Advertising Imagery Research Articles

Perceptions of ceremonial and nonceremonial uses of tobacco by American-Indian adolescents in California

Background American-Indian adolescents have the highest tobacco use prevalence of all ethnic groups in the United States. Although much has been written about the role of tobacco in traditional Native-American cultures, little is known about modern-day perceptions of tobacco among American-Indian adolescents. Methods This study conducted focus groups of 40 American-Indian adolescents in urban and rural areas of Southern California. Participants discussed the role of traditional ceremonial tobacco use in their lives, the use of commercial tobacco as a substitute for sacred tobacco, the perceived safety of traditional versus commercial tobacco, and the perceptions of American-Indian imagery in tobacco advertising. Results Many American-Indian adolescents may be introduced to traditional tobacco use at early ages. Smoking is viewed as a sign of respect for the elders, but there are acceptable ways for adolescents to participate in ceremonies without inhaling smoke. Commercial cigarettes often are substituted for homegrown tobacco at ceremonies and events. Traditional tobacco was perceived as less dangerous than commercial tobacco because it does not contain chemical additives. However, respondents still perceived that smoking traditional tobacco and breathing tobacco smoke conferred health hazards. Participants found the use of American-Indian imagery in tobacco advertising offensive and stereotypical. Indian casinos were mentioned frequently as places where smoking occurred. Conclusions Continued health education efforts are needed to decrease habitual use of commercial tobacco products and secondhand smoke exposure among American-Indian youth. Further research is needed to identify ways for American-Indian youth to participate in their cultural traditions while minimizing their risk for tobacco-related diseases.

Visual Rhetoric and Global Advertising Imagery

Highly visual global advertising is deployed by many advertisers and yet there are few studies in the literature that help explain variations in visual advertising interpretations and little theory for adequately accounting for the interpretation of visuals or the role of visual rhetoric in a global context. The purpose of this review paper is to extend current thinking about global advertising imagery and to propose how a visual rhetoric approach might enrich our understanding of advertising imagery interpretation in the global context. The paper reviews the literature regarding the interpretation of visuals as related to global advertisements and identifies gaps in knowledge, theoretical conflicts and paradoxes in the literature. It concludes by identifying research priorities and provides a research agenda that suggests how a visual rhetoric approach might provide a theoretically useful contribution in this important area.

"Picture This": Advertising and Image in the New Zealand Architectural Journals in 1965

Throughout the 1960s advertising content in New Zealand's two leading architectural journals increased dramatically. In the case of the NZIA Journal, what was a staid professional publication without advertising in the 1950s, by the end of the 1960s carried significant advertising material including advertorial covers and the first colour centre pages. While not changing so dramatically, Home and Building nonetheless significantly increased the visibility of its advertising content over the same period. This research presents the findings of a comparative analysis of commercial advertising imagery found in the pages of Home & Building and the NZIA Journal for 1965. Throughout the 1960s the dominant publications dedicated to the activities of architects and architecture in New Zealand were the periodicals Home & Building and the NZIA Journal. From the point of view of advertisers it is important to emphasise that these periodicals were not market competitors. While the NZIA Journal was a professional journal published by the New Zealand Institute of Architects, Home & Building was published under the auspices of the NZIA, and consequentially the content differences between the two reflects a conscious effort on the part of the NZIA to distinguish between two different readerships. To a large extent this is reflected in the advertisements contained in each. The NZIA Journal shows an appeal on the part of the advertisers to architects as building professionals with its bias towards products and systems of construction. By contrast Home & Building advertising content tends to be directed towards a client market with a marked appeal to spaces of occupancy. This is exactly what we might expect to find; the professional journal directed to the work of the architect, and the more populous one appealing to potential clients. Consequentially much of the advertising content reflects this distinction. However what is less clear is the degree to which the advertising content either followed or directed this ideological editorial difference.In making a comparative analysis of the advertising material found in the pages of these two dominant forums attention has been given to the manner in which advertisers may have actively contributed to redefining the roles and responsibilities of "architect" and "client" during this period of 1960-70. I suggest that the NZIA may have had less control than it might have imagin ed over the nature of influence its two premiere publications were having on New Zealand architects and architecture in the 1960s.

