International Business and Management Vol. 2, No. 1. 2011, pp. 01-10
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Sex and Puffery in Advertising:
An Absolutely Sensational and Sexually Provocative Experiment1
Douglas Amyx2
Kimberly Amyx3
Abstract: A sample of 295 students participated in a 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 between subjects full factorial design experiment which examined the effects of advertising puffery and xuality on attitude toward the ad. Subjects viewed ads and were evaluated on the following factors: model nudity (nude/clothed)
, message puffery (puffed/non-puffed message), and x of the model (male/female). Additionally, x of the subject was ud as a blocking variable to create the fourth factor. No main effects were found for nudity or puffery. A strong and consistent opposite-x effect was found for men where they preferred the female model. In contrast, women were not consistent with the opposite-x effect. Men preferred the non-puffed message while women preferred the puffed message. Managerial implications are offered for the findings.
Key words: Puffery; Sex; Print advertising; Nudity; Attitude
In the best of all worlds, advertising is ud to inform, persuade, and/or remind consumers about a beneficial product, rvice, organization, or idea. Unfortunately, advertising may also be ud as a means to unethically manipulate consumers. Two advertising tactics that have come under public scrutiny (Gifford 2007; Preston 1998) are the u of x appeal and the exaggeration of puffery in advertising. The two tactics have been combined in an effort to garner the ever waning attention of a population increasingly inundated with xual messages.
The intensified exaggeration of xual advertising may in part be explained by Weber’s Law. According to Weber’s Law, as the intensity of the stimulus (e.g. advertiment) increas, the ability
to detect a difference between the two levels of the stimulus decreas (Miller 1962). The ability to detect this difference is known as the just noticeable difference (JND). Therefore, as ads become more inten xually, it becomes more difficult for the audience to discriminate or notice any difference from less xual ads so exaggerations continue to occur but with diminished marginal returns. So for xual-bad ads to penetrate the JND, they have had to become increasingly exaggerated or puffed.
Interestingly, while the u of x in advertising is commonplace, its success as an advertising tool has had mixed results in empirical studies (Judd and Alexander 1983; Severn, Belch, and Belch 1990) and 1The authors would like to acknowledge the assistance of Barry Babin.
2 Ph.D., Oklahoma State University. Associate Dean of Graduate Studies and Rearch, Burton Risinger Endowed Professor of Business, Louisiana Tech University; Associate Dean of Graduate Studies & Associate Professor of Marketing, College of Business, Louisiana Tech University.
PO Box 10318, Ruston, LA 71272, USA
黑白熊猫Email: Damyx@latech.edu
3 Lincoln Business Solutions, 430 Carriage Way, Ruston, LA 71270, USA
Email: amyx@suddenlink
*Received 5 January 2011; accepted 15 February 2011
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requires further study. Additionally, while the u of puffery has been declared “legal” by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) under the assumption that no rational consumer would believe such exaggerated claims (FTC 2004), advertirs continue with its u and there is empirical support for the effectiveness of puffery (e.g., Cowley 2006). Thus, puffery should also be further investigated given that its “legal” status has been bad purely on anecdotal evidence by public policy makers rather than through empirical rearch. Accordingly, the purpo of this study is to empirically test the two controversial advertising tactics: x appeal and puffery using an advertising experiment.
Sex appeal and puffery have each been examined parately in the advertising literature but not in combination as an intriguing means of powerful persuasion. This study utilizes an experiment where advertirs attempt to sway audiences by combining “puffed” advertising messages along with the attention grabbing power of xually provocative images in a product area associated with x appeal, the perfume and cologne industries.
河南好玩的地方SEX APPEAL IN ADVERTISING
Sex in advertising has been a matter of controversy for many years. Our society’s preoccupation with the human body in advertising has adverly affected both men and women by making them more prone to persuasion (Cohan 2001). There have been movements by women in the 1970’s and 80’s that vilified advertirs for portraying women as x objects and more recently in the early 1990’s, the men’s movement was partly a reaction to similar treatment of men. Given that there are more women ud as xual stimuli in ads than men, it is no surpri that there is evidence that women find x in advertising more objectionable than men (Dahl, Sengupta, and Vohs 2009; Ford and Latour 1993).
So the question can be asked, does x really ll? The prevailing assumption by tho in the advertising industry remains that x lls (Gifford 2007; Stephey 2009). In an effort to break through the clutter and penetrate JND, the intensity and suggestiveness of male/female contact in advertising has incread significantly. Putrevu (2008) found that xual appeals lead to better memory, attitudes, and purcha intentions among low-involvement consumers. Also, low need for cognition (NFC) consumers favor x appeals while high NFC customers favor non-xual appeals. Severn, Belch, and Belch (1990) found that a more xually explicit appeal results in more favorable
attitudes toward the ad and greater purcha intentions, but not more favorable brand attitudes. A review of the literature by Belch, Belch, and Villareal (1987) suggested that the effectiveness of xual imagery is bad on the x of the recipient, product advertid, and the dependent measure ud. For example, x appeals can have different measurement dimensions such as nudity, xual attractiveness, or xual suggestiveness (Bello, Etzel, and Pits 1983). Nudity. When an ad ud a nude model, the model was judged least appealing, while the product and company were evaluated most negatively (Severn, Belch, and Belch 1990). Similarly, Peterson and Kerin (1977) found men and women considered nude ads to be the least appealing of all ads in their study. In another study, Dudley (1999) found that nudity resulted in greater attention-getting interest, more ad appeal, and more distinctiveness to the brand. Additionally, he found the ad for a totally nude model was rated more favorably than a topless model, suggesting that advertirs should consider going “all the way” with nudity rather than “adding a little spice.” LaTour, Pitts, and Snook-Luther (1990) found evidence that the u of female nudity in perfume ads is significantly less effective for females than for males. The effects of nudity appear mixed. However, two of the three studies mentioned here demonstrated that partial nudity is perceived more favorably than full nudity.
Men vs. Women. Sex appeal ems to vary between the xes. Dahl, Sengupta, and Vohs (2009) fo
und that women’s attitudes toward x in advertising improved when the values of emotional intimacy and commitment were communicated, while men’s attitudes were very positive toward recreational x. The findings suggest that men and women react differently with respect to x in advertising.
In the media, there is evidence that advertirs u female xual imagery 3.7 times more often than male xual imagery (Reichert 2003). Such findings are consistent with the notion that men are generally believed to be most xually aroud with visual or suggested nudity while women are aroud by romantic notions (Anne 1971; Garrett 1993). Peterson and Kerin (1977) found males responded more favorably than women to all ads depicting a female model in varying levels of dress. Similarly, both Reidenbach and
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McCleary (1983) and LaTour and Henthorne (1993) found results that men were not only far more positive than women in their attitudes toward an ad with a nude female but held significantly more positive attitudes toward the brand and product. Converly, women have been found to generate m
ore tension and negative feelings toward explicit female nudity in print ads than men (Alexander 1986; Dahl, Sengupta, and Vohs 2009; LaTour 1990). What is effective for one x may be offensive to the other (Reichert, Heckler, and Jackson 2001).
There is further evidence that the effectiveness of x appeal appears to be related to one’s x. Baker and Churchill (1977) found that men and women rated ads portraying a model of the opposite x higher than tho portraying a model of the same x. Simpson, Horton, and Brown (1996) also found evidence of an opposite-x effect with ads studying male nudity. Female respondents’ attitudes toward the ad incread with levels of nudity but declined with the suggestion of full nudity. Interestingly, Garrett (1993) found that ads using female models attracted equal attention of men and women viewers but ads using a male model generated an incread interest in women only. Among Chine consumers, men and women had more favorable respons toward ads featuring models of the opposite x with “low” xuality, suggesting an affinity toward a toned down x appeal (Liu and Li 2005).鸡蛋薄饼的做法
It can be surmid that nudity is an important dimension to measure x appeal and that men and women vary significantly in their perception of it. There is support for women to be more objectionable to nudity and with the exception of Garrett (1993) there is an opposite-x effect with n
udity.
With respect to the question “does x ll,” while there is a time and a place for advertising nudity/x appeal, it doesn’t work well in all situations. For example, x appeal tends to work better when associated with a xual-related (congruent) topic rather than a non-xual (incongruent) one (Baker and Churchill 1977; Blair, Stephenson, Hill and Green 2006; Courtney and Whipple 1983; Peterson and Kerin 1977). In this study, we u a congruent topic, that is, fragrance products (i.e., perfume and cologne).
While x in advertising continues to rai some controversy, there has been an incread toleration of its u. Part of the incread toleration may be explained by an increasingly xual permissive society and media, which carries over into attitudes toward advertising.
