PurposeThe present study aims to discuss the role of Hofstede's cultural dimensions, uncertainty avoidance and individualism/collectivism, on the use of various humor types in print advertising, across culturally diverse countries.Design/methodology/approachA sample of 12,351 ads (3,828 humorous) from the largest circulated UK and Greek magazines was content‐analyzed in light of Speck's humorous message taxonomy, emphasizing humor types and intentional relatedness.FindingsThe results indicate that cultural diversity is reflected in the types of humorous devices that tend to be used in the UK and Greece. British advertisements incorporate not only sentimental but also disparaging humor types such as sentimental humor and full comedy, providing a great deal of pure entertainment. On the contrary, Greek print ads emphasize cognitive humorous appeals, in an attempt to provide credible information to the uncertainty‐avoiding Greek audience.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study highlight some key aspects of UK and Greek print advertising that can be extended in other homogeneous cultures. In individualistic countries with low uncertainty avoidance, it seems that consumers prefer humor‐dominant messages. On the contrary, in collectivistic countries with high uncertainty‐aversion attitudes, humor can be used as a Trojan horse to convey the required information to the target group.Originality/valueThe present study points out how advertisers' intentions to entertain or to inform the target audience are expressed in the use of various humor types in advertising, underlining, also, the effect of cultural values on these communication decisions.

The intense competition in the tourism sector increasingly pushes tourism destination marketers to seek more effective promotional practices, so that they remain competitive and attract more visitors. The fast expansion of the Internet and social media provides the opportunity for destination marketers to approach potential tourists in a simple and cost-effective way. While managing the official pages of destinations on social media, the basic question that arises is the configuration of the content, and how attractive this content could be for potential tourists. The purpose of this study is to investigate what elements of a destination, when displayed on social media, could be attractive factors for tourists. Through the analysis of push and pull tourism motivation factors in particular, this study focuses on the segmentation of the Greek market for those traveling abroad and the emergence of the basic elements that could attract each segment through social media. The respondents have been classified into four segments, according to the motives that more greatly influence their desire to travel. This analysis also shows the important relationships between these segments and the pull motivation factors on social media. The study concludes with findings and suggestions that can contribute to the planning of an effective social media marketing plan.

Although the prevalence of gender stereotypes in advertising is well established, relatively little research has examined gender stereotypes in the context of Super Bowl that is arguably the most important event in US television advertising. This study systematically examines gender representations across various product categories in Super Bowl commercials over a 20-year period (1990À2009). Our findings detect and discuss shifts in the cultural notions of gender constructed in advertising messages targeting the largest and the most demographically diverse audience in US television. The paper concludes with a discussion of the theoretical and managerial implications of our findings.

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This research examines both the standardization versus adaptation of Vodafone's international corporate social media communications strategy in Study 1 and consumers' attitudes toward this strategy in Study 2. Study 1 investigates Vodafone's strategy in Facebook through a content analysisand Study 2 focuses on consumers' attitudes through a qualitative approach of 12 Facebook fans: 6 in the UK and 6 in Greece. The findings reveal that Vodafone implements a local strategy in corporate Facebook campaigns, taking into account the cultural differences between these countries. The results also indicate that the debate on the international corporate Facebook communications strategy should extend beyond the standardization/adaptation dichotomy, pointing out the pivotal role of personalization.