Doi: 10.2501/JAr-2021-013 september 2021 JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH 245
Editors Desk
New Insights on Advertising Execution
And Consumer Engagement
JOHN B. FORD
Editor-in-chief,
Journal of Advertising
Research
Eminent scholar and
Professor of marketing
and international
Business,
strome college of
Business, old Dominion
university
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Enter publication month here september 2021
Enter DOI here Doi: 10.2501/JAr-2021-013
Enter special feature theme here WHAT WE KNOW ABOuT
Since 1960, the Journal of Advertising Research (JAR) has delivered cutting-edge, impactful research to advertising scholars and practitioners. That work has reflected not only the continuing theoretical evolutionary advancement of knowledge but also has provided answers to a number of the thorny problems faced by advertising professionals.
And, indeed, the future of advertising requires meaningful partnerships between scholars and pro- fessionals in the field, so that knowledge advance- ment focuses on the greatest need areas faced by practitioners.
This issue of the JAR contains another rich array of studies reflecting a continuing development of these vital partnerships. Eight articles span a wide variety of topics that includes the impact of reductions in media spend on brand performance in the short and long term; effective strategies for six-second video advertisements; the use of androgynous imagery in advertisements; and companies explicit-donation amount and online cause-sponsorship advertising formats on nonprofit websites, and their effects on purchase intention. New findings in context congru- ence and advertising persuasiveness in e-magazines add to the mix, as well as the effectiveness of non- celebrity endorsers; consumer engagement and purchase behavior in brand heritage advertising; and the effect of guerilla marketing on company share prices.
The practice of brand advertisers to reduce advertising spend in the hopes of cutting costs and increasing profit levels is the focus of When Brands Go Dark: Examining Sales Trends when Brands Stop Broad-Reach Advertising for Long Periods (see page 247) by Nicole Hartnett, Vir- ginia Beal, Rachel Kennedy, and Byron Sharp (Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science, University of South Australia), and Adam Gelzinis (Endeavour Group).
Underpinning such reductions in advert- ising spend is the assumption that these types of
adjustments do not immediately harm sales or market share. The authors used 20 years of data (19962015) involving advertising spend and brand sales volume for a global alcoholic-beverage com- pany across a variety of different products in the Australian market. The study identified 57 one-year cost-cutting incidents for 41 brands; in 34 of these cases, the reduction lasted at least two years.
In fact, the authors found that sales declines often marched hand in hand with slashes in advert- ising expenditures, leading to the conclusion that forcing brands to take turns going dark for long periods could have a net negative effect on the total portfolio in the long run.
Balancing that finding was the discovery that larger previously growing brands are relatively unaffected by advertising cessation and so can withstand an advertising hiatus for one or two years. The authors do add, however, that those survivor brands may not have suffered any serious loss due to the decline in advertising but poten- tially compromised greater growth that may have been driven by continued marketplace exposure.
On a more granular basis, the research support- ing When Brands Go Dark found that small, growing alcohol brands need continued support to meet their growth potential and, in such cases, con- tinuity is important. More specifically, the authors propose, on-and-off strategies can negatively affect consumers looking to make a category purchase, as off periods can open the door for competitor mes- sages to get through.
Even as marketers investigate with various levels of advertising investment, so do they exam- ine different message-delivery modes. Strategies for More Effective Six-Second Video Advertise- ments: Making the Most of 144 Frames (please see page 260) demonstrates a growing interest in short format as younger consumers actually prefer short-duration communications on their mobile devices.
246 JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH september 2021
NEW iNsiGHts oN ADVErtisiNG ExEcutioN AND coNsumEr ENGAGEmENt
Authors Colin C
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