ADVERTISING PUFFERY
Puffery is defined by marketers as “harmless exaggerations that are expressions of opinion rather than claims of some objective quality or characteristic of the product” (Rotfeld and Rotzoll 1980, p. 16). Government policymakers consider puffery to be “wildly exaggerated, fanciful or vague claims for a product or rvice” (p. 728) and allow it to be legal becau of the assumptions that: 1) consum
ers can identify puffed claims as not credible and 2) consumers will not u a puffed claim as part of their evaluation becau they understand it to be wildly exaggerated (Cowley 2006). The FTC defines puffery as a “term frequently ud to denote the exaggerations reasonably to be expected of a ller as to the degree of quality of his product, the truth or falsity of which cannot be precily determined” (FTC 2004). While the FTC’s position is that puffery does not deceive reasonable consumers becau they can distinguish between puffed and non-puffed information (Preston 1996), empirical evidence suggests that consumers form beliefs bad on puffed claims (Kamins and Marks 1987; Rotfeld and Rotzoll 1980; Shimp and Preston 1981) and process the puffed claims as facts (Cunningham and Cunningham 1977; Holbrook 1978; Shimp and Preston 1981; Wyckham 1987).
四项全能Most recently, the work of Cowley (2006) supported the deceitful power of puffery. Their results suggested that while consumers were able to identify exaggerated claims as being less credible than factual claims, their brand evaluations were significantly incread after being expod to puffed claims. Exposure to fal information affected beliefs even when it lacked credibility. Overall, the implication is that puffery works. Legally allowed but misleading, puffery is an accepted practice in marketing and the temptation for marketers to make statements about products that are considered
puffed has incread (Preston 1998). Perhaps Preston (1996) stated it best when he said that if puffery does not work, marketers would not u it. Information Processing, Sex, & Probability Markers. In general women appear to be different from men when it comes to processing information. First, women are more nsitive to specific language features of
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messages than men and elaborate more on verbal advertising claims, taking note of slight differences in product claims (Darley and Smith 1995). Further, rearch by Berney-Reddish and Areni (2006) on x differences in information processing suggests that women view “probability markers” more negatively than men becau it could suggest advertising trickery. Probability markers reprent words and phras ud to signal an advertir’s confidence or guarantee that a claim is true. One type of probability marker is “pledges,” that signal complete certainty in a claim that is made, such as the words “undoubtedly,” “definitely,” or “absolutely.” Probability markers are relevant becau they are consistent with the extreme exaggerations or absolutes found in advertising puffery. Therefore, if women view advertising absolutes negatively, then they would logically be more likely to view advertising puffery unfavorably as well.
HYPOTHESES
Utilizing a 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 experimental design, the current study explores the interaction effects of fragrance print advertiments displaying either a male or female model that is either partially nude (expod chest) or fully clothed and having an advertising message that is either “puffed” (exaggerated) or “non-puffed” (not exaggerated). In addition, the study us x of the subjects as a blocking variable to further asss nudity and puffery. Each of the hypothes predicts the subjects’ attitude toward the ad. Bad on the related literature review, the current study makes the following hypothes.
H1: Overall, subjects will prefer the partially nude model (i.e., x lls).
H2: Overall, subjects will prefer the puffed message (i.e., puffery works).
H3: Men subjects will prefer the female model over the male model (i.e., opposite-x effect).
吠怎么组词H4: Women subjects will prefer the male model over the female model (i.e., opposite-x effect).
H5: Men subjects will prefer the puffed message compared to women (i.e., women’s dislike of probability markers)
H6: Men subjects will prefer nude models when compared to women (i.e., women’s objection to suggestive full nudity).
H7a: Women subjects will prefer non-puffed male model to puffed female model
H7b: Men subjects will prefer puffed female model to non-puffed male model微信老板
H8a: Women subjects will prefer non-nude male model to nude female model
舞狮英文H8b: Men subjects will prefer nude female model to non-nude male model
H9a: Women subjects will prefer the clothed male model to the clothed female model.
