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Title: Attitudes toward advertising in general and the attitude toward the ad in the European context Christian Dianoux, (CEREFIGE - University of Paul Verlaine-Metz IUT, Ile du Saulcy, 57045 METZ, France), Zdenek Linhart, (Czech University of Life Sciences, Prague, Faculty of Economics and Management) Galjina Ognjanov (Faculty of Economics - University of Belgrade) Abstract Purpose – Mehta (2000) clearly shows “that individual attitudinal factors related to advertising in general do influence how a respondent reacts to any particular advertisement”. In an international context, this question becomes more acute because of the many more or less important differences in terms of attitudes towards advertising between various countries. Therefore the main purpose of this paper is two-fold: to compare the attitudes towards advertising in general between four European countries and to analyze the relationship between attitudes toward advertising in general and the attitude towards a particular ad. Design/methodology/approach – The European countries covered by the scope of our research are the two Countries of Eastern Europe (Czech Republic and Serbia) and two countries of Western Europe (France and Spain) due to their quite different economic and cultural backgrounds. We have interviewed 456 students about their attitudes toward advertising in general (Mehta’s, Durvasula’s and Muehling’s scales) and their attitudes toward an ad for a mobile phone. Findings – Firstly, there are systematically significant differences between the four countries whatever the type of dimension which is measured: overall attitude, attitude-instrument, attitude-institution or beliefs. Secondly, we can advance that attitudes toward advertising in general are more positive in less developed market economies, although the results are weaker. Finally, we can observed that, whatever the country, we have a positive significant correlation between AG and Aad and RA ?????? which is (to explain with the last statistics). Research limitations/implications – The reliability of the research sample is maintained by random removal of some respondents in each cell to have a good balance. Each country and each group of respondents was randomly balanced in this way. Balanced cells enabled us to use all the data and compensate lacking respondents. Practical implications – Firms have to be cautious when applying standard advertising campaigns in different European countries because the link between the attitude toward advertising in general and the attitude towards specific ad differ even if they have positive correlation, although we had a very homogeneous sample (young students). Originality/value – Sets of questions show how consumer’s respect towards “institutions” can be decreased or increased by found attitudes towards “instrument”. Less respect and more changing attitudes were found in New European countries in oppose to old EU countries. Keywords: Attitude toward advertising, Attitude toward advertising in general, Serbia, Czech Republic, France, Spain. The study presented in this paper aims at comparing the attitudes towards advertising in general between four European countries (two old capitalist countries and two new capitalist countries) while at the same time analysing the relationship between attitudes toward advertising in general and the attitude towards a particular ad. The paper starts with the theoretical background aiming at better understanding the constructs of attitude toward advertising in general and attitude toward the ad as well as their relationship. The international context of the research is presented and research hypotheses developed according to the relevant theoretical background and empirical evidence. The second part of the paper brings to light the methodology used and our research findings followed by the discussion, conclusions and implications for managers. We conclude that it exists a lot of significant differences between countries in terms of attitude toward the advertising in general, and it is undoubtedly important to take in count when a firm