Towards an international understanding of the power of celebrity persuasions: a review and a research agenda

Research into advertising using celebrity has been undertaken for nearly 40 years. It has principally used surveys and experiments to explore how consumers respond to celebrity advertisements. A recent meta-study of 32 papers has demonstrated that different populations respond in different ways to celebrity endorsements. Specifically, both US subjects and college students are more likely to respond in a significant way to the presence of celebrity than subjects who are not from the US, or who are not studying at college. Given that the nationality and student status of subjects matter, this article explores the make up of the samples that have been used to examine celebrity advertising. The article finds that these samples are not representative of US populations (because so many are students), nor of populations outside the US (because so few live beyond it). Furthermore, the history of dominance of US-based student samples, and the citation practices which keep them circulating in academia, suggests that theories of celebrity advertising have for a long time been excessively influenced by ideas tested on this unrepresentative group. This fact will limit the applicability of research into celebrity advertising to the wider world. I explore whether this matters, and how deficiencies might be addressed in further research

Out-of-home advertising media: theoretical and industry perspectives

Out-of-home (OOH) advertising media traditionally have not accounted for a large share of advertising budgets, but overall expenditure has grown considerably in recent years. Due to the transformation of the OOH   advertising media landscape, and the diversity and ubiquitous nature of these media, there seem to be a discrepancy between the views of academic and industry experts on exactly what constitutes contemporary OOH advertising media. This article addresses the identified academic-practitioner divide by presenting both sides of the coin. An integrative review of OOH advertising media taxonomies in prominent academic sources, as well as specialists’ industry publications from Canada, South Africa, America, Australia, Ireland and the United Kingdom, was conducted. This resulted in a new conceptualisation of four key platforms for a contemporary OOH advertising media classification framework: outdoor advertising, transit media advertising, street-and-retail-furniture advertising, and digital and ambient OOH media. Clear direction for future research was given, specifically testing the proposed conceptualisation, the impact of OOH audience environments and mood on message delivery, and digital OOH advertising as one of the fastest growing media types

Recognition and recall of product placements in films and broadcast programmes

The purpose of this article is to investigate product placements in films and broadcast programmes regarding recognition and recall of product names. The sample consisted of undergraduate male and female students aged 18 to 24 attending a tertiary level institution in Pretoria, South Africa. The findings showed that even though there was no perfectly positive relationship between the prominence and recognition of products placed in films, someone watching a film was more likely to recognise a product if it were to be shown audio-visually. It can therefore be concluded that if a product is placed more prominently in a film, the recognition thereof will be higher. This study can be a benchmark as it is one of the first studies conducted in South Africa regarding the perception of product placements in film