H9b: Men subjects will prefer the clothed female model to the clothed male model.
ps液化H10a: Women subjects will prefer non-nude male model with non-puffed message to nude female puffed message
H10b: Men subjects will prefer nude female model with puffed message to non-nude male non-puffed message
METHOD
Stimuli. Advertiments for fragrance products (i.e., cologne and perfume) were lected for u in the study. Fragrance products were chon becau of their relevance and interest to young adult students (the sample) and becau they lend themlves to xual advertising, being x related products. The ads were taken from actual cologne and perfume ads for external validity and adapted for this study so that the true brand name and body copy were not visible. Two ts of four advertiments were adapted and developed, one t depicting a male model and one t depicting a female model. The purpo of having ads containing a parate male model and a parate female model was to balance the effects of x and provide the opportunity for every combination of matchup between men and women subjects to evaluate male and female models. In each ad, the product bottle was positioned in the same location and was identical in shape
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and name. The fictitious brand name of the product was “Vade,” which had been determined by Peterson and Kerin (1977) to be neutral and also ud by Simpson, Horton, and Brown (1996) to co
ntrol for any previous brand name effects. This brand name was prominently displayed on the bottle in each of the ads. Each model was either fully clothed or partially nude. With regard to nudity, the male model was bare-chested while the female model had no shirt but wore a suspender belt that covered the center of her one expod breast. In addition, each ad contained body copy at the bottom center that was either puffed “Absolutely the World’s Most Seductive Fragrance” or not puffed “A Seductive Fragrance.”
Design. This study employs a 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 full factorial between subjects design. There are two levels of model (male/female), two levels of nudity (clothed/partially nude), two levels of puffery (puffed/non-puffed message), and two levels of x of subject where that is ud as a blocking variable. Subjects. Two hundred and ninety five undergraduate and graduate students from a southern mid-sized university between the ages of 18 and 52 and averaging 21.5 years of age enrolled in business class participated in the experiment. Their participation was completely voluntary. Approximately thirty six subjects were randomly assigned to each of the eight treatment groups, and then within each treatment condition they were split into two groups bad on subject x. Subjects comprid 18.6% freshmen, 9.7% sophomores, 23.9% juniors, 38.9% niors, and 8.9% graduate students. Most subjects were Caucasian (71.1%). Other groups were African-Americ
an (16.7%), Asian/Pacific Islander (6.1%), Hispanic (2.8%), and other (3.3%). There were one hundred and sixty six men and one hundred and twenty nine women in the study.
Procedures. Five print advertiments were prented to the subjects in a packet to simulate their exposure to ads in a magazine. The four control ads were for various products: a watch, soap, an automobile, and a jacket. Subjects were randomly expod to one treatment ad that was placed in the middle (the third ad) of the packet. Subjects were told that they would be asked to view and evaluate a ries of ads related to new products. Subjects were instructed when to begin examining the first advertiment and were given fifteen conds to view each advertiment. Fifteen conds was ud bad on pretesting. Additionally, that same amount of time was ud by Poels and Dewitte (2008) and Amyx, Bristow, and Robb (2009) in their print advertising experiments. Upon having viewed all of the ads, the subjects were directed to complete the attached survey.
Dependent Measure. The dependent variable attitude toward the ad was ud to asss the effectiveness of the advertiments. Attitude toward the ad was measured using a slight adaptation of McQuarrie and Mick’s (2003) scale, which is comprid of three items, each anchored on a 7-point scale with “Strongly Disagree” and “Strongly Agree”: “I like this advertiment,” “This advertiment is pleasant,” and “I enjoyed this advertiment.” Attitude toward the ad had a Cronbac
h Alpha of .924.
RESULTS
Manipulation checks. A number of measures were taken to ensure that the manipulations in the experiment were successful. To check for the factor of nudity, two questions were asked: “The person in the advertiment was nude” and “Sex appeal was ud with the person in the advertiment.” Subjects responded with a ven point Likert scale from “Strongly Disagree” to “Strongly Agree.” For both questions, tho subjects who had the partially nude model had a significantly higher mean level of agreement (p<.000) than tho subjects with the clothed model. Thus, nudity appeared to be a salient manipulation.
For the factor of the x of the model, a manipulation check question was asked: “The person in the advertiment was ___Male ___Female.” Of the subjects who had the male model, 121 out of 125 or 96.8% correctly identified the x. For subjects who saw the female model, 115 out of 122 or 94.3% correctly identified the x of the model. Therefore, the manipulation of model appears to be salient.
In the matter of the message puffery, a manipulation check question was asked: “The advertiment
message was deceitful” and subjects responded with a ven point Likert scale from “Strongly Disagree” to “Strongly Agree.” This question was created with the notion that a puffed message would deceive the reader more so than a non-puffed message. While the mean values were in the proper direction, there was
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