Advertising effectiveness from

a consumer perspective
Robert Aitken, Brendan Gray and Robert Lawson
University of Otago

Communication effectiveness research is moving away from investigations of advertis-

ing’s forms, content and the degree and type of consumer involvement, to a greater focus
on the process of reception and the social and cultural roles that advertising plays in soci-
ety and in individual lives. This shift in emphasis has been influenced by communica-
tion and media studies, which have prioritised the psychological, social and cultural
contexts within which consumers relate to commercial information and the roles that
advertising media play in their lives. The focus on the ‘receiver’ as the key actor in the
advertising communication process has also coincided with increasing interest in
consumer culture theory, brand communities and the new service dominant logic of
marketing. This paper provides a useful perspective from which to view contemporary
developments in advertising effectiveness research, and has important implications for
future studies.

Introduction
Conventional research into how advertising works and its effects on con-
sumers tended to focus on the importance of the advertising message
and/or the executional strategy, and moderated this with concepts such as
involvement, motivation and intentionality (Barry & Howard 1990; Brown
& Stayman 1992; Bloom et al. 1994). This suggested that consumers
actively process those advertisements that coincide with particular pur-
chase needs, and respond to brand, product or service information accord-
ing to the cognitive or affective appeals of the advertisement. However,
this type of research also tended to cast the audience (actual or potential
customers) as ‘receivers’ of commercial information, rather than as the
central actors in the communication process who co-create meaning and
relationships. More recent research into advertising effectiveness priori-
tises the dynamic nature of the relationships between audiences and the

International Journal of Advertising, 27(2), pp. 279–297

© 2008 Advertising Association
Published by the World Advertising Research Center, www.warc.com 279
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING, 2008, 27(2)

advertising information and imagery they choose to interact with (Ritson

& Elliot 1999; Hackley 2001; O’Donohoe 2001; Puntoni et al. 2004). This
shift in emphasis from the advertiser to the audience has coincided with
increasing interest in consumer culture theory (Hirschman & Thompson
1997; Arnould & Thompson 2005), brand communities (Muniz &
O’Guinn 2001; Andersen 2005) and the new service dominant logic of
marketing (Vargo & Lusch 2004). Communication and media studies have
also helped to cast more light on the role of the macro-media environment
and the ways in which audiences are conceptualised. This paper presents
an overview of key developments in reception and audience theory and
provides an integrative and comprehensive contextualisation for the study
of advertising effectiveness. The implications for future research are
important, particularly in light of the growing interest in the service dom-
inant logic, with its central tenet of the co-production of value (Ramirez
1999).

Advertising effectiveness
In addition to focusing on the centrality of the advertising message and the
significance of the executional strategy, earlier research into advertising
effectiveness suggested that there is a particular order in which consumers
respond to advertisements. The argument suggests that advertisements,
therefore, can be constructed to achieve particular responses according to
the nature of the communications and marketing objectives desired
(Vaughn 1980; Olney et al. 1991; Rossiter et al. 1991).
According to this sequential ordering of effects, if advertisements are to
be successful in influencing consumer behaviour, they must first lead con-
sumers through a series of reception stages. These stages, usually
described as cognitive, affective and conative, are essentially, and in some
cases, entirely, hierarchical in nature (MacInnis & Jaworski 1989; Barry &
Howard 1990).
This is an information-processing model that prioritises the message,
the executional strategy and the relevance to the consumer of the brands,
products or services featured in the advertisement. It assumes that if the
message is clear and it is delivered effectively it will be interpreted appro-
priately (Eagleton 1983; Scott 1994; Meyers-Levy & Malaviya 1999). The
role of consumers in this configuration is dependent on specific individual

280
 ADVERTISING EFFECTIVENESS FROM A CONSUMER PERSPECTIVE

needs and particular responses to the advertisement. It is a process that is

deliberate, conscious and, presumably, predictable.

Reader-response theory
However, the earlier theories of advertising effectiveness tended to ignore
the fact that that meaning has to be negotiated. A recent development has
been the emergence of meaning-based models of advertising (Mick &
Buhl 1992). In particular, research into reader-response theory questions
whether the meaning of an advertisement can be understood outside of
the interaction between that text (words and other images) and the indi-
vidual. It also suggests a movement away from the primacy accorded to
formal analysis of textual properties and elements and suggests instead an
integrated and holistic view of the interaction process (Scott 1994). This
provides the scope for a more comprehensive and consumer-centred
investigation of the communication process.
Reader-response research is, therefore, important in two major ways.
First, it places the reader at the centre of the communication process
rather than at the end as a receiver, and second, it stresses the interactive
nature of the communication process and fundamentally takes issue with
the notion that meaning can exist in an advertisement independent of the
viewer or the reader (Scott 1994; Elliot 1996; McQuarrie & Hackley 1998,
2001; Mick 1999; McGuire 2000). That is, the act of ‘reading’ and respond-
ing to an advertisement is not simply a process of decoding the clues to
discover the preferred meaning of the message but is an active engage-
ment with both the formal and the informal elements of the advertisement
and with the genre of advertising to produce a negotiated understanding
(Evans 1990; Morley 1992; Kover 1995; Roscoe et al. 1995).
This is a critical departure from the conventional and standard cognitive
paradigms that privilege rational, systematic and sequential patterns of
responses to advertising. More fundamentally, this view of consumers as
active participants in and arbiters of the communication process takes
issue with the prevailing insistence within behavioural psychology of the
primacy of classical conditioning as an explanatory framework for human
behaviour. Understanding, knowledge and behaviour, according to reader-
response theory, are the result of negotiations between the reader and the

