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1 Nothing Is Something: White Space, a Figure of Commercial Rhetoric John W. Pracejus G. Douglas Olsen Thomas C. O’Guinn* 2 Author note: * John W. Pracejus is Assistant Professor and G. Douglas Olsen is Assistant Professor, Department of Marketing, Business Economics and Law, Faculty of Business, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, T6G 2R6. Thomas C. O’Guinn is Professor of Advertising and Professor of Sociology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 61801.The authors would like to thank Linda Scott for many helpful comments and suggestions. The first author may be contacted via e-mail ([email protected]), phone (780-492-2023) or fax (780-492-3325). 3 Advertising, like all social products, changes and evolves. Research, however, has not adequately considered its increasingly visual nature. We attempt to address this shortcoming by focusing on a single aspect of visual rhetoric: white space. Four studies measure the correspondence in understanding of this visual element between ad producers (agency creative directors) and consumers, and how it impacts perceptions of brands. We find that, (1) the producers and receivers have very congruent understandings of the white space visual device, and (2) the effect of this device on consumer brand perceptions is pretty much as assumed by the creators of advertising. This is significant in that while calls to study the visual rhetoric of advertising are common, actual research attention is scant. These studies should also serve as a foil in the ever-expanding debate on the nature of “information” and its processing. 4 Even though advertising has been a critical element in the marketing mix for well over a century, fundamental questions about its workings remain. There are many reasons for that, not least among them: the evolutionary nature of advertising itself. Advertising, like all social products, changes and evolves. Currently, and for quite some time, both practitioner and academic advertising research has tended to focus on a particular style of advertising, claims based ads. These ads rely on words to make claims about goods and services. Consumer persuasion researchers have typically studied issues such as the impact of the number of arguments, the strength of the arguments, and the credibility of the source on persuasion. Consumer information processing research sharpened the focus on how these claims (words) were stored, retrieved and sometimes used by consumers. Over the course of the twentieth century, however, ads have changed from being copy-heavy and claims based to being image based with little or no copy (Leiss, Klein, and Jhally 1990; Postman 1986; Schudson 1984). See Panel A of Figure 1 for an example of the former (circa 1900), and Panel B of Figure 1 for an example of the latter. ---------------------------------Insert figure 1 about here ---------------------------------Even though the move from words to pictures is neither complete nor universal, it is an undeniably significant trend within print advertising (Davidson 1992; Leiss, Kline, and Jhally 1990; Messaris 1997). While studying this receding (but still important) type of advertising (i.e. claims based ads) advances legitimate and valid research goals (Stewart et al. 1985), it is increasingly out of synch with the modal form of contemporary print advertising: picture based ads (Davidson 1992; Messaris 1997). Unfortunately, even though some advertising scholars have called for the development of 5 research methods more appropriate for visual communication (Davidson 1992; Messaris 1997; O’Guinn 2000; Scott 1994a; Scott and Batra 2003), theories and methods specifically suited to pictures have not had a significant presence in consumer research (McQuarrie and Mick 1996; Scott 1994a), thus limiting the study of contemporary advertising. Further, over its first century, the social institution of advertising developed its own commercial figures of speech, its own linguistic conventions, its own rhetoric (Davidson 1992; Messaris 1997). But for a host of reasons, consumer researchers have rarely studied advertising as rhetoric (Davidson 1992; Marchand 1985; McQuarrie and Mick 1996; Scott 1994a; Stern 1988), or even acknowledged the presence of such a system (McQuarrie and Mick 1996; Scott 1994b). Much more often, advertising is studied as information to be processed, without consideration of form and circumstance (see below). While advertising obviously contains information, and individual consumers just as obviously do something with this information in the confines of their heads, one should not confuse or conflate this with the totality of human communication, and by extension how humans create, transmit, receive, and negotiate meaning in advertising. Just as surely as information is processed by individual consumers, so too are rhetorical devices created and understood socially, and by convention. This article presents the study of one such rhetorical convention, a figure of advertising speech: white space. White space is defined here as “a figure of advertising speech used to symbolize elegance, class, and other related attributes of distinction.” It is typically (in design terms) “negative space,” or the absence of any other writing or picturing, typically framing the outer border of the page extending inward toward another image or word(s). It is a term of art used