want to launch an international campaign. Background and short references to pertinent previous articles [Note of publisher: Specifically omit endless strings of quotations by other authors, especially if the ideas are currently well accepted. This is particularly true of citations in the literature that are five or more years old. If previous material is pertinent, please paraphrase it and eliminate endnotes and authors. Citations should be used only for significant and timely contributions. Also, standard textbooks should not be used as references.] Attitude toward an ad (Aad) is seen as an important theoretical construct, essentially since 1981 with the publication of the two influential articles in the field: Shimp (1981), and Mitchel and Olson (1981). After these seminal articles, many other studies were particularly dedicated to show the effects of attitude toward an ad on consumers brand attitudes, brand choice and purchase intentions (eg. Gardner, 1985; MacKenzie, Lutz, and Belch, 1986; McKenzie and Lutz, 1989). On the other hand, a number of studies showed that the attitude toward an ad had, among other important factor (notably ad credibility, attitudes toward the advertiser, mood), been influenced by the consumer attitudes toward advertising in general -AG- (eg. Muehling, 1987; Mehta, 2000). Paradoxically, “the influence of general advertising attitudes directly on advertising effectiveness has hardly been studied” (Mehta 2000, p.68), and specifically in cross-national studies. Indeed, about the questions of standardization or adaptation of the ads, we have to question if the AG is not an important variable to take in account when an advertiser has to start an international campaign. Because there are a lot of reasons that the AG differs significantly between countries (Durvasula, Andrews, Lysonski, Netemeyer, 1999), we can advance that this relationship influence the Aad and finally the influence of the ads. Attitude toward advertising in general (AG) The attitude toward advertising in general (AG) as an important construct in advertising research has been thoroughly studied in marketing ever since the mid of last century. Firstly, it has been considered a multidimensional construct incorporating both economic and social aspects of advertising (Anderson, Engledow and Becker, 1978). Then Sandage and Leckenby (1980) differentiated advertising as an institution from advertising as an instrument. Linking his study to the previous research, Muehling (1987) empirically showed that attitudes toward advertising in general are made up of two dimensions: institution dimension (its purpose and its effect), and instrument dimension (executional qualities and shortcomings). Attitude toward an Ad (Aad) In their extensive overview of the literature on Aad, Percy and Rossiter (1992) explain two prevailing conceptualizations of the constructs based on two different streams of research viewing Aad as unidimensional and Aad as multidimensional construct. Aad as unidimensional construct assumes exclusively an affective component and is derived from the following definition: a predisposition to respond in a favourable or unfavourable manner to a particular advertising stimulus during a particular exposure occasion (MacKenzie, Lutz and Belch, 1986, p.130). On the other hand, the other view of Aad as a multidimensional construct assumes that it is consisted of both emotional (positive and negative feelings including which is different from their overall liking/disliking, i.e. affective reaction) as well as cognitive dimension (i.e. consumer conscious reactions to particular advertisements and its execution elements). Classifying the research studies in three broader categories Muehling and McCann (1993) have also raised the question of further conceptualization of the Aad construct which should lead to a better understanding of relations between their antecedents, dimensions, moderators and consequences. Among them AG has been largely accepted in literature as an antecedent of Aad. The relationship between AG and Aad In their structural model of cognitive and affective antecedents of Aad, MacKenzie and Lutz (1989) proposed attitude toward advertising in general (abbreviated as Atts in their interpretation) being an important factor to influence attitude toward an advertisement together with several other factors (ad credibility, ad perceptions, attitude toward advertiser and mood). Moreover, the two authors analyzed four ad exposure situations (i.e. pure affect transfer, message based persuasion, contextual evaluation transfer and dual mode persuasion) dependant on the levels of both ad message and ad execution involvement in all of which AG were viewed as an important construct explaining ad-based persuasion mechanisms. Though the theory has been vastly accepted by many researchers in the field, specific research on the relationship between the two constructs is rare. Mehta (2000) names only a few studies dedicated to the research on the effects of AG on recalls of advertisements (Donthu, Cherian and Bhargava, 1993), and how AG influenced consumer involvement in specific advertisements (James and Kover, 1992). His own research showed the influence of AG on the overall attention paid to print advertisements (measured as brand recall) as well as on as persuasiveness (measured as buying interest). AG in cross-national studies Literature review in the field has revealed a substantive interest in cross-national comparisons of AG. However, the studies mostly cover comparisons between US and other countries such are for example Russia (Andrews, Durvasula and Netemeyer, 1994), Denmark, New Zeland, Greece and India (Andrews, Lysonski, Durvasula, 1991; Durvasula, Andrews, Lysonski, Netemeyer, 1993). Apart from these, the other most important cross-cultural studies on attitudes toward advertising in general include comparisons between two Asian countries – Singapure vs. India (Durvasula, Lysonski, Mehta, 1999) and between two Eastern Europe countries in transition – Rumania vs. Bulgaria (Petrovici and Marinov, 2007). These studies are rather consistent in their findings regarding the differences appearing in attitudes toward advertising across different nations even if they are mostly based on homogenous samples derived from student populations. Moreover a study which covers general population (Petrovici and Marinov, 2007, p.247) strengthens this by showing variations in public opinion towards advertising between socio-cultural areas in Romania”, p. 247). Basic premise, major thoughts, problems or concept. With such a theoretical background, we have hypothesized that we should find significant differences in attitudes toward advertising in general between most of European countries and notably in the four countries covered by our research. Therefore, our H1 is stated as follows: H1: Attitudes toward advertising in general differ significantly between European countries In addition, a study revealing the differences in AG in US vs. Russia (Andrews, Durvasula and Netemeyer, 1994) has thought us that the AG may be more favorable in the countries with a shorter history of advertising practice and less developed advertising industry. Indeed, except attitude toward the institution which is much more favorable in US than in Russia, AG and beliefs toward the social issues are more favorable in Russia than in USA (there is not significant difference about attitude-instrument). Since our study aims at investigating whether the same may hold true if European market economies are compared with their less developed East European counterparts. With rather limited prior empirical evidence we have thus hypothesized that the same conclusion will persist among the more and less developed European countries, hence our second hypothesis: H2: In Europe, the attitudes toward advertising in general are more positive in less developed market economies of Eastern Europe than in more developed market economies. According to the literature AG is regarded among the most important factors influencing Aad (MacKenzie and Lutz, 1989). Further, several authors discussed the links between AG and Aad (Donthu, Cherian and Bhargava, 1993 and James and Kover, 1992, Mehta, 2000). Therefore, the second main goal of our study was to analyze the