281
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING, 2008, 27(2)

author, or consumer and producer. Responses are also conditioned by cul-

ture, context and experience.
This concept of negotiated meaning further emphasises the active and
interdependent nature of the response process. It also suggests that the
viewer has considerably more autonomy in determining the response to an
advertisement than is implied by conventional research. This reader-
response process is active and dynamic but potentially arbitrary.

Audience studies
It would be useful, therefore, to identify the crucial developments in audi-
ence research from the mass communication and media studies literature
that contributes to an understanding of how individuals respond to media
texts and to the role that the media play in society. The following sum-
mary presents an overview of these developments. However, it must be
recognised that while they are presented here as a chronological flow from
one research focus to another, this is more a helpful narrative to plot the
major theoretical developments rather than an accurate statement of the
actual conceptual trajectory of ideas.

The first phase – reception and resistance

The foundation of audience research or reception studies is Stuart Hall’s
(1974) work encoding and decoding television discourse (Alasuutari 1999).
This articulated the problems to be addressed in the reception paradigm
(Alasuutari 1999). Hall’s model, when compared to earlier transmission
communications models (e.g. Lasswell 1948; Shannon & Weaver 1949;
Gerbner 1956), is not radical. Like the earlier models, it approaches mass
communication as a predominantly linear and unidirectional process
whereby deliberate messages are sent and then received with, presum-
ably, certain effects. It does not situate the media within a socio-cultural
context, nor does it acknowledge that the media are significant contribu-
tors to communicated events beyond their role as transmission channels.
While recognising that each medium has its own particular characteris-
tics that allow it to perform differently, such as an emphasis on the imag-
ined world in radio in contrast to the literal world in the press, there was
little realisation that the different ways that reality had to be represented

282
 ADVERTISING EFFECTIVENESS FROM A CONSUMER PERSPECTIVE

in each medium also made a significant difference to the ways in which it

was interpreted. The specific institutional and professional practices that
determined how broadcast messages and images would be constructed
also prescribed how they would be received (Hartley 1982; Hood 1987;
Lemert 1989).
However, the reception paradigm that Hall promoted did involve a shift
from the transmission and transactional view of message comprehension,
typical of earlier models, to a constructivist and transformational one, char-
acteristic of later theories. A message was no longer understood as a dis-
crete parcel of meaning that could be packaged by a sender and
unpackaged and automatically understood by a receiver. Rather, a mes-
sage was a complex piece of communication that, while carrying a pre-
ferred meaning, had the potential to be understood in a number of
different ways by a number of different people. Further, the terms ‘encod-
ing’ and ‘decoding’, in the earlier models (Lasswell 1948; Shannon &
Weaver 1949; Gerbner 1956), suggest a literal transcribing of signs from
one form of communication to another. Understanding in this context is
conditional on recognising and applying the appropriate interpretation
code. Hall dismisses this deterministic view of communication and insists
that meaning is multi-layered and multi-referential. He emphasises, par-
ticularly in relation to the mass media, that the sent and received message
is not identical.
Hall does not dismiss the assumption that the message may have the
desired effect, such as to convince or persuade the receiver. However, the
semiotic framework he introduced challenged conventional behavioural
stimulus-response models and suggested instead an interpretive frame-
work where all effects are dependent not just on the form, content and
intention of the message but also on the particular social, cultural and
political milieu of the receiver.
Of further significance in the context of responding to media texts is the
implied assumption that the act of reception is an extremely active
process. Contrary to earlier research, and particularly that of Krugman
(1965), which suggested that reading print media was essentially an active
process and watching television was mainly passive, Hall’s work demon-
strated that any act of engagement with the media could be active.
This post-structuralist approach to reception studies, where the argu-
ments about effects become dependent upon people’s interpretations or