Spirituality that Sells: Religious Imagery in Magazine Advertising

Spirituality that Sells: Religious Imagery in Magazine Advertising Rick Clifton Moore (bio) Abstract This study examines the use of religious imagery in contemporary advertising. An empirical study is reported here, examining religious imagery in advertisements appearing in three national magazines. This article addresses the contexts in which such imagery appears, the specific uses to which it is put, and differences between the representations of Western and Eastern religious traditions. A common conception in American culture is that advertisers will use anything to sell a product. In the narrower world of academia, communication scholars have given great attention to advertising in recent years and detailed some of the cultural elements that have indeed been used to inspire consumption. Reichert (2003) and Kilbourne (1999) have both offered thorough investigations of the way sex has been used to sell everything from antiperspirants to varnish. Studies by Slater (2004), Hansen (2002), and Kilbourne (1995) have examined how advertisers have used nature and environmentalism to develop market identity. And Wilson (1996), Cole and Hribar (1995), and Baldwin (1992) have each investigated the way celebrities have been used to motivate audiences to buy a product. Missing from all of this has been a key facet of human experience: religion. Very little research has integrated whether advertisers use religion to pitch products and (if they do) how they use it. Herein I wish to begin to give religion in advertising the attention it deserves by conducting an empirical study on the extent and nature of religious imagery in American magazine advertisements. Although some academic writers have broadly addressed this issue, they have done so in ways that leave many important questions unanswered. After providing a description of some of these background studies and an explanation of the methodology of the present research, I hope to come closer to answering those important questions. Filling the Religion/Advertising Vacuum The small amount of formal scholarship directly related to advertising and religion does not indicate a complete lack of interest on the part of scholars. Although those who do careful analysis of media and religion have left this specific area unplowed, those with broader theoretical interests have occasionally made reference to the potential fertility of this area of study. A few examples are introduced here. Neil Postman, for example, has studied the relationship of media, technology, and ideology. In his book Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (1992), he proposes that our current technological/cultural environment is such that few would object to the idea of Jesus being used as a pitchman for a new California chardonnay. An ad might even have the Messiah claim, “When I transformed water into wine at Cana, this is what I had in mind. Try it today. You’ll become a believer” (Postman, 1992, p. 164). To further support his thesis that using religion to sell products is increasingly acceptable, Postman anecdotally alludes to a Hebrew National Frank advertisement where the spokesperson points to the sky claiming the company has to answer to a “higher calling.” James Twitchell, who takes a different tack on the role of the media in modern society, also suggests the importance of understanding the relation between advertising and religion. Twitchell might seem more attuned to this task, as one of his most widely read books is Adcult: The Triumph of Advertising in American Culture. In it, he suggests that little in our contemporary cultural environment can survive unless it can serve as conduit for advertising, and advertising is continuously becoming a greater force in our social lives. Given this arrangement, according to Twitchell, advertising has taken on some of the functions previously performed by religion. Moreover, advertising co-opts many religious elements of culture. Twitchell notes that many of the most influential executives of the early twentieth century—a period of tremendous growth for the industry—had strong religious backgrounds. In Twitchell’s own words, “It is no happenstance that the advertising executives, or ‘attention engineers,’ who helped bring about the rise of consumer culture were steeped in the Christian tradition” (Twitchell, 1996, p. 33). As regards to the adaptation of religious elements and magic within advertising, Twitchell notes that “[t]he power of Christianity (and of any...

Who Am I? The Role of Self-Conflict in Adolescents' Responses to Cigarette Advertising

Cigarette advertising may be partly responsible for adolescent smoking initiation, but few studies have investigated the advertising and individual difference factors that may be responsible. This study evaluated whether individual differences in the number of self-conflicts (i.e., conflicts between personality attributes experienced as part of self-concept development) interacts with stage of development (early versus middle adolescence) to predict responses to cigarette advertising imagery. One hundred and one never smoking adolescents judged the self-relevance of various cigarette advertisements. As predicted, self-conflict was related to judgments of self-relevance for early adolescents only; early adolescents who are having the most difficulty defining themselves are more likely to look to the powerful images displayed by cigarette advertisements for help. These results have implications for understanding the impact of cigarette advertising on smoking initiation for some adolescents.