routinely in advertising practice. Designers have long known its value and function (Jewler and Drewniany 2000; Book and Schick 1997). “But is white space, literally, nothing? The absence of 6 content? Hardly. White space can be the most important element of a composition, responsible for a design's readability, its eye-popping contrast, its subtle strength, its balance, its beauty, its success.” (Levine 2000, p. 1). White space is a common and important tool in the visual lexicon of advertising (see Figure 1, Panel C for a contemporary ad that relies heavily on this visual element). Claim versus Image Advertising It is important to make a clear distinction between two styles of advertising: claims based verbal ads, and visual “image” ads. While all advertising is rhetorical in nature, not all advertising rhetoric is verbal. In fact, most contemporary advertising operates on the visual plane (Davidson 1992; Leiss, Klein, and Jhally 1990; Postman 1986). In their extensive content analysis of twentieth-century American advertising, Leiss, Klein and Jhally (1990, p. 234) show that while the use of visual representations of physical or social settings are used in only about 15% of print ads in the ‘teens, they are being used in approximately 90 percent of print ads by the 1970’s. The same study (Leiss, Klein, and Jhally 1990, p. 231) also reveals that the percentage of the advertising display area devoted to text declined by half over the same 60 year period. O’Guinn, Allen and Semenik (2002, p. 436) give six reasons for this trend including legal advantages to pictures over words, the assumed greater cross-cultural transferability of pictures, and the inherent advantages of pictures to situate brands in social representations. So, how has the consumer research literature reflected this important change? A content analysis was conducted to examine the extent to which current advertising research has focused on issues of visual concern. Articles appearing in the Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing, and Journal of Marketing Research from 1990 to 2000 were reviewed. A total of 187 articles related to advertising were assembled, based on the presence of the words “advertising” 7 or “advertisement” in the title, key-words or abstract. Of these, 85 (45.5%) presented an experiment that manipulated the advertisement content in some fashion. Others focused on issues such as advertising planning, statistical issues or qualitative inquiries. The majority of these experimental studies (68, 80.0%) only varied the verbal information in the advertisement; 14 (16.5%) varied an image in a print advertising context; two (2.4%) varied only strictly auditory information (music); and one varied images on a television monitor (Kim, Allen, and Kardes 1996). Of the print advertisement manipulations, many concentrated on the specific content contained in the visual, such as the nature of the model used (e.g., Richins 1991), the extent to which the image reflected well on the brand (Keller 1991) the camera angle (Meyers-Levy and Peracchio 1992, 1996), or the variation in image used in repeated exposures to an advertisement for a given product (Unnava and Burnkrant 1991a). Unnava and Burnkrant (1991b) also examined the impact of the presence or absence of pictures. Studies emphasizing the joint consideration of words and the images in the advertisements were also give some attention (e.g., Costley and Brucks 1992; Malaviya, Kisielius, and Sternthal 1996; McQuarrie and Mick 1992; Peracchio and Meyers-Levy 1994). But only a minority of the articles that manipulated the visual content of the advertisement focused on issues more specifically related to design and layout (i.e., versus content of the image), such as the use of color (Meyers-Levy and Peracchio 1995), the organization of images on the page (Janiszewski 1990). Others studied pictures as “moderators of involvement” (Miniard et al. 1991), “moderators of self reference” (Meyers-Levy and Peracchio 1996), the relationship between color and black and white and “consumer’s motivation to process” (Meyers-Levy and Perachhio 1995). As the content analysis makes clear, independent variables in the vast majority (80%) of 8 consumer research studies reflect a dominant interest in how verbal facts and numeric information are stored and retrieved in human memory. Even those that study pictures largely do so from the standpoint of how pictures affect the processing of words, or other indirect impacts on persuasion. Often, pictures are manipulated to test psychological theories or apply various mental constructs. Pictures as socially derived rhetorical devices, not in the service of words, are largely absent from the consumer research literature. This significant mismatch between advertising research and the creative function, however, is not solely limited to academic inquiry. Industry practice also reflects a bias toward verbal measurement, although nowhere near as pronounced, nor as entrenched. One of the key copy testing measures employed by industry leader Roper/Starch, for example, is the “read most” measure, which assesses the percentage of people who “read most” of the copy. Some of these tests of word memory linger on, even though prominent industry figures have long rejected their appropriateness (Bernbach 1980; Frank 1998; Lois 1972; Steel 1998). This is generally thought to be a result of pressure on the advertising agency