Research

The German Research Foundation (DFG) has provided a grant of ca. 200.000 EUR for a research project entitled

“Ethnic Minorities in Advertising”

(funding period 2020-2023).

Project Description

Many, especially European, countries have experienced a noticeable demographic change in recent years, which is reflected in a more and more ethnically diverse society. Marketing has responded to increasing ethnic diversity and targeted ethnic minorities as a relevant new segment in advertising. Companies are at risk of the ethnic majority in a society perceiving the representation of ethnic minorities in advertising as less positive, while advertising that targets only the ethnic majority may deter promising target groups of certain ethnic minorities. Ignoring minorities in advertising is also criticized from a societal point of view, since it conveys a picture of a less diverse society and propagates negative stereotypes.Research has already taken on the topic. However, studies on the portrayal of ethnic minorities are mostly performed in the US and date back to the 1990s and 2000s. These results are not transferable to today's European context. Many studies on the effects of ethnic minority in advertising exist, but their results are mixed and inconclusive, suggesting that there are contextual factors that can explain these differences. Furthermore, previous research leaves the question unanswered, how marketing and social effects are related, and whether advertising is responsible for negative social consequences such as decreasing acceptance of ethnic minorities. Finally, it has not yet been possible to conceptually integrate the findings on the portrayal and influence of different minorities and disadvantaged groups in advertising and to link them to a theoretical framework that can be used for future research.The current research project (1) examines how ethnic minorities are portrayed in current advertising and compares the findings across countries and time; (2) examines the effects of the portrayals of ethnic minorities on consumers both in terms of brand-related effects and social effects; (3) examines important moderators of these effects; (4) investigates whether advertising is responsible for negative societal diversity-related effects; and (5) integrates past research on minority and disadvantaged groups in advertising and develops a new conceptual framework for future research.The findings help to clarify inconsistencies of previous research. How, when, and where ethnic minorities can be portrayed in advertising to achieve positive effects is relevant to marketing practice. The question of how advertising is responsible for possible negative diversity-related effects in society is of high political relevance.

Project management and staff

Prof. Dr. Martin Eisend
Dr. Anna Rößner

 

The German Research Foundation (DFG) research project

"Body Image and Advertising: A Meta-Analysis"

Project Description

The way people perceive and evaluate their bodies (i.e., “body image”) influences body satisfaction and beauty-related beliefs and behaviors. If evaluated negatively, body image can lead to severe pathologies such as eating disorders or depression. Thus, high rates of body dissatisfaction in a society raise public health concerns. Advertising is a powerful promoter of unrealistic body ideals that increase viewers’ negative body image. At the same time, plenty of research has provided evidence that the attractiveness and beauty of advertising endorsers can increase advertising effectiveness. This leads to a dilemma for advertisers: The idealization of bodies has positive advertising effects, but leads to negative non-advertising effects for consumers and society, which does not only call into question the social responsibility of advertisers but can indirectly reduce advertising effectiveness. The current research project tries to solve this dilemma that has not been addressed in the extant literature. It does so by quantifying prior research on idealized bodies in advertising and by comparing advertising effects with non-advertising individual effects of such idealized bodies. By analyzing various moderator variables of this relationship, the project identifies how bodies of endorsers in advertising should be depicted to achieve positive advertising effects but avoid negative non-advertising effects for consumers and society. To that end, the research project applies a meta-analytic approach that includes a broad set of relevant studies and that promises generalizability and a high potential to explain heterogeneity in existing findings as well as the identification of relevant theories. The proposed project aims to provide a first-time, novel, and up-to-date review of the effects of idealized bodies in advertising. Based on the findings of the project that can be compared with findings of prior meta-analyses on effects of idealized bodies in media and help to identify and evaluate related theories, the project will provide an integrative framework for the future examination of idealized bodies. The project provides practical implications for marketers and advertisers and will identify depictions of idealized bodies that increase advertising effectiveness while at the same time reducing or avoiding negative consequences for consumers’ body-related beliefs and behaviors. These findings help advertisers to act socially responsible while at the same time achieving their marketing and business goals and to develop more effective strategies. By this, the project also provides implications for society and help public policy and regulators to find benchmarks and examples that support further discussion about meaningful recommendations and regulations of idealized body depictions in media and advertising.