relationship between the constructs of AG and Aad in the cross-cultural context while providing empirical evidence for the existence of the link between positive AG and positive Aad. With the existing theoretical backdrop we predicted that regardless the countries overall cultural and economic heritage positive AG are linked to the positive Aad and vice versa. In consequence, our H3 predicted as follows: H3: Regardless the country, positive AG is followed by positive Aad with more positive AG leading to more positive Aad and vice versa. Discussion of the theory incorporating research. Our research is focused on the four European countries: the Czech Republic, France, Serbia and Spain. We found a comparison among them to be very interesting due to their quite different economic and cultural backgrounds. France and Spain are representing developed market economies of Western Europe, while the Czech Republic and Serbia are the countries in transition sharing similar economic and social values deeply rooted in all former socialist economies of the Eastern Europe. On the other hand, today France, Spain and the Czech Republic are all member of European Union while Serbia is considered still a developing market economy of the Western Balkans. Economically the countries differ very much with France being the biggest market with the population of 60.9 million and GDP per capita of 31,067 Euros1 while Serbia has been the smallest market both in terms of the population size (7.3 million) and GDP per capita of 4,578 Euros2. Spain with its population of 43.6 million and 24,083 GDP per capita is closer to France, while the Czech Republic with a population of 10.2 million and GDP per capita of 12,922 is more next to Serbia. According to total advertising spending per capita the Czech Republic (211 Euros) is leading before the other three, i.e. France (195 Euros), Serbia (28 Euros) and Spain (23 Euros)3. Besides economic, there are also deep cultural differences between the four countries. In terms of cultural dimensions developed by Hofstede, Spain and France were found to be individualistic cultures (Hofstede, Bond, 1988, p.12). On the other hand, the cultural values in Serbia are still based on collectivism, which is deeply rooted in orthodox Christianity. The global individualistic Hofstede (2005) scores are the following: Serbia (25), Spain (51), CR (60), and France (71). According to de Mooij (2000) the media structure of overall TV spending well mirrors the acquired cultural values, with individualistic cultures being more relying on newspapers and collectivist cultures on TV in their overall media consumption. The advertising data for the four countries covered by our survey well support this theory. In Serbia, the share of TV ad spending in 2008 was 59%, while print media accounted for 25%. The situation in other three countries was well different in 2008 with TV accounting at 45% in the Czech Republic, 45% in Spain and 35% in France. In the same year the share of print advertising spending was highest in France (36%), followed by the Czech Republic (34%), and Spain (30%). The sample Most cross-national studies are based on student samples due to their homogeneity which is acknowledged highly important by authors (Durvasula, Andrews, Lysonski, Netemeyer, 1993). Therefore, in our study we also use student samples consisting of 456 (undergraduate and graduate) business students at four universities in the countries covered by our research: the Czech Republic, France, Serbia and Spain. The questionnaire administration and the measures During a business course respondents from each country were asked firstly to answer some questions about their attitudes toward the advertisements in general. For measuring AG, we have used: -Muehling’s scale (1987) to measure the overall attitude toward advertising in general (advertising in general is good/bad, Unfavorable/favorable, negative/positive) with a seven-point semantic differential pairs; -Durvasula et al.’s scale (1993) to measure attitude institution (important/unimportant, worthless/valuable, unnecessary/necessary) and attitude instrument (dirty/clean, 1 GDP per