283
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING, 2008, 27(2)

thought processes and not on the accuracy or clarity of the message, intro-
duces a wider and more complex view of communication than was previ-
ously recognised. Hall’s work, and that of subsequent researchers, was also
concerned with the wider sociological and cultural aspects of the media
and the ways in which different interpretive communities functioned col-
lectively (see, for example, Gillespie 1995; Ang 1996 and Bennett 1996, in
media studies; and Ritson & Elliot 1999, O’Donohoe 2001 and Puntoni
et al. 2004, in marketing).
Hall (1974) also suggests that there are four ‘ideal-type’ positions from
which decoding of mass communication by the audience can be made
(Alasuutari 1999). The first is the ‘dominant code’ which describes the sit-
uation where the associative level of the message is decoded in terms of
the intended meanings as ascribed to the message by its producer or
sender (Alasuutari 1999).
The second ideal type is the ‘professional code’ that broadcasters
employ when ‘transmitting a message which has already been signified in
a hegemonic manner’ (Alasuutari 1999, p. 4). That is, the message has
gone through a number of constructions in accordance with institutional
principles and practices so that its meaning is already partially limited and
heavily embedded and is recognised as such by an informed and ‘expert’
audience.
The ‘negotiated code’ is the third ideal type and is used to describe a
reception environment that contains a mixture of adaptive and opposi-
tional elements (Alasuutari 1999). In this situation, the receivers recognise
and concur with major elements of the message but do not necessarily
subscribe to its preferred meaning.
Finally, the ‘oppositional code’ is reserved for the position where a
viewer clearly understands both the literal and associative inflection given
to the communicated event but decodes the message ‘in a globally con-
trary way’ (Alasuutari 1999).
Hall’s encoding/decoding model provided the theoretical framework for
a new approach to understanding the reception process and prompted ‘a
series of empirical studies about the reception of television programmes
by different audiences’ (Alasuutari 1999). The first, and most significant of
these, was David Morley’s (1980) The Nationwide Audience. This study
brought together the notion of an ideologically-constructed text and its
preferred meanings, and different interpretive communities. By selecting

284
 ADVERTISING EFFECTIVENESS FROM A CONSUMER PERSPECTIVE

different groups of people and showing them a particular programme, in

this case Nationwide, the public affairs television programme, Morley was
able to demonstrate how the four ‘ideal’ codes discussed above could be
identified in viewers’ responses to the programme (Alasuutari 1999). In
demonstrating that decoding was not homogeneous, the study also high-
lighted the relationship between a socially constructed audience and an
ideologically constructed text.

The second phase – ideology and integration

A growing concern with issues of race and gender (Brunsdon 1981;
Buckingham 1987; Allor 1988; Bobo 1988) led to a shift in emphasis to
wider questions of ideology and identity politics. These studies, which
focused primarily on fictional programmes, particularly romantic serials,
concentrated on the politics of gender and race (Radway 1984; Fiske 1990)
and the discourses within which gender and race were situated. Increased
emphasis was also placed on the role of the medium itself, and the social
uses of television in the family (Lull 1980; Morley, 1986) and in society in
general (Silverstone 1991; Silverstone et al. 1991).
Most significant in this development, however, was the move away from
looking at how ‘interpretive communities’ respond to individual pro-
grammes and instead to looking at the role of the media in everyday life
and relating individual programmes to this. In this way a wider context for
understanding the significance of the media in general and individual pro-
grammes in particular could be established. Prioritising the experience of
different media cultures for different social groups provided an ethno-
graphic perspective to the study of audience reception (Jensen 1990).
This integration of television viewing with cultural experience enabled
researchers to make more informed comment about the role that the
media played in everyday life and the extent to which individual pro-
grammes contributed to particular ideologies (Gray 1992; Hermes 1995).

The third phase – reflection and reconstruction

A different agenda for the study of audience reception, and one which is
still developing, questioned the premises of audience ethnography and
emphasised that the notion of the audience itself is problematic

285
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING, 2008, 27(2)

(Alasuutari 1999; Morley 1999). Notwithstanding growing concerns with

ethnographic research itself, and in particular issues such as what exactly
constitutes ‘field’ studies (Gupta & Ferguson 1997), a number of
researchers have suggested that the audience is itself a discursive con-
struct that is a reflection of particular institutional or ideological percep-
tions or a particular analytical gaze (Allor 1988; Grossberg 1988; Radway
1984). As Grossberg (1988) suggests, ‘Media audiences are shifting con-
stellations, located within varying multiple discourses which are never
entirely outside of the media discourse themselves’ (1988, p. 386). Such an
interrelated and unbounded conception of audiences suggests that any
attempt to study their characteristics or behaviour outside of the discourse
of which they are an integral part is at best only partial and at worst inap-
propriate. Radway (1988), for example, insisted that the point of departure
for the study of the media and its effects on society should be the every-
day lives of ordinary people.
The third phase of reception studies thus entails a broadened frame of
reference that not only encompasses individual media texts and their
reception by particular social groups but also includes more macro issues
inherent in media representations of social and political discourse.
Rather than limiting study to the isolated reception or ‘reading’ of a pro-
gramme by a particular audience or by analysing the responses of different
interpretive communities, the objectives of this third phase of reception
studies are to understand contemporary media culture, locate it within the
everyday lives of its audience and to identify and examine the discourses
within which it is discussed. This final element of reflexivity, and in par-
ticular addressing the audience’s notions of themselves as audiences, pro-
vides a much more integrative and complex view of media effects and
audience reception than either of the earlier streams of research.

