Buy, boycott or blog : exploring online consumer power to share, discuss and distribute controversial advertising messages

The availability of new media as a universal communication tool has an impact on the power of the general public to comment on a variety of issues. This paper examines this increase in consumer power with respect to bloggers. The research context is controversial advertising, and specifically Tourism Australia’s “Where the bloody hell are you?” campaign. By utilising Denegri-Knott’s (2006) four on-line power strategies, a content analysis of weblogs reveals that consumers are distributing information, opinion and even banned advertising material, thereby forming power hubs of like-minded people, with the potential to become online pressure groups. The consequences and implications of this augmented power on regulators, advertisers and bloggers are explored. The findings contribute to the understanding of blogs as a new communication platform and bloggers as a new demographic of activists in the process of advertising.

Opinions about advertising in Australia: a study of complainants

Advertising expenditure has risen globally and in Australia there has been a 2.7-fold rise in the last 10 years. It is suggested that some advertisements may be 'unacceptable', that is unfair, misleading, deceptive, offensive, false or socially irresponsible. Industry and regulatory responses to consumer complaints about these problems must be addressed. This research is concerned with consumer behaviour and consumer complaint behaviour specifically in the area of advertising in Australia. The general findings from the reviewed literature indicated that complainants tend to be older, have attained higher levels of educational qualifications, earn a higher gross weekly income, possess greater degrees of wealth, have higher participant levels of local community involvement and, in general terms, have more resources to avail themselves of in order to allow them to take action when dissatisfied. The results from this research engender a better understanding of the complaining public. Empirical analyses were used for determining the characteristics of people who complain to the Advertising Standards Board and inferred that their opinions regarding advertising differ from members of the general population in four key areas. This research will afford regulatory bodies a better understanding of the complaining public as well as educating marketing communications strategists in effectively reaching their target markets.

The Australian advertising self-regulatory framework - Who`s complaining?

Complaints about advertising in Australia have been on the increase in recent years under the stewardship of the new industry self-regulatory body, the Advertising Standards Board. This study utilises clustering analyses based on geodemographic and psychographic data to present a concrete profile of complainants about advertising in Australia. The findings indicate that the advertising publics must shoulder responsibility and ensure that greater care is taken to include all members of Australian society in the current complaints
process and that this inclusivity will ensure that the highest possible standards are the norms of the industry.

Hur retusch påverkar skönhetsannonsers attraktion : En studie om målgruppens åsikter och köplust

Tidigare studier som gjorts inom området visade att kvinnor anser att kvinnors skönhet inte är värderad enligt rimliga normer i vårt samhälle. Hård retuschering motarbetas på många håll, bland annat genom att organisationer som ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) och politiska partier som Liberaldemokraterna i Storbritannien arbetar för att missledande retuschering ska försvinna. En studie har visat att det, för att öka annonsers attraktionskraft, är viktigt att den ökade skönheten hos en modell är relevant för produktens användningsområde, då betraktaren anstränger sig intellektuellt vid betraktandet av bilden. Det finns dock inga tidigare studier som bevisar om en retuscherad modell faktiskt ökar målgruppens köplust av skönhetsprodukter vid rådande samhällsattityder och skönhetsideal. Två enkätundersökningar gjordes därför med sammanlagt 1480 deltagare. Produkten i studien var en fiktiv hudkräm. Genom att i den ena undersökningen låta betraktaren möta modellbilden i en situation som efterliknade verkligheten, på så sätt att de inte fick veta om den var retuscherad, kunde studien svara på om retuschering ökade köplusten. Bilder med bortretuscherade skönhetsfläckar och utväxt prefererades. Att retuschera bort flyghår ökade inte köplusten. I den andra jämförande undersökningen kunde betraktaren jämföra den retuscherade med den oretuscherade modellbilden. Resultaten visade att skönhetsfläckar och flyghår tillåts och prefereras borttagna, men inte utväxt. I intervjuer med fem kvinnor hördes målgruppens attityder om vad som ansågs var tillåtet att retuschera. Svaren tydde på att en relevant och försiktig retuschering prefererades. Att lämna några födelsemärken ökade trovärdigheten.

Who`s complaining? Using MOSAIC to identify the profile of complainants

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to bring together established research in the field of consumer complaint responses: to contextualise this research into the area of complaints about advertising in Australia; and to empirically test the proposition that it is possible to construct a profile
of complainants about advertising in Australia.

Design/methodology/approach – Postcodes obtained from the Advertising Standards Board complaints database were entered into Pacific micro marketing MOSAIC software, which uses data at the postcode level to cluster individuals into homogeneous groups.

Findings – Characteristics shared among consumers who engage in “amplified voicing” include above average income levels, above average disposable income levels, higher than average education levels, professional and associate professional occupations, middle- to late-middle-aged household heads and above average representation of working women. Their interests tend towards culture, technology, entertaining, sport, food and fashion.

Research limitations/implications – Complainants seem to be unrepresentative of those most likely to be disadvantaged by “unacceptable” advertising. It is suggested that it now falls to advertising professionals and marketing academics to encourage greater involvement of all members of Australian society in the current complaints process and build wider understanding of practices that contravene the regulatory system.