capita for France, Spain and the Czech Republic (2008) were calculated based on Pocket World in Figures, 2010 Edition, The Economist, Profile Books, London. Data for Serbia were not available from the same source, 2 Calculated based on data (2008) available at Republican Statistical Office Serbia http://webrzs.stat.gov.rs/axd/drugastrana.php?Sifra=0001&izbor=odel&tab=30 (accessed September, 17th 2010) 3 Data for France, Spain and the Czech Republic (2008) were calculated based on Euromonitor International for World Association of Newspapers, while the data for Serbia (2008) were obtained from Strategic Marketing at Beta Press, http://80.93.235.24/?tip=static&kategorija=industrija&ida=2355639&id=KVXX0003&ime=Prixtina dishonest/honest, insincere/sincere, and dangerous/safe) with a seven-point semantic differential pairs; - Durvasula et al.’s Scale (1999) to measure the beliefs on economic issues (advertising in general is essential, provide lower prices, raises standard living, better products) and on social issues (advertising insults intelligence, often persuades people to buy things they shouldn't buy, and presents true picture); -Mehta’s scale (2000) with a seven-point Likert scale (advertising helps me keep up-todate about products and services that I need or would like to have; Too many products do not perform as well as the ads claim; advertising is more manipulative than it is informative; Much of advertising is way too annoying; I like to look at advertising; On average, brands that are advertised are better in quality than brands that are not advertised). We asked these questions about three media (magazine, TV, billboards). Secondly, we have shown to students an ad for a mobile phone (it was exactly the same ad in each country except characteristic information which was translated) and we have asked them to complete a second questionnaire. This questionnaire contained 21 verbal measures of their affective reactions toward the ad (Derbaix, 1995); 8 questions regarding their attitude toward the ad (adapted from Coulter, 1998; MacKenzie, Lutz, and Belch, 1986); and 16 questions on product involvement with mobile phones (Kapferer and Laurent, 1986). All items originally in English-language were translated into Czech, French, Serbian, and Spanish using the procedure suggested by Brislin (1976), then finalized according to three expert reactions in each country. During the questions on Aad and affective reactions, respondents had under their eyes the ad. Case example supporting concept With the last results…………… We can see in table 1 and table 2 that H1 is confirmed. Except for 5 items, we have globally a significant difference between countries (p.<0.05) and we can advance that attitudes toward advertising in general in France, Spain, the Czech Republic and Serbia differ significantly. Post-hoc tests show that this trend is globally supported. Table 1: Attitude toward advertising in general in the four countries (Durvasula’s and Muehling’s scales) Dependent variables CR Fr. Serbia Spain Total F p. A- Overall attitude1 Q2a Unfavorable/Favorable Q2b Bad/Good Q2c Negative/Positive Q3a Dislike/Like* 3,57 4,47 5,17 3,40 3,17 3,98 3,10 2,83 3,96 4,52 3,87 4,20 3,69 3,81 3,43 3,44 3,60 4,22 3,95 3,48 2,222 3,181 20,106 5,599 ,088 ,025 ,000 ,001 B- Attitudes2 Attitude Instrument Q2d Dishonest/Honest Q2e Dangerous/Safe Q2f Insincere/Sincere Q2g Dirty/Clean 3,28 3,70 2,94 3,94 2,74 2,29 2,52 3,43 3,56 3,89 3,24 3,80 3,33 4,06 3,31 4,06 3,23 3,48 2,99 3,80 2,976 18,484 3,397 1,807 ,033 ,000 ,019 ,148 Q2h Q2i Q2j Q2k Q2l Q2m 4,57 2,19 3,66 3,19 4,30 4,19 3,76 2,00 3,50 2,33 3,90 3,88 4,89 2,91 3,61 3,64 3,83 4,72 4,94 2,81 3,94 3,61 3,83 4,69 4,54 2,47 3,67 3,19 3,98 4,36 4,672 2,963 ,589 7,762 1,011 3,472 ,004 ,034 ,623 ,000 ,389 ,017 C- Beliefs3 Social Issues Q3b Insults intelligence Q3c Presents true picture Q3e Often persuades 4,53 2,85 5,40 5,33 2,14 6,00 4,46 3,30 6,00 3,67 2,86 4,92 4,53 2,80 5,61 7,686 5,526 4,942 ,000 ,001 ,003 3,41 3,15 3,79 4,63 4,630 2,827 9,910 1,760 ,004 ,040 ,000 ,157 Attitude Institution Unnecessary/Necessary Unimportant/Important Worthless/Valuable Weak/Strong Boring/Interesting* Useless/Useful* Economic Issues Q3d Lower prices 3,51 2,69 3,40 4,11 Q3f Raises std living 3,28 2,57 3,22 3,56 Q3g Essential 2,85 3,86 4,48 4,06 Q3h Better products 4,55 4,21 4,93 4,83 1- Muehling’s scale (1987) 2- Durvasula et al.’s scale (1993) 3- Durvasula et al.’s scale (1999) * Not present in original scales, added by authors In grey: no significant at p.