from the client, as well as industry inertia. Those actually making the ads have long argued that these measures were at best irrelevant for the vast majority of contemporary ads (Bernbach 1980; Frank 1998). However, some brand managers insist upon using these measures (e.g. Starch “read most” scores), largely because of pressure to compare ads to normative scores or benchmarks. In industry this is, however, changing with more and more emphasis on testing the pictorial aspects of ads in ways more appropriate to the reality and needs of actual advertising practice (Davidson 1992; Frank 1998; Rothenberg 1994; Steel 1998). Visual Rhetoric This article rests on a venerable, and quite straightforward (in its essentials) theory: 9 rhetoric. The study of rhetoric is at least as old as the teachings of Aristotle. The study of rhetoric was the original work of universities. It predates the social sciences by several centuries. Burke (1966) defined rhetoric as symbolic action in which someone is trying to get someone else to do something (or to think or feel something) (cited in Scott and Batra 2003, p. 7). According to Burke and others (e.g, Barthes 1964; Goodman 1976; Mitchell 1986) persuasive communication occurs through language acts, and that language acts are formed through social convention, agreement by actors and publics that certain linguistic forms mean certain things. Rhetoric is thus a socio-historical (meta)-theory. Rhetorical devices come to mean what they mean because people, producers and receivers, come to agree upon their meaning. Young consumers learn the conventions of advertising the same way movie audiences understand that dissolves between scenes indicate the passage of time...not a technical problem with the film, or for that matter the affirmative gesture made by an upraised thumb on top of a clinched fist (thumbs up). So, no matter what is processed, communication is inherently a social act, and advertising is a rhetorical form. Further, pictures are linguistic, not purely representational as some have asserted (see MacInnis and Price 1987). This position is axiomatic among rhetoricians, picture theorists, and anthropologists of many stripes (see Gombrich 1960; Goodman 1976; Goody 1968; Scott 1994a; Mitchell 1986). Scott (1994a) set out a program for a rhetorical approach to visual advertising. One of the ideas was to identify and study specific rhetoric devices, conventions of advertising speech. This article seeks to do that; white space is one such rhetorical figure of advertising. We chose it because it is a figure of advertising speech with a long tradition, that had been seen as literally nothing but empty space by extant consumer research, and because it will not beg questions of picturing, representation and resemblance. 10 Form and Circumstance Rhetoric rests on form and circumstance. In the first instance, it is concerned with what specific forms and figures work best. But, the first question is out of bounds if the circumstance of its use is not considered. Rhetoric depends on a socio-historical component: the social history, its circumstance of use, is always important in rhetoric. So, we will consider both the form and circumstance of advertising white space. In Scott’s (1994a) terms, white space works through two aspects of rhetorical form: arrangement and delivery. Arrangement “helps to modulate the viewer’s experience of the text in time” (Scott 1994a, p. 266). White space is almost always found at the border of the pages and the object of primary attention has to be located in this expanse of white. The typical large headline, centered at the top of the page, is not usually found in a white-space ad. Instead, there is white space. There is often no “body copy,” no smaller words at bottom center. Instead there is something that resembles a framed and matted photograph or painting. Everything points the reader’s eye and attention to the center. Reading left to right, as most western consumers do, we see nothing, and look down, and see an image or word(s) framed and matted by white space. This is no less arranged than a portrait in a museum. The rhetorical aspect of “delivery” is also important here. In rhetorical terms, visual delivery is akin to “intonation, selection of words, the manner of gesturing, and the accent” (Scott 1994a, p. 267). White space sets a tone, and makes an elegant gesture to the reader (Jewler and Drewniany 2000). The meaning of this gesture cannot be separated from its historical circumstance. The minimal, uncluttered, “clean” look is a staple of modernity, and often an allusion to the uncluttered, minimal, large and “white” spaces of the upper social strata (Jewler and Drewniany 2000; Marchand 1985; Messaris 1997). The poor were often portrayed as living 11 more cluttered and “messy” existences, the wealthy occupying larger, cleaner, unencumbered and more pristine spaces (Marchand 1985). The wealthy minimalist home (e.g., “gallery modern”) would later in the century itself become an icon of material modernity and wealth. The delivery of a logo, picture, or brand name with white space is an allusion to its “top drawer” nature, as well as its concomitant modernity. It is a symbol of the clean aesthetic of modernity. Quite simply, through its social history, and its use of arrangement and delivery to point to those same issues of class stratification, elegance, and special-ness, the social actors of the twentieth