Uses and gratifications

The developments in audience research discussed above demonstrate a
growing awareness of the complexities of the reception process and the
different relationships that can exist between advertisements and con-
sumers. An approach to understanding how and why consumers respond
to advertisements in different ways is provided by the concept of uses and
gratifications. Much of the history of advertising effectiveness has focused

286
 ADVERTISING EFFECTIVENESS FROM A CONSUMER PERSPECTIVE

on what advertisements do to consumers. This has ranged from simple

measures of awareness and recall to more complicated notions of persua-
sion and attitude change. At its most extreme the ‘hypodermic needle’
was used as a metaphor to symbolise the power that the media exercised
over a passive and malleable audience (Halloran 1977; McQuail &
Windahl 1981).
Differences between media output and media consumption were for-
merly explained in terms of simple classifications of content, levels of
product involvement and social demographics (Elliot 1974). The incon-
clusivity of these approaches led to the proposition that there are a num-
ber of intervening variables that may affect responses, including social
class, education and income (Abrams 1968; McQuail 1969).
However, recent research suggests a more active and dynamic audience
relationship (O’Donohoe 1994; Lacey 2000), with media content being
used for gratification or need fulfilment (Rubin 1994). Different motives
for media use lead to selective exposure to specific media and content, in
addition to selective attention to different parts of the message. Also, dif-
ferent reasons for using mass media influence how involved, or unin-
volved, consumers are with the content. The motives for media use thus
condition media impact.
Reasons that lead to greater attention to and involvement with the con-
tent, such as identification with particular characters, generally facilitate
effects while reasons that lead to less attention to content, such as passing
time, may inhibit effects (Webster 1998). This suggests that much greater
emphasis should be placed on the relationship between the consumer and
the advertisement than, as in conventional approaches to involvement, on
the relevance of the product. It also avoids the earlier deterministic
assumptions about the media in general and advertising in particular.
Unlike earlier transmission models of communication, the uses and
gratifications approach sees the consumer as a manipulator of the commu-
nication process to meet individual and social needs. While this is not as
extreme as Hall’s (1974) oppositional reader described earlier, it does sug-
gest a similar level of autonomy. According to Katz et al. (1973), these
media needs may be cognitive, affective or both and the underlying logic
of investigations into media uses and gratifications are concerned with:
• the social and psychological origins of needs;

287
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING, 2008, 27(2)

• the expectations that are generated from these needs;

• the differential patterns and experiences of media exposure; and
• the resulting consequences.
The audience is considered to be active and goal driven, linking need
gratification with media choice in individual and social contexts. It also
suggests that the media compete with different forms and sources of need
satisfaction to provide such gratifications as entertainment and informa-
tion. McQuail (1984) believed that it was also necessary to consider the
motives for satisfying needs and the functional alternatives for their
fulfilment.
A more comprehensive view of this process of gratification is provided
by Rosengren et al. (1985) who make specific reference to the satisfaction
of different types of need. Referring to Maslow’s (1948) hierarchy of
needs, Rosengren et al. (1985) claimed that uses and gratifications models
are most relevant when dealing with higher-order needs such as accept-
ance, love, company and self-actualisation. An extensive framework for
assessing the social uses of the mass media has been provided by Lull
(1990). According to this conceptualisation, social needs may be structural
or relational (O’Donohoe 1994). In other words, the media can provide
company, distractions, background noise, and entertainment or provide
the opportunities for social interaction and self-actualisation.
In a more specific study exploring the reasons for consuming advertis-
ing Crosier (1983) identifies seven different kinds of satisfaction. These
include product information, entertainment, implied warranty, value addi-
tion, post-purchase reassurance, vicarious experience and involvement. In
contrast to the conventional approaches to the concept of involvement and
its focus on the relationship between the consumer and the advertised
product or brand, involvement in this context is related to the intellectual
pleasure derived from participating in and the anticipation of narrative,
message or executional ambiguity (O’Donohoe 1994). This form of
engagement with an advertisement is further reinforced by the work of
Alwitt and Prabhaker (1994) who suggest that consumers’ attitudes to
advertising are related to the functions that it serves for them.
Building on the work of Katz (1960), and incorporating the principles of
a uses and gratifications approach to understanding advertising effects,
these authors identified four key functions in their attitude model (Alwitt
& Prabhaker 1994). These are hedonic, knowledge, social learning and

288
 ADVERTISING EFFECTIVENESS FROM A CONSUMER PERSPECTIVE

value affirmation. Anderson and Meyer (1988) provide some important

insights into the social nature of media use. They suggest that the media
are embedded into social experience and are a natural part of the social
environment. As such they are an important component of how individu-
als make sense of their environment and make sense of everyday life
(O’Donohoe 1994; Ritson & Elliot 1995).
Willis (1990) found evidence to suggest that young people incorporated
advertising into their daily lives and were adept at deconstructing, manip-
ulating and representing advertising messages and executional elements
in everyday discourse. He also argued that young people enjoyed this
transformational process and consumed advertisements independently of
the advertised product (O’Donohoe 1994).
The most explicit examination of this relationship between advertising
and appropriation is provided by Ritson and Elliot (1999). Focusing on the
interaction between advertising and social interaction, the authors identify
a series of new, socially related advertising behaviours. These behaviours
show that advertising is used in a wide and complex variety of ways that
have little to do with the advertised product (Ritson & Elliot 1999). The
way that consumers use advertising includes stimulus for interpersonal
communication, shared oppositional meanings, the formation of interpre-
tive communities and ritualised interaction (Ritson & Elliot 1999).
Similarly, Lacey suggests (2000) that audiences use the media to provide
personal identity, information, entertainment, and social interaction.