Originality/value – This study investigates the effects of advertising on consumers and hence on society in general, and examines the changing nature and structure of the advertising self-regulatory system in Australia. Though based on fieldwork in Australia, it provides an international perspective, and is potentially transferable to other societies.

Regulations establishing standards of identity, quality, purity and sanitation, and governing the labeling and advertising of wine in the state of California.

Mode of access: Internet.

Corporate ethics and new technology: an exploratory investigation of advertising activity and world wide web usage

This study explores the ethical standards and behaviour of Australian advertisers and their usage of new technologies. Although corporate ethics has been an issue in the established media of television advertising for some time, there is little research about how companies are adapting in terms of ethics to the new communication technologies. The consumers’ “right to know” was used as a device to assess the ethical standards and behaviour of companies. Findings suggest that the WWW is not used as a means of communicating corporate ethical standards. Results indicate that the method of communicating requests for information does not influence the likelihood of receiving a response from a company. The results also show differences between the ethical standards and the ethical behaviour of those companies who do use the WWW to communicate ethical statements.

Multiple stakeholder perspective to responsibility in advertising

Responsibility in advertising requires that all stakeholders honor their obligations to one another. Advertising-related activities that violate accepted standards will be deemed irresponsible by one or more stakeholders. These activities may affect advertisers and consumers negatively; advertisers may incur damaging publicity that threatens their long-term viability, and consumers may incur physical, financial, or emotional injury. To mitigate such harms, regulators are charged with protecting society's interests. Responsibility in advertising is introduced and the interconnections between these major stakeholders are briefly discussed. The papers that comprise this special issue are then introduced and manuscript reviewers are acknowledged.

Mercadeo farmacéutico de productos bajo prescripción: efectos de las estrategias Direct-to-Consumer-Advertising en el comportamiento de los consumidores y de prescripción de los médicos

Este proyecto se origina en el interés de analizar las estrategias actuales de promoción de productos farmacéuticos, en el marco del debate sobre el efecto persuasivo o informativo que la publicidad directa tiene sobre los consumidores. El objetivo es determinar el efecto de las estrategias de promoción directa para consumidores (Direct to Consumer Advertising [DTCA]) sobre el comportamiento de compra de pacientes y las prescripciones que formulan los médicos en el mercado de productos bajo receta en Estados Unidos. Para tal fin se propuso realizar una monografía que incluyera una revisión de literatura de carácter argumentativo, consultando información de nivel secundario en bases de datos científicas cuyos contenidos obedecieran a criterios metodológicos determinados por la naturaleza argumentativa del estudio. Adicionalmente, se analizó el debate sobre estos anuncios a la luz de dos estudios realizados a pacientes con cáncer de seno, próstata y colon, liderados por el Pennsylvania Cancer Registry con los productos biofarmacéuticos Avodart® y Flomax®. Finalmente, la investigación se fundamentó en la relación del mercado farmacéutico en Estados Unidos con cada uno de los agentes que interactúan en él; consumidores, médicos prescriptores y empresas farmacéuticas, así como el valor que estos comparten través de dichas interacciones. Se concluye que el comportamiento de compra de los consumidores está determinado por la naturaleza de la patología que padecen y el comportamiento de los profesionales que prescriben a sus pacientes se ve influenciado por los anuncios DTCA.

Two main challenges in service description : Web service tunnel vision and semantic myopia

Through media such as newspapers, letterbox flyers, corporate brochures and television we are regularly confronted with descriptions for conventional (bricks 'n' mortar style) services. These representations vary in the terminology utilised, the depth of the description, the aspects of the service that are characterised and their applicability to candidate service requestors. Existing service catalogues (such as the Yellow Pages) provide little relief for service requestors from the burdensome task of discovering, comparing and substituting services. Add to this environment the rapidly evolving area of web services with its associated surfeit of standards, and the result is a considerably fragmented approach to the description of services. It leaves the reality of the Semantic Web somewhat clouded. --------- Let's consider service description briefly, before discussing our concerns with existing approaches to description. The act of describing is performed prior to advertising. This simple fact provides an interesting paradox as services cannot be described exactly before advertisement. This doesn't mean they can't be described comprehensively. By "exactly", we are referring to the fact that context provided by a service requestor (and their service needs) will alter the description of the service that is presented to the discoverer. For example, a service provider who operates a cinema wants to describe the price of their service. Let's say the advertised price is $15. They also want to state that a pensioner discount and a student discount is available which provides a 50% discount. A customer (i.e. service requestor) uses the cinema web site to purchase tickets online. They find the movie of their choice at a time that suits. However, its not until some context is provided by the requestor that the exact price is determined. The requestor might state that they are a pensioner. The same is applicable for a service requestor who purchases multiple tickets perhaps on behalf of other people. The disconnect between when the service is described and when a requestor provides context introduces challenges to the description process. A service provider would be ill-advised to offer independent descriptions that represent all the permutations possible for a single service. The descriptive effort would be prohibitive.