century consumer milieu, came, by social agreement, to think of white space in advertising as having a set of meanings. Like all figures of speech, white space has a social history. It came to mean what it does today through that history. White space began to emerge as a visual advertising convention in the 1920’s. It was part of a critical decade in advertising development and mass consumer socialization (Fox 1985; Marchand 1985). According to historian Roland Marchand (1985) it was during this decade that most of advertising’s lexicon developed and America learned collectively the methods and manner of consumer rhetoric. Just a decade earlier, common tropes of the trade had not yet emerged. It is in this period that slice of life, social anxiety advertising, and other rhetorical schemes of advertising were developed. Consumers learned how to read this commercial language and understand its conventions. White space was one of those conventions that has endured for some eighty years. Social class and its stratification is a defining issue in 1920’s America, so too in advertising of the era (Fox 1985; Marchand 1985). One way to designate higher social class was through “atmospherics,” a style of advertising, which among other things often used white space. To set apart brand leaders and “classy” products from the also-rans was to surround the products 12 in lots of “white space” so to indicate elegance (Jewler and Drewniany 2000) simplicity of design, and to contrast it with the cluttered look of “pre-modern” and lower class consumers. During the 1920’s, advertising was in the midst of its most legitimate decade: in just thirty years it had gone from cluttered, text-heavy messages for patent medicines, to the most “modern” of professions. During the depression, white space advertising all but disappeared due to pressures on advertisers to fill up the space, to get every “paying inch.” It made a stunningly successful reemergence in the 1960’s through the efforts of Bill Bernbach, Leo Burnett, Mary Wells and others (Dobrow 1984; Frank 1998; Jackson 1998). Since the 1960’s, white space has been a steady part of the language of American advertising. Even though white space has been used in advertisements for at least eighty years, an exhaustive search of the information processing literature revealed that white space has either not been treated at all, or has been treated, literally, as nothing, space between other things (usually words). It has never been studied as the tried and true visual figure that industry creators and consumers alike understand. Here we argue that what counts as absolutely nothing (i.e. “empty space,” the absence of information) in the dominant approach to studying advertising in consumer research (where alpha-numeric characters stand for information), is explicitly recognized as highly meaningful, and therefore informative to its producers and consumers alike. Here we take what is usually considered nothing (literally), and argue that it is indeed something, and that that something is part of a well understood and socially negotiated visual rhetoric. This is a first attempt at looking at a discrete rhetorical figure, and its shared meaning between advertising makers and consumers. Our proposed contribution is thus twofold: (1) to advance the study of specific visual rhetorical forms, and (2) to place our study in context and relief with the extant literature and typical way of studying advertising in consumer research. 13 THE STUDIES So given this, we have chosen to study one very specific visual rhetorical element: white space. Our strategy was to ask these research questions: what does white space “mean” to those making ads, what does it mean to those receiving ads, and how does it ultimately affect brand perceptions. We, of course, recognize that there is no such thing as fixed, or context-free meaning (Mick and Buhl 1992; Scott 1994b). At the same time, we know that communication would be impossible if most of the conceivable meanings did not exist within certain socially negotiated bounds (Anderson and Meyer 1989; Fish 1980). To pursue our goals, we conducted four studies. The first examined what the actual creators of ads (creative directors) thought white space meant, (i.e., what they thought it conveyed to consumers. Studies 2, 3 and 4 examined how consumer brand perceptions are influenced by the amount of white space used. We tested the meaning of one visual rhetorical element from the perspective of image creators (i.e. advertising agency creative personnel) and image interpreters (i.e. consumers) within the bounds of brand image communications. We do this by focusing on one of the oldest forms of image communications, the intentional use of white space. STUDY 1 Respondents Participants were creative directors at major advertising agencies in North America. Respondents were initially interviewed via telephone to obtain their commitment to complete the instrument and to ensure that they met inclusion criterion (e.g. that they currently conducted work in print advertising). In order to allow enough time to consider all the meanings that they thought the communication element conveyed, those who agreed to participate were faxed an 14 instrument that allowed ample time for reflection on the issue. The instrument was designed to freely elicit non-directed responses. Participants were randomly selected from a list of creative directors