Summary of audience research

The review of audience studies suggests the research can be categorised
as a three-phase phenomenon. Phase one was characterised by a model of
‘reading’ individual advertisements that derived from linguistics and semi-
otics and which prioritised the reception of media in relation to member-
ship of particular interpretive communities. This was supplemented in the
second phase of audience research by a politicisation of audience recep-
tion, an investigation of the everyday consumption of the media and a
wider interest in the cultural place of the media in the contemporary
world.
The final, emergent phase of reception studies places individual and
collective responses to advertising in a much broader and reflective social

289
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING, 2008, 27(2)

and cultural context, and suggests that conventional notions of the audi-
ence need to be reconsidered. Further, the uses and gratifications
approach to the study of media effects suggests that audiences should
be examined more closely to identify the constructs they use to
structure meaning and condition their experiences of engaging with
advertisements.

Advertising effectiveness in the context of the service

dominant logic
The above review suggests that communication effectiveness research is
moving away from investigations of advertising’s forms, content and the
degree and type of consumer involvement, to a greater focus on the
process of reception and the social and cultural roles that advertising plays
in society and in individuals’ lives. This shift is exemplified by communi-
cation and media researchers who have prioritised the psychological, social
and cultural contexts within which consumers relate to commercial infor-
mation and the roles that advertising media play in their lives (e.g.
Hirschman and Thompson 1997). The focus on the ‘receiver’ as the key
actor in the advertising communication process has coincided with increas-
ing interest in consumer culture theory, brand communities and the
emerging service dominant logic of marketing.
While consumer culture theory focuses on the empowerment of con-
sumers (Arnould & Thompson 2005), the brand communities literature
contextualises this by exploring how groups of empowered viewers and/or
consumers can generate word of mouth (e.g. Muniz & O’Guinn 2001;
Andersen 2005) that may have positive or negative impacts on advertising
effectiveness. The service dominant logic (Vargo & Lusch 2004), on the
other hand, suggests even greater levels of interaction between consumers
and producers. This theory implies that the tangible and/or psycho-social
value derived from advertising will be co-produced (Ramirez 1999) and/or
co-created (Ballantyne & Aitken 2007) by both the advertiser and the
audience. Further, the ultimate judgement of value relates to value-in-use
(i.e. the value inherent in the experience of co-producing or co-creating
advertising meaning, brand identification and/or entertainment).
The service dominant logic (Vargo & Lusch 2004) challenges the goods-
centred view of traditional marketing and instead focuses on customer

290
 ADVERTISING EFFECTIVENESS FROM A CONSUMER PERSPECTIVE

experience as the essential arbiter of value-in-use. This is achieved

through a dynamic process of co-creation between firms and customers
and other co-actors. The move from a product and production centred
model of marketing to one where value is co-created in use offers chal-
lenges to conventional notions of relationship marketing, brand manage-
ment and brand advertising.
One of the traditional roles of advertising has been to build strong brand
images and to encourage the development of supportive brand communi-
ties. Brand communities share rituals and behaviours, and a sense of moral
responsibility between members that relates to shared brand values
(Muniz & O’Guinn 2001; Andersen 2005). Although the service-dominant
logic acknowledges that marketers may instigate the brand advertising
process, customers are likely to play with symbols and messages and form
mental pictures that may be quite different from those that were originally
intended (Arnold 1992; Kapferer 1992; Keller 1993). If a brand can be con-
sidered ‘a collection of perceptions in the mind of the consumer’ (Garrity
2001, p.121), then the specific ways in which consumers respond to adver-
tisements need to be addressed. There are two major dimensions to this.
The first of these dimensions, reception theory, is concerned with the
ways in which consumers respond to and make sense of any communi-
cated event. According to reception and reader-response theory meaning
is negotiated rather than given and consumers are as important in defining
the meaning of a communication as those who communicate it. Analysing
how particular individuals make sense of and respond to advertisements is
a critical precursor to understanding the effects the advertisements might
have.
The second dimension is concerned with the ways that consumers use
advertisements for their own purposes. Although marginalised by the
move from a psychological focus on individual responses to the media to a
more sociological perspective, the uses and gratifications research places
the consumer at the centre of the viewing experience and emphasises
both individual autonomy and social integration. This combination of the
individual with his/her social context provides a more comprehensive and
integrative approach to understanding the effects of advertising and intro-
duces the theoretical proposition that to fully understand the effects of
advertising researchers need to know not just what advertising does to
consumers, but, more importantly, what consumers do with advertising.