National Cultures, Values and Lifestyles Influencing Consumers' Perception towards Sexual Imagery in Alcohol Advertising: An Exploratory Study in the UK, Germany and Italy

This exploratory study examines consumers' perception towards sexual imagery in alcohol advertising across national cultures and among men and women with different demographic and psychographic make-up in those cultures. This study addresses a very important gap found in the literature, namely the influence of consumers' psychographic characteristics as values and lifestyles on their overall perception towards sexual imagery in advertising. The study was conducted among consumers aged between 18 and 35 in the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy. Results indicate that Italians overall have higher acceptance levels towards sexual imagery portrayed in advertisements as compared to German and British consumers. Furthermore, varying levels of sexual imagery are much more appealing to men than women in all three countries. Consumers' values and lifestyles also played an important role in their overall perception. Moral values in particular are an indicator of acceptance levels of sexual content.

Adolescents' responses to the gender valence of cigarette advertising imagery: The role of affect and the self-concept

The studies presented in this manuscript evaluated the role that affect and the self-concept play in adolescent never smokers' reactions to the gender valence of cigarette advertising imagery. Study 1 ( n=29; 59% female) revealed that adolescent females have more positive affective reactions to female-valenced cigarette advertising imagery compared to male-valenced cigarette advertising imagery. Study 2 ( n=101; 56% female) revealed that adolescent females viewed female-valenced cigarette advertising imagery as more relevant to their self-concepts compared to male-valenced cigarette advertising imagery. Across both studies, male adolescents did not respond differently as a function of the gender valence of cigarette advertising imagery. Thus, female-valenced cigarette advertising imagery may have specific effects on never smoking female adolescents by enhancing positive affect and suggesting that women who smoke hold the same characteristics as do the young women themselves.

Adolescents' responses to the gender valence of cigarette advertising imagery: The role of affect and the self-concept

The studies presented in this manuscript evaluated the role that affect and the self-concept play in adolescent never smokers' reactions to the gender valence of cigarette advertising imagery. Study 1 (n=29; 59% female) revealed that adolescent females have more positive affective reactions to female-valenced cigarette advertising imagery compared to male-valenced cigarette advertising imagery. Study 2 (n=101; 56% female) revealed that adolescent females viewed female-valenced cigarette advertising imagery as more relevant to their self-concepts compared to male-valenced cigarette advertising imagery. Across both studies, male adolescents did not respond differently as a function of the gender valence of cigarette advertising imagery. Thus, female-valenced cigarette advertising imagery may have specific effects on never smoking female adolescents by enhancing positive affect and suggesting that women who smoke hold the same characteristics as do the young women themselves.

The Stuff of which Dreams are Made: Representations of the South Sea in German-language Tourist Brochures

The ways in which the South Pacific islands are represented in German-language tourist brochures is investigated. Our discussion of these brochure representations will examine the contrasts between tourism advertising imagery and the day-to-day interactions of tourists and locals in the islands represented. Informed by literature on motives for travel, tourist brochures, place promotion and commodification, we will discuss how German, Swiss and Austrian tourism operators depend on a deep-seated desire on the part of tourists to engage with a mythical paradisal Utopia. Common to many cultures, Utopia represents dreams of a better reality. We emphasise therefore that in addition to the now well-documented paradisal element of island tourism promotion, German-speaking tourists are enticed to the South Pacific by advertising references to it as a place where dreams may be fulfilled.

