Political advertising in democratic Taiwan: audiences' perspectives on political figures through image-building advertisements

One can gain important insights into the effects of political advertising by looking at decoding and interpretation in audience perception studies. This essay considers two genres of political advertisement-celebrity endorsement and emotional appeal-through six focus groups formed by either Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) or Kuomintang (KMT) identifiers. It focuses on three key themes for comparison: the participants’ involvement, their interpretations of the key messages, and opinions that were important to them. This study aims to further the understanding of how political advertisements are interpreted and to bring some practical knowledge to the field by comparing the perspectives of audiences of differing political orientations

My Grazing Experience: Reflections and Observations

My pastures are utilized by a beef operation consisting primarily of a small cow/calf herd (30 cows), and a stocker operation numbering from 300-350 head annually, which are grazed only, from spring until fall. These stockers are purchased, continental breed calves, weighing from 500-550 pounds. In the fall, they are sold to Laura’s Lean Beef, usually at a forward contracted price after adding 300 pounds of gain. Occasionally, the stocking includes calves not eligible for Laura’s Lean which are then sold in truckload lots through internet sales

Evaluating service marketing in airline industry and its influence on student passengers' purchasing behaviour-using Taipei-London route as an example.

This paper reports an empirical study into airline consumer purchase behaviour on a major global route, that between the United Kingdom and Taipei. It focuses on the factors influencing airline choice for a sample of 60 Taiwanese students based at UK Universities and travelling on five airlines: British Airways, Cathay Pacific Airways, China Airlines, EVA Airways and Royal Dutch Airways. Several stages of data-gathering were undertaken and a well-established analytical framework for services marketing was used to identify gaps between the desired and received service. The main findings suggest that service quality, including in-flight entertainment, cabin crew attitude and seating comfort, can be as important as, or more important than, price in student purchase decisions for long-haul flights. Other important factors in carrier choice included student discounts, baggage allowances and airline safety record. Key Words: Service Marketing, Airline Industry, Consumer Behaviour, Taiwan, Touris

Advertising at the threshold: paratextual promotion in the era of media convergence

In the media convergence era, brands are embracing hybrid forms of advertising communication such as branded content, product placement and sponsored TV ‘pods’, brand blogs, shareable video, programmatic advertising, ‘native’ advertising and more, as alternatives to, and extensions of, traditional mass media advertising campaigns. In this article, we draw on Genette’s theory of transtextuality to reframe this phenomenon from a paratextual purview. We suggest that the analogy of the paratext articulates the iterative, ambiguous, participative and intertextual character of much contemporary brand communication. We describe extended examples of paratextual advertising and promotion that illustrate the fluid and mutually contingent relation of advertising text to paratext, and we outline an analytical framework for future research and practice

Imaginary futures: liminoid advertising and consumer identity

Purpose: To establish the theoretical and practical grounds for a newly recognised advertising appeal, the liminoid appeal, and point to the wider implications of this type of appeal for advertising practitioners and consumers. Design/approach: The paper integrates a theoretical review with a selective sample of case exemplars to illustrate the novelty, salience and contribution of the liminoid advertising appeal. Findings: The study finds that the liminoid appeal is a novel and under-recognised yet widely deployed advertising and branding approach that manifests in many differing creative executions, whilst clearly carrying great resonance for consumers, and can potentially have negative social implications. Research limitations: The empirical case examples are selective and few in number and a limited basis for generalisation. Practical implications: Advertising agencies and brand managers have been practicing liminoid appeals without a theoretically grounded label with which to better understand the underlying consumer motivations. Having this knowledge will enable brand professionals to generate insights that improve training, execution and targeting of creative strategies. Social implications: The liminoid appeal resonates powerfully with consumers because of its ostensibly liberatory and self-actualising potential, but on a social level the proliferation of such appeals could contribute to rising social disharmony and psychological distress. Originality/Value: The Liminoid advertising appeal is a new, theoretically grounded label for a well established yet hitherto poorly understood category of advertising appeal. The study contributes a novel and previously neglected source of insight to the practice of creative brand communication strategy, whilst also contributing to the development of anthropologically informed marketing and consumer research