This study explores the effectiveness of various types of print advertising as a promotional vehicle, focusing on the main message strategy, the presence or absence of pictures, and the specific nature of the picture. The results show that informational advertising elicits a more favorable response pattern than image-based (or transformational) advertising. However, the picture effect is more pronounced for the informational ad, although the nature of the picture is less important. Recommendations are that smaller travel agencies emphasize informational advertising accompanied by pictures and that larger agencies continue to use pictures but strengthen the informational component of their advertising copy.

business ethics, consumer sentiments, business ethics index (BEI), UK, Germany, Spain,

The relative importance of the JonesÕ [Jones, T. M.: 1991, Academy of Management Review 16 (2), 366-395] six components of moral intensity was measured using a conjoint experimental design. The most important components influencing ethical perceptions were: probability of effect, magnitude of consequences, and temporal immediacy. Contrary to previous research, overall social consensus was not an important factor. However, consumers exhibit distinctly different patterns in ethical evaluation, and for approximately 15% of respondents social consensus was the most important dimension.

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This study continues the systematic measurement of consumers’ sentiments toward business ethical practices first measured in 2004. The Business Ethics Index (BEI) comprises the four measurements representing the dimensions of “personal–vicariousâ€\x9D and “past–futureâ€\x9D. A professional telephone interviewing company was hired to collect five consecutive waves of 1045 telephone interviews in an omnibus procedure. The collection of the five waves represented a sampling process which enables the creation of confidence intervals for this, and subsequent, measurements of the BEI. The overall BEI fell to 102.6 (from a revized 108.7 in 2004). The drop was attributed to a fall in consumer expectations of the future ethical behavior of business. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2007Business ethics, consumer sentiment, index,