Social Identity Formation in Midpassage: American Advertising Imagery in the 1940s

As indicators of historical thought, advertisements stand as potential conveyers of cultural moods, concerns, and habits. Their images tell the tales of a social identity agenda set to guide the domestic domain from the corporate sphere. Insofar as meanings in advertising images are literally (and intentionally) framed into a currency of signs, we may seek to understand this ideological process within the various social codes of behavior put forth by the advertisement itself. It is in this way that advertisements can provide windows into the intentions of the people of the past who generated them, as well as into the receptions of those who were their intended audiences. Of great interest in looking at the United States in the mid-20th century is that advertising images were produced and distributed by a business world that found itself having to abandon the production of consumer goods in exchange for a direct collaboration with the government, due to the unique exigencies of a post-Depression recovery followed by war, followed further by an affluence resultant of victory in that war. In other words, advertising imagery provided Americans in the 1940s a means by which they could make sense of not only public policies, but of their own private, domestic lives as well.

“Lesbian Chic” Imagery in Advertising: Interpretations and Insights of Female Same-Sex Eroticism

Interpretations of three ads containing “lesbian chic” images were evaluated in this formative investigation. Overall, findings from focus groups revealed that males interpreted the homoerotic relationships as primarily sexual compared with females who provided more complex interpretations, including friendship, behavior to attract male attention, and sexual relationship. In addition, the imagery in each ad evoked different interpretations, which suggests that responses to “lesbian chic” images are not as straightforward as the term implies. These findings, their implications, and directions for future research are discussed.

A Remarkable Disappearing Act

A Remarkable Disappearing Act

Extending Social Comparison: An Examination of the Unintended Consequences of Idealized Advertising Imagery

The literature indicates that the idealized images of physical attractiveness found in advertising have a negative impact on girls' and women's self-perceptions. The current study extends this research to males and adds the dimension of financial success. The empirical findings presented here indicate that exposure to idealized images of both physical attractiveness and financial success have a negative effect on males' self-evaluations. This study also examines the role of attention to social comparison information (ATSCI) in moderating the effects, and finds that high ATSCI sometimes exacerbates the unintended consequences of attractive advertising images on people's self-perceptions.

The Church in the Market Place: Advertising and Religion in a Secular Age

This paper explores the limits of Peter Berger's secularization thesis through an examination of religious advertising. If churches are part of a market situation, as Berger affirms, what can be said of their advertising in a secular age? Different types of religious advertising and their effectiveness are discussed in relation to more widely disseminated religious imagery in secular advertising. The conclusion suggests that certain religious themes, ideas and images still continue to enjoy prominence in public consciousness. This has a double implication: for churches as they market themselves in a plural world, and for sociologists who construct theories of secularization.

The Perpetuation of Subtle Prejudice: Race and Gender Imagery in 1990s Television Advertising.

Scholars have long argued that popular consumer culture is both producer and product of social inequality, but few detailed empirical studies have explored the ways that advertising imagery simultaneously constructs stereotypes of race and gender. This article reports on a content analysis of television commercials (n = 1699) aired on programs with high ratings for specific target audiences from 1992 to 1994. Characters in the television commercials enjoy more prominence and exercise more authority if they are White or men. Logistic regression analyses indicate that images of romantic and domestic fulfillment also differ by race and gender, with women and Whites disproportionately shown in family settings and in cross-sex interactions. In general, 1990s television commercials tend to portray White men as powerful, white women as sex objects, African American men as aggressive, and African American women as inconsequential. The authors suggest that these commercial images contribute to the perpetuation of subtle prejudice against African Americans by exaggerating cultural differences and denying positive emotions. Results are discussed in relation to the segmentation of media markets and possibilities for social change.