291
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING, 2008, 27(2)

Conclusions
From the previous discussion it is clear that consumers’ interaction with
advertising is a complex, active and dynamic process that cannot be ade-
quately explained or understood using conventional advertising effects
theories. Rather, a reader-response approach is recommended, where con-
sumers’ experiences are analysed at the point of engagement with adver-
tising. Further, the service-dominant logic of marketing (Vargo & Lusch
2004) suggests that traditional firm, product or brand-oriented measures of
advertising effectiveness are inadequate in capturing the degree to which
audiences derive value from the experience of co-producing or co-creating
meaning, brand identification and/or entertainment. This suggests that
future research is needed to assess how advertising effectiveness can be
measured in terms of the pleasure or fulfilment that audiences or con-
sumers derive from their interaction with advertising.
An examination of the role that the media in general and advertise-
ments in particular play in the everyday lives of ordinary people should be
part of the research context. Given the shift from a transactional and
essentially managerial view of advertisements to a consumer-centric and
socially-constructed view as outlined above, it is important for marketers
to reconsider what constitutes an ‘audience’ or ‘consumer’ of advertising,
and in turn to question conventional approaches to understanding adver-
tising effectiveness.
As previously discussed, there has already been a shift in emphasis from
investigations of advertising’s forms, content and the degree of consumer
involvement to a greater focus on the process of reception and the social
and cultural roles that advertising plays in people’s lives. This shift has
been influenced by advances in communication and media studies which
have prioritised the psychological, social and cultural contexts within
which consumers interact with advertising. The focus on the ‘receiver’ as
the key actor in the advertising communication process has also coincided
with increasing interest in consumer culture theory, brand communities
and the new service dominant logic of marketing. Future research is
needed, then, to build on these developments in order to create a richer
understanding of advertising effectiveness from a consumer perspective.
The results will have important implications for advertising practice, as
well as advertising effectiveness theory, and will help to advance calls for

292
 ADVERTISING EFFECTIVENESS FROM A CONSUMER PERSPECTIVE

a more consumer-centric view of marketing management and value

creation.

References
Abrams, P. (1968) The Origins of British Sociology: 1834–1914. Chicago, IL: University
of Chicago Press.
Alasuutari, P. (1999) Rethinking the Media Audience: the New Agenda. London and
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Allor, M. (1988) Relocating the site of the audience. Critical Studies in Mass
Communication, 5(3), pp. 217–233.
Alwitt, L.F. & Prabhaker, P.R. (1994) Identifying who dislikes television
advertising: not by demographics alone. Journal of Advertising Research, 34(6)
(November/December), pp. 17–29.
Andersen, P.H. (2005) Relationship marketing and brand involvement of professionals
through web-enhanced brand communities: the case of Coloplast. Industrial
Marketing Management, 34, pp. 39–51.
Anderson, J.A. & Meyer, T.P. (1988) Mediated Communication: A Social Action
Perspective. Beverley Hills, CA.: Sage.
Ang, I. (1996) Living Room Wars: Rethinking Media Audiences for a Postmodern World.
London: Routledge.
Arnold, D. (1992) The Handbook of Brand Management. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Arnould, E.J. & Thompson, C.J. (2005) Consumer culture theory (CCT): twenty
years of research. Journal of Consumer Research, 31(4), pp. 868–882.
Ballantyne, D. & Aitken, R. (2007) Branding in B2B markets: insights from the
service-dominant logic of marketing. Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing,
22(6), pp. 363–371.
Barry, T.E. & Howard, D.J. (1990) A review and critique of the hierarchy of effects in
advertising. International Journal of Advertising, 9(2), pp. 121–135.
Bennett, T. (1996) Figuring audiences and readers, in Hay, J., Grossberg, L. &
Wartella, E. (eds) The Audience and its Landscape. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Bloom, P.N., Edell, J. & Staelin, R. (1994) The impact of feelings on ad-based affect
and cognition. Journal of Marketing Research, 26 (February), pp. 69–83.
Bobo, J. (1988) The Color Purple: Black Women as Cultural Readers. London: Verso.
Brown, S.P. & Stayman, D.M. (1992) Antecedents and consequences of attitude
toward the ad: a meta-analysis. Journal of Consumer Research, 19 (June), pp. 34–51.
Brunsdon, C. (1981) Crossroads: notes on a soap opera. Screen, 22(4), pp. 52–57.
Buckingham, D. (1987) Public Secrets: EastEnders and its Audience. London: British
Film Institute.
Crosier, K. (1983) Towards a praxiology of advertising. International Journal of
Advertising, 2(3), pp. 215–232.
Eagleton, T. (1983) Literary Theory: An Introduction. Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press.

