This essay is basically synthesizing 10 sources to support the new research im proposing that needs to be done. The sources needs to be categorized into 3/4 subheadings that make sense in order for an easy to read essay for the IRB board.
I have already started the essay…
My thesis: Due to the influence advertising has on our cognitive processes and behaviors, and the intensifying complexity of advertisements, new research must be done in order to determine the effects that new methods of advertising may have on consumers.
Abstract:
Although advertising is a fairly new concept, there has been a lot of research conducted on the way advertising has intruded in our daily routines and altered our lives. However, very little research has been done on targeted advertising. It’s a whole new level of singling out consumers and customizing their online experiences to maximize their consumption. Targeted advertising is growing rapidly, too. Companies will target consumers through search engine results, their location, their likes on social media, private messages sent via social media, webpages visited, how much time they spend looking at a certain ad, and the list is growing.
Intro (part of it):
Many are still not convinced about just how much advertising has an effect on us. Of course, the strength of its influence varies with accordance to the rate of exposure, however, advertising holds so much potential to alter our moods, actions, and perspective. A lot of those who do believe advertising can have an affect on society, associates advertisements with negative effects. But, this is not always the case. Here, the ability to negatively and positively affect the public will be discussed.
Future research on targeted advertising can give insight to the type of personality altering that advertisements can do. The goal of more intricate discoveries about advertising would allow for advertisements to not only benefit the company, but the consumer in a positive way.
Suggested subheadings: “Strong effects of advertisements with beneficial outcome”, “Strong effects of ads that had a negative outcome”, “Targeted advertising: its findings thus far.”
The resources (all must be used. the quotes under the article titles are suggestions of info to be used in this paper but you don’t have to use that exact info):
1. Healthy weight and lifestyle advertisements: An assessment of their persuasive potential. (https://academic.oup.com/her/article/30/4/569/586932)
“Overweight and obesity are prevalent among adults in many countries [1], increasing their risk of serious non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and some cancers [2]. The World Health Organization recommended mass media as effective avenues for population level dissemination of obesity prevention messages [3]. Public health mass media campaigns aim to initially raise awareness, increase knowledge and change attitudes, and ultimately contribute to behaviour change [4]. Such campaigns often use advertising that invokes cognitive and emotional responses from viewers in an effort to change beliefs and emotions associated with particular health behaviours, and thus strengthen intentions to alter behaviour and increase the likelihood of achieving behaviour change.”
2. Effectiveness of a school-based intervention to empower children to cope with advertising.
(PDF attached)
3. Advertising and Obesity: A Behavioral Perspective.
(PDF attached)
(“Advertisers have rejected claims that advertising contributes to obesity by arguing that it cannot coerce people into purchasing a product, and does not affect primary demand. This reasoning overlooks the role advertising plays in reinforcing and normalising behavior, however, and it assumes that only direct causal links merit regulatory attention.”)
4. Influencing light versus heavy engagers of harmful behavior to curb their habits through positive and negative ad imagery.
(PDF attached)
(“Heavy engagers in the harmful behavior seem to resist ads containing negative imagery and do not find them to be more credible or involving. Instead, they are more influenced to curb their harmful behaviors after seeing positive imagery containing characters and situations to which they can relate. On the other hand, light engagers of harmful behavior are more likely to be persuaded to limit their behaviors after exposure to advertising containing negative imagery.”)
5. Drug information-seeking intention and behavior after exposure to direct-to-consumer advertisement of prescription drugs.
(PDF attached)
( “…3,000 nationwide osteoarthritic patients… The consistent positive predictors of intention were attitude toward behavior, self-identity, attitude toward DTCAs of arthritis medication, and osteoarthritis pain; while the consistent positive predictors of behavior were intention and osteoarthritis pain.”)
6. Bidirectional Role of Accuracy and Recognition in Internet-Based Targeted AdvertisingCitation metadata(PDF attached)
7. The cigarette box as an advertising vehicle in the United Kingdom: A case for plain packaging.
(PDF attached)
(“It used to be that cigarettes were in advertisements, and that would provoke bad behavior because it was a familiar object, so they switched to only advertising the box of cigarettes. Although there was a drop in the amount of people who smoked, it was not necessarily due to the change in advertising. There is a campaign now to take the box’s branding out of the ads, too, as a way to not provoke smokers.”)
8. Living in the ‘land of no’? Consumer perceptions of healthy lifestyle portrayals in direct-to-consumer advertisements of prescription drugs.
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Living-in-the-%22land-of-no%22-Consumer-perceptions-of-Frosch-May/c6cc46f536129d5550de6202c24bc5bbb075d7f2
(“We found that participants interpreted advertising messages within their own life context and identified four trajectories for enacting behavior change versus taking prescription drugs: Negotiators, Avoiders, Embracers and Jumpstarters. Underlying these four typologies were beliefs about whether lifestyle change was something an individual could do or was willing to do. Our results also show how an advertisement narrative could potentially shift perceptions of causality by suggesting that high cholesterol is primarily hereditary, thereby obviating the need for lifestyle change.”)
