Purpose -The paper attempts to gain a better understanding of the reasons for advertisers to use nudity in European advertising campaigns and, more precisely, whether a print ad that uses nudity is more or less effective than an ad without nudity in the Czech Republic, Spain, and France. Design/methodology/approach -An experiment carried out in three European countries (Czech Republic, Spain, France) exposes young consumers to an experimental magazine containing an advertisement that shows either a woman's face or her topless body. Findings -Nationality does not appear to influence preferences for advertisements with or without nudity. Although differences emerge among the three countries in attitudes toward the ad (Aad), they are independent of the ad type and consistently reflect the same trends within each country. Gender influences Aad, and women adopt more negative Aad when they see nudity compared with when they do not, in contrast with men, regardless of their country. Research limitations/implications -Attitudes toward advertising in general vary significantly among European countries, even for seemingly homogeneous targets. Specific adaptations likely are needed not just with regard to nudity but more generally in terms of the content of ads. Practical implications -Advertisers that question the relevance of nudity in their advertising campaigns should take great care to define their target market by gender -even more so than in terms of the European country in which the advertising will appear. Originality/value -Women adopt more negative attitudes toward advertisements that use sexy female models than do men, and this effect is independent of nationality in a European context.

The paper examines based on international research the differences between results of studies focused on consumers' attitude toward advertising. The aim of this paper is to show that it is possible to find situations where the influence of attitudes towards specific ads in general (ASG) on attitudes toward advertising (Aad) can be observed and also it is possible to find no influence of attitudes toward ads in general (AG) on Aad. The paper shows that the problem comes from the definition of AG. The experiments described in this paper detect attitudinal differences toward advertising in general among studied nations depending on the type of advertising. The research encompasses respondents from three countries with different economic and cultural backgrounds (Germany, Ukraine and USA). The data were collected based on a quantitative survey and experiment among university students. The results show that the concept of AG is in some cases too broad. Differences between AG were confirmed between Ukraine and other countries. The respondents from Germany are according to AG more pessimistic and the respondents from the USA are more optimistic. This disparity was explained by a significant difference in Orthodox and Atheist religion compared to the other religions.

The practice of imbuing marketing communications with nostalgic reverie is prevalent in numerous countries. However, scholarly research investigating consumer response to such communication across cultures is lacking. This inquiry follows an emic approach examining and measuring ad-evoked personal nostalgia in France. Findings from five studies (N D 699) reveal significant differences in consumer reactions in France, as compared to earlier research based on American samples. Among the French, nostalgic advertising evokes personal memories and cultural nostalgia, contrasted to reports of past imagery, physiological and positive and negative emotional reactions in the United States. Furthermore, while cultural nostalgia is an important component of the French personal nostalgic experience, it is the personal memories that are the key to the creation of positive impressions about the ad and brand (brand heritage, brand bonds, and attitudes), and driving behavioral intentions. The emic French scale was found to be superior to an etic ad-nostalgia measure, in terms of fit and variance explained of the endogenous variables. The findings contribute to cross-cultural advertising and marketing research, and can be instructive for advertisers targeting the French market.

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The internationalization of the film industry has contributed greatly to the development of intercultural placements of products and brands as audiovisual supports. Therefore, it becomes interesting to study the efficiency of this communication technique for different cultures. This cross-cultural research address a substantial gap of the literature investigating the effects of placement from a demand-side perspective in four different countries-two Western European, one Eastern European, and a South Mediterranean. The results reveal the significant disparities among cultures with regard to appreciation for advertising, placement in general, and creative placement techniques in particular.