293
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING, 2008, 27(2)

Elliot, P. (1974) Media organisations and occupations: an overview, in Curran, J.,

Gurevitch, M. & Woollacott, J. (eds) Culture, Society and the Media. London:
Routledge.
Elliot, R. (1996) Discourse analysis: exploring action, function and conflict in social
texts. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 14(6), pp. 65–68.
Evans, W. (1990) The interpretive turn in media research; innovation, iteration or
illusion? Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 7(2), pp. 147–168.
Fiske, J. (1990) Ethnosemiotics: some personal and theoretical reflections. Cultural
Studies, 4(1), pp. 85–99.
Garrity, J. (2001) Corporate branding and advertising, in Kitchen, P.K. & Schultz,
D.E. (eds) Raising the Corporate Umbrella: Corporate Communications in the
21st Century. New York: Palgrave.
Gerbner, G. (1956) Toward a general model of communication. Audio-Visual
Communication Review, 4 (Summer), pp. 171–199.
Gillespie, M. (1995) Television, Ethnicity and Cultural Change. London: Routledge.
Gray, A. (1992) Video Playtime: The Gendering of a Leisure Technology. London:
Routledge.
Grossberg, L. (1988) Wandering audiences, nomadic critics. Cultural Studies, 2(3),
pp. 377–392.
Gupta, A. & Ferguson, J. (1997) Anthropological Locations: Boundaries and Grounds of a
Field Science. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Hackley, C.E. (1998) Social constructionism and research in marketing and
advertising. Qualitative Market Research: an International Journal, 1(3), pp. 125–131.
Hackley, C.E. (2001) Looking at me, looking at you: qualitative research and the
politics of knowledge representations in advertising. Qualitative Market Research,
4(1), pp. 42–53.
Hall, S. (1974) Encoding and decoding in the television discourse. Stencilled paper,
Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, pp. 128–138.
Halloran, J.D. (1977) Mass media effects: a sociological approach. Unit 7, Open
University: DE 353. Mass Communication and Society. Milton Keynes: Open
University.
Hartley, J. (1982) Understanding News. London: Methuen.
Hermes, J. (1995) Reading Women’s Magazines: An Analysis of Everyday Media Use.
Cambridge: Polity Press.
Hirschman, E.C. & Thompson, C.J. (1997) Why media matter: towards a richer
understanding of consumers’ relationships with advertising and mass media.
Journal of Advertising, 26 (Spring), pp. 43–60.
Hood, S. (1987) On Television. London: Pluto Press.
Jensen, K.B. (1990) Television futures. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 7(2),
pp. 1–18.
Kapferer, J.N. (1992) Strategic Brand Management. New York: The Free Press.
Katz, D. (1960) The functional approach to the study of attitudes. Public Opinion
Quarterly, 24(2), pp. 163–204.
Katz, E., Gurevitch, M. & Haas, H. (1973) On the uses of the mass media for
important things. American Sociological Review, 38, pp. 164–181.
Keller, K.L. (1993) Conceptualizing, measuring and managing customer-based brand
equity. Journal of Marketing, 57(1) (January), pp. 1–22.

294
 ADVERTISING EFFECTIVENESS FROM A CONSUMER PERSPECTIVE

Kover, A.J. (1995) Copywriters’ implicit theories of communication: an exploration.

Journal of Consumer Research, 21(4), pp. 596–611.
Krugman, H.E. (1965) The impact of television advertising: learning without
involvement. Public Opinion Quarterly, 29 (Fall), pp. 349–356.
Lacey, N. (2000) Narrative and Genre: Key Concepts in Media Studies. Houndmills:
Macmillan.
Lasswell, H.D. (1948) The structure and function of communication in society, in
Bryson, L. (ed.) The Communication of Ideas. New York: Harper and Brothers.
Lemert, J.B. (1989) Criticising the Media: Empirical Approaches. Newbury Park, CA:
Sage.
Lull, J. (1980) Family communication patterns and the social uses of television.
Communication Research, 7(3), pp. 319–334.
Lull, J. (1990) Inside Family Viewing: Ethnographic Research on Television’s Audiences.
London: Routledge.
MacInnis, D., Moorman, C. & Jaworski, B.J. (1991) Enhancing and measuring
consumers’ motivation, opportunity, and ability to process brand information from
ads. Journal of Marketing, 55 (October), pp. 32–51.
Maslow, A.H. (1948) Higher and lower needs. Journal of Psychology, 25, pp. 433–436.
McGuire, W.J. (2000) Standing on the shoulders of ancients: consumer research,
persuasion, and figurative language. Journal of Consumer Research, 27(1),
pp. 109–114.
McQuail, D. (1969) Uncertainty about the audience and the organisation of mass
communication, in Halmos, P. (ed.) The Sociology of Mass Media Communicators:
The Sociology Review Monograph No. 13, January. Keele: University of Keele.
McQuail, D. (1984) With the benefit of hindsight: reflections on uses and
gratifications research. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 1(2), pp. 177–193.
McQuail, D. & Windahl, S. (1981) Communication Models for the Study of Mass
Communication. New York and London: Longman.
McQuarrie, E.F. & Mick, D.G. (1999) Visual rhetoric in advertising: text interpretive,
experimental, and reader-response analyses. Journal of Consumer Research, 26(1),
pp. 579–587.
Meyers-Levy, J. & Malaviya, P. (1999) Consumers’ processing of persuasive
advertisements: an integrative framework of persuasion theories. Journal of
Marketing, 63, pp. 45–60.
Mick, D.G. & Buhl, C. (1992) A meaning-based model of advertising experiences.
Journal of Consumer Research, 19 (December), pp. 317–338.
Morley, D. (1980) The Nationwide Audience. London: British Film Institute.
Morley, D. (1986) Family Television: Cultural Power and Domestic Leisure. London:
Comedia.
Morley, D. (1992) Television, Audiences and Cultural Studies. London: Routledge.
Morley, D. (1999) ‘To boldy go’ … the ‘third generation’ of reception studies, in
Alasuntari, P. (ed.) Rethinking the Media Audience. London: Sage, pp. 195–207.
Muniz, A.M. Jnr. & O’Guinn, T.C. (2001) Brand communities. Journal of Consumer
Research, 27(4), March, pp. 412–432.
O’Donohoe, S. (1994) Advertising uses and gratifications. European Journal of
Marketing, 28(8/9), pp. 52–75.

