ANSWER # 1
The article by Steadman (1969) entitled “How Sexy Illustrations Affect Brand Recall” in the Journal of Advertising Research has much to offer to the experts of advertisements. The overall research methodology contributes effectively in defining the relationship of irrelevant and bizarre elements in add in order to explore the brand recall rate. However, the methodology has some limitations. First and foremost, the participants in study were all male and the material provided to the participants for the assessment of objective was pertaining to female only. This contradicts to the study findings of the Rudolph (1947) and the analysis and conclusion did not anywhere define it as the study to explore the cross gender opinion about it. The study in the initial bifurcation in the five categories in stage one, asked a direct view of the participants. In cases where an element is perceived to have negative relation, it is more advisable to generate response through indirect questions to mitigate the element of bias responses (Saunders, Thornhill, & Lewis, 2009; Neuman, 2005). The methodology also allowed the interaction among the participants; this has mush potential to affect the responses as some brands may have been recalled due to the impact of interaction that the real impact of element under evaluation.
It is important to notice that despite limitations, the study included many positive aspects. The researcher have also noted that the limitations of the study and defined the important areas of future researches. For example, the researcher defined the future areas of study in the prospect where product and element under question has congruence. It is in contrast to the evaluation in the current study where hypothesis were tested on advertisements where product and element under question did not had any congruence (Steadman, 1969).
ANSWER # 2
The article “How Sexy Illustrations Affect Brand Recall” published in the Journal of Advertising Research written by Steadman attempted to effectively contribute to the advertising literature. However, there are certain limitations that have significantly affected the research results. The underlying research design is constructed the limitations of the methodology in referred study. Given below are the steps to be adopted for the conduct of such research. It is important to mention that research method herein follows the stages employed in the study of Steadman; however, it has attempted to determine the method while effectively incorporating the limitations of the referred study.
The participants of the study shall have equal mix of men and women. Also the mix shall also include participants from general environment. For example, for the age group with the average age of around 25 the members shall be a good mix of general consumer and university participants from different domains. Similarly, for the other age category the mix of participants shall not be controlled with university level education in the business domain. This will provide more comprehensive view of the consumers’ attitude towards the advertisement attributed under assessment.
Stage 1: For this stage, for the classification of the class, will be conducted by indirect means of observing the attention of participants to the advertisement. The participants of the study will be shown two ads of different brand, one with explicit erotic content while second with no or least noticeable integration of such content. The advertisements picked for the purpose will be based on the consideration that product and erotic content does not have congruence and both genders are involved.
Stage 2: In this section, the participants will be provided similar material for the assessment. However, the two distinctions in comparison with the study of Steadman will be employed. First, the ad pictures with sexual content will have content pertaining to both men and women. Also, the interaction among the participants will also be restricted in order to generate the individual perception that does not have influence from others. The number of days given to the participants to review the ad will be determined on the basis of the frequency of the ads used in the study. After the allocated time period, the assessment will be conducted. The participants in this case will be required to provide the type of the product as well as name of brand. Further, for the ads with explicit content will be tested and the participants will be required to refer those ads on three-level scale of one being most erotic, 2 being medium and three being most erotic.
Stage 3
In this stage, the participants will be called after three days. For appearing in this stage it will be mandated that participants does not involve in any activity that generates viewership or attention to such ads. It is though difficult to ensure that such interaction is not developed and poses the limitation to the methodology. Also it will be mandated that participants of the study does not interact with the participant of study pertaining to the study process and respective responses. Since it is difficult to restrict the participants from such activities; therefore, the time period of second assessment has been reduced to three.
This methodology defined above has mainly followed the system of the study implied by Steadman to address the research questions developed for the study. However, it has intended to overcome all the shortcomings in the methodology of Steadman. The data collection will imply the descriptive analysis and chi-square test for the generation of results for the type of response from category of participants and dependency of recall on advertisement element respectively.
ANSWER # 3
Various elements in the advertisement are integrated to generate the impulse of the customers towards purchase (Aggarwal, 2004). The underlying methodology is aimed at exploring the level of impact of sexual content on the attitude of the customers towards brands. This impact to be explored is determined for the category of products where the level of involvement for different products is different. Also the methodology is aimed at assessing the impact of attitude towards the advertisement on attitude towards the brand. The second proposition is based on the model given below:
The sample 100 respondents of the ranging from 20 to 40 of both genders will be developed. For participating in the study, it will mandated that participants to be regular viewer of TV and/ or print ads. This limitation is determined to mitigate the impact of consumer response generated due to interaction in an unusual activity. Also, the minimum income and education level such as college education will also be determined as a threshold. This measure is aimed at controlling the impact of varied level of understanding that is generated due to different levels of advertisement. It is also important to control this factor as adverts are designed considering the capabilities of different social classes.
In the first stage, the participants will be gathered in common hall and after developing an interaction among them they will be shown two ads. The advertisement selection for this stage will only consider two brands of any products (without considering the level of involvement). Also, the advertisement will only be employed on the basis of sexual element used in such ads. At this stage, the observer will identify the participants’ considering towards the employment of sexual element in the ads on the basis of their attention towards the ads. The attention of participants towards the type of ad will be noted as their acceptance of its content.
In the next level, the participants will be shown the ads of different competitors of product with low involvement level. The competitors’ ads to be shown in this stage will be based on the level of sexual element in the ads. In the later stage, the shortened clips that do not tell about the product and brand will be shown to the participants. Participants, in turn, will be then required to report the name of each brand. The exercise of showing the ad to the participants is done to incorporate the impact of all variables that come into play while viewing an ad of the products. It is also important to mention, that all the adverts used and shown in the under development research activity will be adopted considering the use of sexual content for the aided purpose only. These ads will also have combination of sexual content pertaining to men and women. Hence, all the potential prospects for biasness are dealt effectively. Similar procedure will be repeated for the products will high level of involvement.
The participants will be then required to report the name of the brand and determine their likings and disliking towards the brand on the basis of the advertisement only. In the next sitting, the similar short clips will be shown to the participants and will be required to redo the exercise to collect data after a period of time. This will be done to overcome the results biasness of immediate recall.
The above collected data will be evaluated using descriptive analysis. The descriptive analysis will inform the responses of the participants on the basis of their gender. Hence, it will evaluate the attitude of the each gender to advertisement with sexual content as well as attitude of the participants to the cross gender sexual content.
Finally, employing the Chi Square the assessment will be built pertaining to the role of erotic content in determination of the attitude towards the brand. The data collected in two different time periods will also enable the study to evaluate the impact across time. Furthermore, the data collected for the high and low level of involvements as well as men and women will provide comprehensive analysis with dissection.
However, the above methodology is also faced with the limitations. Such as adverts will be shown to participants in a row and so the ad first in row will be impacted due to its positioning in sequence. As the participants will be in a common hall, therefore, there are chances that participants under the influence of neighboring partner divert its attention to either type of the advertisement.
References
Aggarwal, P. (2004). The effects of brand relationship norms on consumer attitudes and behavior. Journal of Consumer Research, 31(1), 87-101.
Neuman, W.L. (2005). Social Research Methods. Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. Allyn and Bacon.
Rudolph, H. J. (1947). Attention and Interest Factors in Advertising: Survey, Analysis, Interpretation. New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company.
Saunders, M, Thornhill, A, & Lewis, P. (2009). Research Method for Business Students, London: Financial Times Prentice Hall.
Steadman, M. (1969). How sexy illustrations affect brand recall. Journal of Advertising Research, 9(1), 15-19.