=0.05 Table 2: Attitude toward advertising in general in the four countries (Mehta’s scale, 1987) Dependent variables CR Spain Fr. Serbia Total F p. (n=47) a)...helps me keep up-todate… b)… products do not perform as well as the ads claim c)… is more manipulative than it is informative d) Much of advertising is way too annoying Mag. TV Billboard Mag. TV Billboard Mag. TV Billboard Mag. TV Billboard Mag. e) I like to look at advertising TV Billboard f) Advertised brands are better in quality than others Mag. TV Billboard Mag. g) There are too many ads* TV Billboard (n=42) (n=46) (n=36) 4,62 3,76 4,58 4,58 4,39 3,347 ,021 3,85 4,10 4,93 4,72 4,38 4,600 ,004 2,87 3,50 4,18 3,67 3,54 5,962 ,001 4,36 5,88 4,93 4,75 4,97 8,292 ,000 5,43 6,31 5,98 5,86 5,88 4,466 ,005 4,83 5,36 4,89 4,56 4,92 2,234 ,086 4,26 5,79 4,22 4,33 4,64 10,631 ,000 5,74 6,26 5,54 5,56 5,78 3,071 ,029 5,04 5,29 4,87 4,69 4,98 1,152 ,330 4,19 4,26 3,78 4,24 4,11 ,731 ,535 5,60 3,40 3,96 4,74 4,43 13,155 ,000 4,70 4,02 4,07 3,85 4,19 2,344 ,075 3,09 4,00 4,37 4,16 3,87 5,530 ,001 2,74 4,24 4,47 3,94 3,81 9,501 ,000 2,91 4,43 4,18 4,19 3,88 8,229 ,000 3,53 3,21 4,47 3,71 3,74 4,124 ,007 3,06 3,10 4,33 4,34 3,67 6,651 ,000 3,17 3,19 4,24 4,06 3,64 4,710 ,004 5,55 5,55 5,65 5,36 5,54 ,211 ,889 6,09 6,71 6,57 6,28 6,41 2,350 ,074 5,72 5,19 5,35 4,89 5,32 1,809 ,147 * Not present in Mehta’s scale In grey: no significant at p.=0.05 Globally we can observe the following trend: French have the most negative attitude, and Serbian have the most positive attitude. Czech and Spanish have a median position. So these results confirm H2: Attitudes toward advertising in general are more positive in less developed market economies. The post hoc tests confirm this trend. Table 3: Pearson’s correlation between AG and Aad (dislike/like the ad) in the four countries with Muehling’s and Durvasula et al.’s scales Dependent variables All CR Spain Fr. Serbia (n=47) (n=42) (n=46) (n=36) countries (n=171) A- Overall attitude Q2a Unfavorable/Favorable1 Q2b Bad/Good1 Q2c Negative/Positive1 Q3a Dislike/Like ,393** ,379** 0,09 0,02 0,16 0,23 0,20 ,334* 0,02 0,12 0,17 0,15 0,19 0,10 0,04 0,25 ,189* ,219** ,240** ,179* B- Attitudes Attitude Instrument Q2d Dishonest/Honest2 Q2e Dangerous/Safe2 Q2f Insincere/Sincere2 Q2g Dirty/Clean2 -0,16 0,13 0,11 0,21 0,06 0,07 0,14 0,12 0,11 0,17 0,11 -0,19 0,01 0,31 0,21 0,16 0,05 ,239** ,160* 0,13 Q2h Q2i Q2j Q2k Q2l Q2m 0,03 0,09 0,22 0,24 0,27 ,357* 0,29 0,14 0,22 0,12 ,312* 0,30 0,19 0,08 ,430** 0,14 0,06 -0,07 ,406* 0,13 -0,03 0,19 0,13 0,19 ,245** 0,11 ,240** ,214** ,214** ,206** C- Beliefs Social Issues Q3b Insults intelligence3 Q3c Presents true picture3 Q3e Often persuades3 -0,26 -0,15 0,03 -0,02 0,00 ,395** 0,12 0,27 0,21 -0,32 -0,03 0,17 -,162* 0,07 0,10 0,01 ,380** 0,06 0,23 0,18 0,06 0,28 0,23 0,12 -0,04 0,27 0,10 0,09 0,06 ,386* 0,22 ,153* ,168* 0,13 ,202** Attitude institution Unnecessary/Necessary2 Unimportant/Important2 Worthless/Valuable2 Weak/Strong Boring/Interesting****** Useless/Useful Economic Issues Lower prices3 Raises std living3 Essential3 Better products3 Q3d Q3f Q3g Q3h 1- Muehling’s scale (1987) et al.’s scale (1993) 3- Durvasula et al.’s Scale (1999) 2- -Durvasula Yellow- Not present in original scales, added by authors In grey: no significant at p.