Project management and staff

Prof. Dr. Martin Eisend
Daylan Schuchert

The German Research Foundation (DFG) research project

"Paid Digital Advertising Effectiveness: A Meta-Analysis"

Project Description

Nowadays, advertisers spend roughly half of the global ad budget on digital advertising. Paid digital advertising (i.e., search and display advertising) compared to advertising in traditional, paid media provides several advantages to advertisers, such as better feedback, active consumers, narrow or even personalized targeting, or availability to consumers at any time and almost any place. However, digital advertising has some drawbacks, too, such as privacy intrusion or increasing annoyance about banner advertising. As a result, the research findings about digital advertising effectiveness are mixed and there are different views on effectiveness in practice. Other than research on advertising effectiveness in traditional media, the area of paid digital advertising still lacks empirical generalizations, information on input-output relationships, and benchmarks for its relative effectiveness as basis for comparisons with traditional advertising and other marketing instruments. Research further lacks any generalizable knowledge about when paid digital advertising is more or less effective. This meta-analytic research project intends to address these research gaps and aims to provide new empirical generalizations about paid digital advertising’s effectiveness and how the effectiveness depends on characteristics of the advertising, market, products, data and measures, model, any omitted marketing variables, and study factors. The project offers a scientific contribution by providing empirical generalizations about the effectiveness of paid digital advertising and its contexts. Empirical generalizations provide useful benchmarks for researchers who are investigating digital advertising response models. The results provide an integrative framework for the investigation of digital advertising effects and crossover effects of various advertising formats and marketing instruments. By identifying influential and non-influential factors, meta-analysis helps researchers focus on relevant research questions, making it easier to develop a research agenda. The project offers practical implications for advertising budgeting and helps managers to base their budget decisions on reliable benchmarks on the (forecast) returns on their investments and to defend their investments.

Project leadership 

Dr. Farid Tarrahi

Co-Investigators

Prof. Dr. Katja H. Brunk
Prof. Dr. Martin Eisend

The German Research Foundation (DFG) research project

(How and why) do consumers adjust their ethical consumption practices in times of inflation?

 https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/54138705

Project Description

Ethical consumption is crucial for the future of our planet and human welfare. Ethical consumers link their ethical concerns (e.g., environmental protection, human rights, animal welfare) with their shopping behaviour, oftentimes willing to pay a price premium to act in accordance with their moral values. While these consumers have always had to make sacrifices by absorbing increased costs for their ethical choices, the currently experienced inflation, i.e., the rise of overall price level, adds additional burden. This research project empirically investigates the impact of such an inflation environment, and the resulting decrease in disposable incomes, on existing ethical consumers and their consumption practices and habits.

The two-year project, funded by the DFG (German research council) with 228.885 Euros, will commence in June 2025 and follows a sequential, fully-integrated mixed methods design, which encompasses three empirical phases:

1. Phase 1 will be an inductive interview study with the objective of deep exploration and sense-making of the phenomenon of ethical consumption in times of inflation. This is necessary since we are experiencing a macro-economic climate that is incomparable to conditions under which existing research into the price-ethical consumption dynamic has been conducted so far. The study intends to capture the full range of consumers' behavioural, psychological, and attitudinal responses to this new crisis situation.
2. Building on the inductive phase, phase 2 will consist of a discrete choice experiment with the objective of exploring consumers' potential product attribute prioritisation and trade-off effects in times of financial constraint.
3. Finally, phase 3 will draw on findings from phases 1 and 2 and include factorial experiments with the objective to study boundary conditions, as well as potential moderators and mediators of the effect of increasing price levels on ethical consumption behaviour.

This research project yields a range of implications. Firstly, the consequences of an inflation environment on ethical consumption have not been studied before, thus the project will offer important scientific contributions in the fields of consumer behaviour and macromarketing. Our studies will furthermore provide implications for marketers, retailers and consumers and hope to suggest ways for policy-makers to support and foster ethical consumption, even in challenging macro-economic times.

Project leadership 

Prof. Dr. Katja H. Brunk

Post-doctoral researcher

N.N.