295
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING, 2008, 27(2)

O’Donohoe, S. (2001) Living with ambivalence: attitudes to advertising in

postmodern times. Marketing Theory Articles, 1(1), pp. 91–108.
Olney, T.J., Batra, R. & Holbrook, M.B. (1991) Consumer responses to advertising:
the effects of ad content, emotions, and attitude toward the ad on viewing time.
Journal of Consumer Research, 17(4), pp. 440–453.
Puntoni, S., Ritson, M. & Nguyen, L. (2004) The multiple meaning of a TV ad,
retrieved 09/03/2004 from the world wide web: http://www.google.co.nz/
search?q=carch:4dRn3F9KaYYJ:www.hhs.se/NR/rdonlyres/eczgbcsmuce
Radway, J. (1984) Reading the Romance. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press.
Ramirez, R. (1999) Value co-production: intellectual origins and implications for
practice and research. Strategic Management Journal, 20(1), pp. 49–65.
Ritson, M. & Elliot, R. (1995) A model of advertising literacy: the praxiology and
co-creation of advertising meaning, in Bergadaa, M. (ed.) Proceedings of Twenty-
Fourth European Marketing Academy Conference, Paris, pp. 1035–1044.
Ritson, M. & Elliot, R. (1999) The social uses of advertising: an ethnographic study
of adolescent advertising audiences. Journal of Consumer Research, 26(3),
pp. 260–277.
Roscoe, J., Marshall, H. & Gleeson, K. (1995) The television audience: a
reconsideration of the taken-for-granted terms, ‘active’ and ‘social’. European
Journal of Communication, 10(1), pp. 87–108.
Rosengren, K.E., Palmgreen, P. & Wenner, L. (1985) Media Gratification Research:
Current Perspectives. London: Sage.
Rossiter, J.R, Percy, L. & Donovan, R.J. (1991) A better advertising planning grid.
Journal of Advertising Research, 31(5), pp. 11–21.
Rubin, A. (1994) Media effects: a uses and gratifications perspective, in Bryant, J. &
Zillman, D. (eds) Perspectives on Media Effects. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum,
pp. 417–436.
Scott, L.M. (1994) Images in advertising: the need for a theory of visual rhetoric.
Journal of Consumer Research, 21(2), pp. 252–270.
Shannon, C. & Weaver, W. (1949) The Mathematical Theory of Communication. Urbana:
University of Illinois Press.
Silverstone, R. (1991) From audiences to consumers. European Journal of
Communication, 6(2), pp. 135–154.
Silverstone, R, Hirsch, E. & Morley, D. (1991) Listening to a long conversation: an
ethnographic approach to the study of information and communication
technologies in the home. Cultural Studies, 5(2), pp. 204–227.
Vaughn, R. (1980) How advertising works: a planning model. Journal of Advertising,
20(5), pp. 27–33.
Webster, J.G. (1998) The audience. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 42(2),
pp. 190–207.
Willis, P. (1990) Common Culture. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.

296
 ADVERTISING EFFECTIVENESS FROM A CONSUMER PERSPECTIVE

About the authors

Robert Aitken is a lecturer in the Department of Marketing at the
University of Otago. Previously lecturing in Media and Cultural studies in
the UK, Robert’s current research is focused on advertising and its effects
on consumers. Other areas of research interest include children’s con-
sumption, branding, cultural identity, ideology, audience theory, symbolic
consumption, popular culture, not-for-profit business, relationship mar-
keting, social marketing and business ethics. Robert is on the Education
Committee of the American Academy of Advertising and was lead editor
for the recent Journal of Marketing Theory Special Issue on The Service
Dominant Logic of Marketing.
Brendan Gray holds the Dunedin City Chair in Entrepreneurship at the
University of Otago. His major research areas are marketing strategy, mar-
keting communications and service firm competitiveness.
Robert Lawson is a Professor of Marketing at the University of Otago.
His major research interests are consumer behaviour, ethical consumption,
marketing communications and marketing theory. He leads a major
research programme which regularly assesses the lifestyle segments of
New Zealand consumers.
Address correspondence to: Dr Robert Aitken, Lecturer, Department of
Marketing, School of Business, University of Otago, Dunedin, New
Zealand
Email: raitken@business.otago.ac.nz

297