The effects of product placement, in films, on the consumer's purchase intentions

Traditional forms of communication have been losing their once golden effectiveness due to, mainly, consumer saturation. Since the modern world is characterized by an advertising clutter, in wich each citizen living in urban areas is exposed daily to an average of 3,500 stimuli, companies are now looking for ways to differentiate themselves from competitors, and are now immersing their ways onto product placement. As investment in product placements increases over the years, making it now a billion dollar industry, there is a necessity to deeply explore this theme to better understand what its main effects on consumers are. Purchase intention is a step that mediates consumer attitude and effective behavior. The link between this stage of consumer behavior and product placement represents an area in which previous scholars’ results have not been overly consistent, making it not as crystal clear as desired. The present research conveys an experimental design resorting to eye tracking tools and softwares, providing data concerning the viewers’ levels of attention. As this experiment also aims to denote differences between reactions to product placements in different contexts (comedy vs. drama), two experimental and two control groups were defined, totaling a sample of 85 subjects. This paper covers the effects that the variables identified on the literature review have on brand attitudes, and subsequentely, on purchase intentions. The formulated hypotheses provide an in-depth look to how product placement affects consumers.As formas de comunicação tradicionais têm vindo a perder a sua eficácia devido à, essencialmente, saturação do consumidor. Dado que o mundo moderno é caracterizado por um ambiente com excesso de publicidade, em que um cidadão residente em áreas urbanas é exposto, em média, a 3.500 estímulos diários, as empresas estão à procura de novas formas de se diferenciarem da concorrência apostando cada vez mais em product placement. À medida que o investimento em product placement aumenta, tornando-o numa indústria que movimenta milhares de milhões de dólares, surge a necessidade de explorar profundamente este tema almejando uma melhor compreensão dos efeitos que tem no consumidor. A intenção de compra representa o primeiro passo no processo de decisão de compra do consumidor, e a ligação entre este patamar e o product placement representa uma área que não tem suscitado coerência em estudos passados, tornando-a pouco clara. O presente estudo experimental recorre a ferramentas e software de eye tracking, proporcionando informação acerca dos níveis de atenção dos espectadores em relação aos estímulos definidos. Dado que esta experiência também pretende identificar diferenças nas reacções ao product placement em contextos distintos (comédia vs. drama), dois grupos experimentais e dois grupos de controlo foram definidos, totalizando uma amostra de 85 elementos. Esta dissertação cobre os efeitos que diferentes variáveis identificadas na revisão de literatura têm nas atitudes do consumidor perante a marca, e consequentemente, nas suas intenções de compra. As hipóteses formuladas oferecem um olhar aprofundado sobre a forma de como é que o product placement afecta os consumidores

Characterisation of microbial attack on archaeological bone

As part of an EU funded project to investigate the factors influencing bone preservation in the archaeological record, more than 250 bones from 41 archaeological sites in five countries spanning four climatic regions were studied for diagenetic alteration. Sites were selected to cover a range of environmental conditions and archaeological contexts. Microscopic and physical (mercury intrusion porosimetry) analyses of these bones revealed that the majority (68%) had suffered microbial attack. Furthermore, significant differences were found between animal and human bone in both the state of preservation and the type of microbial attack present. These differences in preservation might result from differences in early taphonomy of the bones. © 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved