Controversial advertisement executions and involvement on elaborative processing and comprehension

Abstract

Previous explorations of the effect of controversial/shock appeals in advertising have been confounded by using different advertisements in controversial and noncontroversial execution conditions or by not controlling the influence of attitude toward the advertisement. Therefore, the experiment presented here seeks to determine the effect that a controversial advertisement execution has on elaborative processing and brand message comprehension when potential contaminating influences are held constant in the controversial and noncontroversial execution conditions. Results demonstrate that controversial advertisement executions increase elaboration (i.e. the number of cognitive responses and ratings of elaborative processing) regardless of the level of product involvement. A cross-over interaction reveals that higher product involvement subjects better comprehend a controversial advertisement execution, but lower product involvement subjects better comprehend a non-controversial advertisement execution. Comprehension results are consistent with the resource-matching perspective. The resource-matching perspective holds that there is an upsidedown U-shaped relationship between processing outcomes and cognitive resources required to successfully process an advertisement execution, such that information processing is optimized when required resources match the resources that one has made available for advertisement processing. The study did not show any differences in processing controversial advertisement executions across gender or ethnic identity (i.e. Hispanic or non-Hispanic white).

Shock Advertising: Not So Shocking Anymore. An Investigation among Generation Y

“…Huhmann & MottStenerson (2008) mention that a controversial advertisement with too low a perceived offensiveness or shock value will not likely be sufficiently engaging to accomplish brand-processing goals. Controversial advertisements wear out with repetition, even if it is for a different product or brand, there is the mentality of seen it once, seen it enough (Huhmann & Mott-Stenerson, 2008). In other words, perhaps the first time a controversial concept was shown to the public, there was a reaction, but thereafter the perceived level of shock consistently decreased (Huhmann & Mott-Stenerson, 2008;Williams, 2009).…”

“…Controversial advertisements wear out with repetition, even if it is for a different product or brand, there is the mentality of seen it once, seen it enough (Huhmann & Mott-Stenerson, 2008). In other words, perhaps the first time a controversial concept was shown to the public, there was a reaction, but thereafter the perceived level of shock consistently decreased (Huhmann & Mott-Stenerson, 2008;Williams, 2009). The public have heard about all the problems that shock advertisements portray before, and therefore it has become easier for consumers to ignore these advertisements (Williams, 2009).…”

The effect and moderation of gender identity congruity: Utilizing “real women” advertising images

“…Biological gender has been extensively utilized in segmentation studies (Dommeyer, 2008;Huhmann & Mott-Stenerson, 2008;Putrevu, 2008;Barone, Palan, & Miniward, 2004;Brunel & Nelson, 2003;Meyers-Levy & Sternthal, 1991), as this criterion meets several of the requirements for successful implementation: easy to identify, easy to access, and large enough to be profitable (Putrevu, 2004). However, biological segmentation ignores different psychological orientations within one gender (Fischer & Arnold, 1994).…”

Does Viral Communication Context Increase the Harmfulness of Controversial Taboo Advertising?

“…As expected, participants perceive the two taboo ads as effectively taboo (M = 4.41 for the sexual-taboo stimulus and M = 4.65 for the death taboo stimulus). To confirm that the manipulation of the advertisement execution was in fact perceived as controversial, a measure of the degree of controversy was obtained by adapting the scale developed by Huhmann and Mott-Stenerson (2008). Subjects rated their level of agreement from 'strongly disagree' (1) to 'strongly agree' (7) on three seven-point Likert-type scale items (a = .865): 'Some consumers would likely be shocked by this advertisement'; 'Some consumers would likely find this advertisement offensive'; and 'This advertisement might be controversial.'…”

“…First, research on viral advertising has focused on the mechanisms that make viral advertising successful, adopting the point of view of advertisers and brands wishing to increase the effectiveness of their online campaign (Liu-Thompkins 2012). We implemented a tightly controlled experiment which deals with controversial taboo ads embedded in a press article and in a viral context (e.g., a Facebook page) with a control for external confounding variables that might otherwise have biased the results, such as the color, size, and position of the selected controversial taboo stimuli, the product category and brand name promoted in the selected stimuli, as well as potential covariates such as Facebook familiarity, intention to pass along the controversial ad, engagement with the press article, product category involvement, attitude toward the ad (Huhmann and Mott-Stenerson 2008), age, and sex (Katona et al 2011;Trusov et al 2010). By implementing a tightly controlled experiment, we investigate the 'unintended consequences' (Pollay 1986) of controversial viral advertising that undermine the degree of perceived tabooness of viral advertising and subjective norms.…”