brochure, they need to devote more attention to process this content, distracting them from the original threat message. In sum, when a threat message is followed by additional health information, the medium through which this information is presented influences the effectiveness of the preceding threat message.

Shedding New Light on How Advertising Literacy Can Affect Children's Processing of Embedded Advertising Formats: A Future Research Agenda

Advertisers are continuously searching for new ways to persuade children; current methods include fully integrating commercial content into media content, actively engaging children with the commercial content, and increasing the number of commercial messages children are confronted with at one moment in time. This poses a challenge for how children cope with embedded advertising. This conceptual article aims to develop a theoretically grounded framework for investigating how children process embedded advertising. More precisely, it sheds light on previous research and conceptualizations of advertising literacy and provides suggestions for future research. The article examines conceptual and methodological issues and discusses the need for research on how to improve childrens coping with embedded advertising by emphasizing the value of persuasive intent priming and implementation intentions. To conclude, future research directions are discussed regarding strategies to strengthen childrens coping skills and their dispositional (i.e., associative network consisting of cognitive, moral, and affective beliefs related to advertising) and situational (i.e., actual recognition of and critical reflection on advertising) advertising literacy.

Using games to raise awareness

Serious mini-games are promising tools to raise awareness. They motivate and enhance players interest in a particular topic, and only require a small time-investment. The games should focus on a single concept or learning goal and should be carefully designed. This study therefore explores the usefulness of informant design when developing such serious mini-games. Informant design is a framework that involves stakeholders at different stages of the design process depending on their expertise, which maximizes the value of their contributions. When developing awareness campaigns, various stakeholders, with different goals, need to be involved. Therefore, this paper suggests the use of informant design to increase the support of every stakeholder. The informant design framework provides an excellent design methodology for games as it is very flexible in time, place and number of participants in the co-design activities. The current study shows a case study indicating the usefulness of informant design when developing serious mini-games to increase advertising literacy among adolescents. Serious mini-games provide an interesting alternative to complex serious games.Informant design can increase the involvement of various stakeholders.A method to use informant design is provided.

Children’s Advertising Literacy for New Advertising Formats: The Mediating Impact of Advertising Literacy on the (Un)Intended Effects of Advergames and Advertising Funded Programs.

To be able to stand out in today’s crowded advertising environment and to reach children more effectively, advertisers are adopting new advertising venues, such as advergames, product placements, branded websites, or mobile applications (Calvert, 2008; Moore, 2004). Three important characteristics of these new advertising formats are a longer exposure time to commercial content, the integration of commercial content into the media content and the interactive engagement of the user with the commercial content (Rozendaal et al., 2012). In the current paper, we will investigate children’s advertising literacy level, purchase requests and materialism level after exposure to either an advertiser funded program (AFP, defined as a program produced by an advertiser) or an advergame (defined as a simple game specially designed by an advertiser).

The Inoculating Effect of Message Sidedness on Adolescents’ Binge Drinking Intentions: The Moderating Role of Issue Involvement

In this study, we assess an alternative strategy for health interventions, namely, two-sided messages. A 3 × 2 between-subjects factorial experimental design investigates the effect of three different anti-binge drinking messages (i.e., one-sided, two-sided non-refutational, and two-sided refutational) on strongly and weakly issue-involved adolescents’ binge drinking intentions after exposure to peer pressure. A sample of 185 adolescents between the age of 15 and 19 participated in the experiment. The results show that when adolescents’ involvement with binge drinking is strong, a two-sided refutational as well as non-refutational message result in lower binge drinking intentions than a one-sided message. When adolescents’ involvement with binge drinking is weak, binge drinking intentions are not influenced by message sidedness.