Yorgos Zotos

Consumer Decision Making Styles: A Multi- Country Investigation

Argues that profiling consumer decision‐making styles has importance to marketers, advertisers and consumer affairs specialists, but developing an approach to quantify such profiles has been problematic. Reports the application of an instrument known as the consumer style inventory (CSI) to measure these profiles for samples of consumers from Greece, India, New Zealand and the USA. Indicates, from the results, that the instrument seems more applicable to higher income countries than to developing ones. Discusses implications regarding use of the instrument and cross‐cultural issues.

Female role stereotypes in print advertising: Identifying associations with magazine and product categories

Purpose – The purpose of this study is three‐fold: to provide recent evidence in the UK on the frequency of appearance of female role portrayals in print advertisements; to compare female role stereotypes across magazine types; and to explore the interface between female role stereotypes and product categories.Design/methodology/approach – An integrative approach to content analysis was used in order to analyze advertising communication in print media. The sample consisted of n=3,830 advertisements published in ten high circulation UK magazines.Findings – The study indicates that women in UK magazine advertisements are mainly portrayed in decorative roles; and that female role stereotypes vary significantly across magazine types. The findings also suggest that there is an association between product categories and female role stereotypes.Practical implications – The study highlights the need for the advertising industry in the UK to adjust its communication practices to the changing role of women in socie...

Humor and cultural values in print advertising: a cross‐cultural study

Purpose – The present study aims to discuss the role of Hofstedes cultural dimensions, uncertainty avoidance and individualism/collectivism, on the use of various humor types in print advertising, across culturally diverse countries.Design/methodology/approach – A sample of 12,351 ads (3,828 humorous) from the largest circulated UK and Greek magazines was content‐analyzed in light of Specks humorous message taxonomy, emphasizing humor types and intentional relatedness.Findings – The results indicate that cultural diversity is reflected in the types of humorous devices that tend to be used in the UK and Greece. British advertisements incorporate not only sentimental but also disparaging humor types such as sentimental humor and full comedy, providing a great deal of pure entertainment. On the contrary, Greek print ads emphasize cognitive humorous appeals, in an attempt to provide credible information to the uncertainty‐avoiding Greek audience.Practical implications – The findings of this study highlight ...

Leadership Styles in the Top Greek Media Companies: Leading People with a Mixed Style

Media companies are different from manufactures and other commercial organizations. They have both measurable economic goals and nonmeasurable social responsibilities. Leading these companies is a difficult task. The main issue is that an appropriate leadership style for media people must balance business and political goals. In this study, semi-structured interviews were used to collect data about Greek media leaders. The research explores and identifies the leadership style of CEOs heading the top media companies in Greece. These findings indicate that media leaders use a mixed leadership style involving both transformational and transactional styles in order to anticipate the peculiar external and internal media environment.

The Use of Fear Appeals in Greek Magazine Advertisements

This paper examines fear appeals in Greek magazine advertisements. A total number of 3,262 advertisements were selected from a sample of 14 magazines representing various genre. Advertisements were content analyzed, on the basis of fear appeal categories and consequences. The findings indicate that advertisements use the fear appeal in 16.46 percent of the total number examined. Positive fear appeals and social consequence theme show the highest frequency of appearance with 91.06 and 79.83 percent respectively. There is also a variance in the use of various types of fear appeals, according to magazine classifications and product categories.