=0.05 - * p<0.05 - ** p<0.01 - (two-tailed) About H3, table 3 show that when we take all countries together (CR, Spain, France and Serbia) we have quasi systematically a significant correlation between the items which measure AG and the principal item which measures Aad (dislike/like the ad for mobile phone that we have shown to the respondents). We observe more or less the same results when we compare the answers for the other items measuring Aad. So we can advance that globally there is a link between positive AG and positive Aad and vice-versa. Indeed, with the level of significance for two-tailed test (p<0.05), we have received always r>0 except for one item which is a negative item (“advertising in general insults the intelligence”) with r= -0,162*. When we look at the other results for each country separately, we can mention that we have the same trends but it is rarely significant because of the size of the sample. For example, in Serbia the level of significance for two-tailed test is 0.325 which is a very strong correlation. Although we are not able to accept our hypothesis with these results, they encourage us to think that with a larger sample H3 should not be dismissed and we should point up that whatever the country, there is a positive link between positive AG and positive Aad and vice versa. Table 4: Pearson’s correlation between AG and Aad (dislike/like the ad) in the four countries with Mehta’s scale Dependent variables a)...helps me keep up-todate… b)… products do not perform as well as the ads claim c)… is more manipulative than it is informative d) Much of advertising is way too annoying e) I like to look at advertising f) Advertised brands are better in quality than others g) There are too many ads1 CR (n=47) Spain (n=42) Fr. (n=46) Serbia (n=36) All countries (n=171) Mag. ,158 ,308* ,464** ,066 ,293** TV ,218 ,500** -,058 -,002 ,160* Billboard ,291* ,157 -,061 -,004 ,032 Mag. ,222 -,054 -,147 ,115 -,085 TV ,106 -,007 ,201 -,152 -,042 Billboard ,319* -,015 -,028 -,113 -,003 Mag. -,025 -,111 -,323* ,072 -,187* TV -,009 -,022 -,174 -,122 -,114 Billboard ,039 -,001 -,371* -,136 -,113 Mag. -,089 -,282 -,244 ,054 -,136 TV -,175 -,301 -,016 -,028 ,031 Billboard -,363* -,155 -,014 ,048 -,069 Mag. ,061 ,253 ,172 ,425* ,118 TV -,015 ,348* ,302* ,011 ,043 Billboard ,310* ,250 ,048 ,174 ,065 Mag. ,184 ,261 ,030 ,127 ,139 TV ,091 ,243 -,062 ,341* ,111 Billboard ,142 ,313* -,155 -,042 ,063 Mag. ,179 -,171 ,069 ,082 ,032 TV ,060 -,013 ,192 ,086 ,000 Billboard -,077 -,004 ,004 -,027 ,000 1- Not present in original scales, added by authors In grey: no significant at p.=0.05 - * p<0.05 - ** p<0.01 - (two-tailed) Results show in table 4 are more difficult to interpret because there are not a lot of significant results for each country separately and also for all countries (with n=171). All the significant results show a logical correlation: when the item is positive r is positive and vice-versa, but the results are not very strong to invite us in this way. So, maybe metha’s scale is not appropriate here. Summary of key ideas We have to wait the last results with all data and aggregated variables…………. In conclusion, it would seem that H1 should be accepted because we notice significant differences between the four groups. So we can advance that Attitudes toward advertising in general in France, Spain, the Czech Republic and Serbia differ significantly. Of course it is not always the same trend between countries, but globally there are systematically differences between them whatever the type of dimension which is measured: attitude-instrument, attitude-institution or beliefs. Mehta’s scale confirms this trend whatever the support. For H2, although the results are weaker, we can also advance that apparently, attitudes toward advertising in general are more positive in less developed market economies. Beyond the fact that these results are worthy of deeper statistical investigations to detail relationships, three main limitations should be emphasized. Firstly and it is the most important, the sample is too small and we must have complementary survey with a bigger sample if we want to confirm our hypotheses. Secondly we must reinforce the number of countries if we want to have a representative European sample. Thirdly these partial results are encouraging but essentially with Muehling’s scale (1987), Durvasula et al.’s scale (1993), and Durvasula et al.’s Scale (1999). The Metha’s scale seem not very useful in this context. Managerial Implications and Applications Managers can apply only two rules through the all EU countries. 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