Publisher: Routledge
Summary and limitations of Studies 1 and 2
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| Summary and limitations of Studies 1 and 2 Studies 1 and 2 used different dependent variables for the hypotheses but provided converging evidence that advertising strategies influence consumers intentions to donate. First, the two studies showed similar results for Hand H, even though the result of Study 2 was marginally supported (p = 0.063). Egoistic appeals are more effective at attracting monetary donations than volunteering donations, whereas altruistic appeals induce more volunteering than monetary donations. Additional investigations are necessary if this slight difference comes from the different dependent variables or from other reasons. Showing either needy or helped beneficiaries also influences consumers donation patterns. Consumers who see needy beneficiaries in advertising intend to contribute money more than time, whereas consumers who see helped beneficiaries have a stronger intention to donate time. However, the difference between portraying statistical and identifiable victims did not influence consumers preferences for donation resources. The results indicate that different advertising strategies are necessary for advertisers attempting to attract different types of resources. However, Studies 1 and 2 have limited confirmatory and generalising powers for the following reasons. First, the advertising stimuli in Studies 1 and 2 showed the faces of children, and facial expressions are known to influence consumers intention to donate. Small and Verrochi (2009) argued that victims facial expressions might influence the degree of consumers sympathy and their donation amount. According to the researchers, seeing sad faces generates more sympathy and increases the amount of donations. In this study, pictures of the helped beneficiaries were usually of smiling children, whereas the needy beneficiaries did not smile. The effect revealed in the experiment might have been confounded with the effect of the portrayal of the beneficiaries and their facial expressions. In addition, the advertising stimuli might have different readability and comprehensibility because of the different lengths of the sentences. For instance, statistical stimuli include one sentence, whereas stimuli for identifiable victims have two to three sentences. Therefore, respondents might have processed the stimuli differently. Third, Study 1 and Study 2 used a student sample, a possible limitation because students are not major contributors to charities. Even though an error produced from using a diverse age group was prevented because age is known to be related to donating time, using a sample with older respondents would be more realistic. Finally, African children were used as victims in the advertising stimuli and respondents were Korean, which might have influenced the result. Some studies indicated that consumers might show different donation patterns for in-groups and out-groups. For example, Winterich et al. (2009) and Reed and Aquino (2003) have argued that consumers who place great importance on moral identity donate more to out-groups than Downloaded by [McGill University Library at 01:34 07 February 2015 716 InternatIonal Journal of advertIsIng, 2014, consumers who place low importance on moral identity because they have larger group boundaries. Thus, the results might have differed if the victims in the advertisements were local. Moreover, the results of Studies 1 and 2 might have been compromised because volunteering to help foreign children is quite difficult in reality. To overcome the limitations of Studies 1 and 2, Study 3 used elderly Korean individuals as victims, and care was taken to show neutral facial expressions in the advertising stimuli across all cells. In addition, a similar text pattern was maintained across all stimuli refer to Appendix 1). Diverse age groups were included in the sample. In addition, an online survey method was used to help respondents reduce the social pressures associated with a face-to-face request, thus inspiring authentic responses (Chang & Lee 2009). Appendix 1 presents the advertising stimuli. Study 3 Pretest A pretest similar to that used in Studies 1 and 2 was executed with 74 undergraduate business students. Advertising stimuli were presented, and four questions were asked on the altruistic or egoistic nature of each appeal. The result showed that respondents considered the altruistic appeal as more altruistic and less egoistic (M altruistic = 5.1 (s.d. = 1.02) , M egoistic = 4.45 (s.d. = 1.53) ) than the egoistic appeal (M altruistic = 3.14 (s.d. = 1.21) , M egoistic = 4.45 (s.d. = 1.44) ; F altruistic = 8.58, p = 0.004, F egoistic = 34.88, p = 0.000), thus proving the success of the manipulation of the advertising appeals. Readability and comprehensibility were tested on only the statistical/identifiable dimension because appeal type and beneficiaries status do not show differences in length or a presentation pattern. Even with the differences in presentation pattern, readability and comprehensibility was not different across the stimuli (F readability = 1.234, p > 0.10; F comprehensibility = 0.625, p > 0.10). Experiment procedure The online experiment was executed using the respondent panel of an online research company. Emails were sent to all panel members that invited their response. If members wanted to participate in the experiment, they just clicked the URL link in the email. When they clicked to participate, a description of the experiment was presented and demographic information was asked. Then, one of eight advertising stimuli was shown at random. The members who answered all of the questions were rewarded with online cash. To prevent insincere responses, the survey was designed to compel respondents to remain atone stage for at least 30 seconds before moving onto the next stage. The experiment URL was open for seven days. Overall, 448 respondents participated, with each cell comprising 56 respondents. Care was taken to include a wide range of ages 20- to 69-year-old respondents were included in the sample and 39.76 years was their mean age. The sample comprised an even distribution of gender, and had 50% males and 50% females. Downloaded by [McGill University Library at 01:34 07 February 2015 |