Commentary: On Arguing from Authority

The National Art Education Association has been involved in a major research effort for about 4 years (NAEA, 1996). Concerted and systematically structured research is a necessity for the future health and development of art education and art educators must hope that the efforts of the various research teams will be fruitful, as fruitful, for example, as Harvard's Project Zero, but more focused on the needs of education in the visual arts, rather than on the collection of psychological data (Lanier, 1987). While I am optimistic about the NAEA research teams' efforts, I wonder if there might be greater rewards if they were accompanied by an equally major push for philosophical investigation. I say this not because I have any delusions about own philosophical abilities-far, far from it!-but because I have noticed a strand in art education literature that I regard as a weakness and that I think might be overcome or at least lessened by a greater attention to philosophical grounding within the field. That is, a more thought-out philosophy of art education-distinct from philosophy of art or philosophy of education-is needed. Is this a rather pompous and perhaps vague quasi-proclamation? Maybe ego has fogged reason, but let me try to explain concerns further. I will start by issuing a challenge to readers of art education literature to estimate how many articles they have read in which the validity of the argument depended on acceptance of the notions of Derrida, Foucault, Lacan, or various neo-Marxist theorists? Or perhaps on the writings of currently popular anthropologists, such as Dissanayake or Levi-Strauss? Or psychologists, including Gardner of Project Zero? I further challenge readers to analyze the contents of these articles. How many of them marshal a tremendous amount of theory from outside the field of art education to explain or scrutinize a small scale or even trivial event within art education? I call this using a Sherman Tank for a short ride around the block. The small scale is seldom well-explained by huge and dense theory. Unfortunately, one important area of art education research, participant-observer studies, is prone to this malaise. I say unfortunately because qualitative research seems to promise so much for art education and I often read articles based on this methodology. Participant-observer articles frequently make pleasant reading of a rather anecdotal sort, but the connection to prestigious, usually anthropological theory can seem tenuous if not strained. Perhaps well-reported anecdotes need to be collected and published without so much theory so that solid art educational theory can be developed from that data. Perhaps the grandiose borrowed theories need to be downplayed by art education researchers, editors, and reviewers. However, I am not arguing for know-nothingness but rather, a more lean and tight use of citations of theoretical sources, a little less saying my reasoning is justified by theoretician-flavor-of-the-decade. The most recent champion example of citation after citation of authorities as judgments was not a participant-observer study but an article analyzing an advertisement for the Getty Center of Education in the Art, (jagodzinski, 1997). In one way the analysis was fun. If one enjoys the intellectual equivalent of a Fantasia hippo ballet, then the trouncing of the advertisement's imagery through heavy, very heavyweight theory was amusing. If, however, the theory-ridden exercise is read from the Sherman Tank, or perhaps from the beating-a-butterfly-with-a-baseball-bat perspective, amusement may wear thin. Given the tendency to hyperfootnoteism and dense theorizing of such deconstructive enterprises, it is difficult to gauge whether this was a critique or a parody of a deconstructive analysis. Frankly, since I like jokes, I enjoyed it as a satire of this sort of jargon-loaded field of analysis. In another recent case, Duncum (1997), cited several authorities to the effect that there is no valid difference between the aesthetic experience one can gain from art and that from mass media products. …

Consuming Rural Japan: The Marketing of Tradition and Nostalgia in the Japanese Travel Industry

The Japanase travel and tourism industries reflect contradictions between goals to internationalize and fears about vanishing Japanese cultural traditions. This article discusses the nostalgia underlying the popularity of domestic tourism to rural areas in search of reunion with Japanese identity. It explores furusato (home village) imagery in travel advertising and in movies depicting travel in terms of its appeal to contemporary feeling of homelessness among many urban Japanese. It also discusses the impact of nostalgia tourism on remote areas recently transformed into popular travel destinations. It explores the decontextualization of place in simulated experiences of rural areas such as local place fairs hosted by city department stores, and various other consumer offering of pseudotravel experiences for busy urbanites

A conceptual replication and extension of erving goffman's study of gender advertisements

The analysis of visual imagery in magazine advertising can be approached directly or indirectly insofar as gender messages are concerned. Using Goffman's theoretical underpinning, some of the more subtle clues regarding gender relations, gender stereotyping, and gender roles were explored. Over 1000 advertisements, selected from Good Housekeeping, Sports Illustrated, Time, MS, Gentlemen's Quarterly, and Rolling Stone were content analyzed using Goffman's decoding behavior methodology. The results demonstrated that the feminine touch and ritualization of subordination were fairly often discovered; licensed withdrawal occurred somewhat; and relative size, function ranking, and the family very infrequently. The findings reported were provocative and suggestions for future research are enumerated.