across Canada and the United States. Of the 54 creative directors contacted, 90.7% agreed to participate in a fax-administered survey. Of these, 63.3% (31) completed the survey and faxed it back. Instrument Construction The instrument was designed so as to allow the creative directors maximum latitude to give their impression as to what the non-verbal device (i.e. white space) communicated to consumers. Questions began in a completely open ended, non-leading fashion. As such, the instrument was more like a self-administering interview guide than a traditional survey. The instrument began with an open-ended question that asked respondents to list specific meanings/signals that might be sent about a product through the use of white space. Individuals were also queried as to whether the impact of white-space was a function of the size of the advertisement and were asked to justify their response. In addition to these questions, the survey also solicited opinions on further issues pertaining to layout that are not reported in the present study. Finally, creative directors were asked about their experience in the advertising industry, and with print media in particular. Results Respondents averaged 16.9 years of experience in the advertising industry, and reported that on average 73% of the campaigns they worked on involved print media. Three coders, in a two-step, iterative process, assessed responses to the “meanings/signals” listed by the creative directors. In the first step, a coder created coherent categories from the raw responses. In the second step, two additional coders, who had not seen the data before, coded each response as 15 belonging primarily to one of the specified categories, to an “other” category relating to brand signal/meaning, or to the design issues category, for statements relating solely to the look of the ad rather than a particular signal/meaning about the brand. Initial inter-rater reliability was 94.6%. Disputes were resolved through discussion and mutual agreement. With respect to the central question of brand meanings/signals sent by the use of white space, several major themes emerged from the responses. They are summarized in Table 1. ---------------------------------Insert table 1 about here ---------------------------------As can be seen in Table 1, creative directors had common beliefs about several brand signals/meanings conveyed to consumers by the use of white space in ads. Five of these include the prestige of the brand (61.3%), the market power of the brand (41.9%), the trustworthiness of the brand (35.5%), the leadership of the brand within the industry (32.3%), and the quality of the brand (16.1%). A few other conveyed meanings were mentioned less frequently, such as the brand being healthful (9.7%), contemporary (12.9%), and approachable (9.7%). Of the creative directors surveyed, the majority of respondents (58.1%) indicated that the impact of white space increased with the size of the advertisement and 32.3% reported that they felt size and impact were unrelated. One justifying statement prototypical of those that felt that ad size and the impact of white space were unrelated was, “It does not matter how big or small the ad is. It is how effective the white-space is used within the confines of that particular ad.” Another individual commented, “No – in small ads it is equally effective. Small, tight, text based ads just as unappealing as large ads of the same ilk.” Statements issued in support of the relationship included, “Yes. More has a greater impact on the visual presence of the message and the overall appeal of the advertisement,” and, “Yes, a broadsheet newspaper page in white is 16 more powerful than the same page in Reader’s Digest.” Discussion Clearly there is general agreement on the part of those who create advertising messages as to the meanings attached to the non-verbal element under consideration. For effective communication to take place, however, there must also be similar levels of agreement in the interpretation of this non-verbal element by consumers. Study two, therefore, investigates consumer perceptions and inferences when white space is used as a design element. We focus this investigation on consumer reception of the top five meanings/signals mentioned by the creative directors. STUDY 2 Participants One-hundred and thirty undergraduate students at a North American university participated for research credit. Design and Stimuli A 2 (product category) X 2 (high/low white space) completely between-subjects design was employed. All advertisements contained a picture of a clock, accompanied by a logo for a fictitious brand (Hastings), along with copy designed specifically to be ambiguous enough to apply to the two different product categories. Specifically, this text read: “Like Clockwork. No matter what day of the week, or week of the year, there are a myriad of things to deal with. From what to wear…to where to invest. We don’t pretend to have all the answers to all of the demands life places on you, but we can help when it comes to [clothing/mutual funds]. In a turbulent world where you can count on tomorrow being different than today you can depend on us to give you consistency and comfort. Visit us on the web at www.hastings.com or call 1-800-686-3321 today to find out where our [clothes/mutual funds] are available.” All advertisements were presented on an 8.5 inch by 11 inch sheet of white paper. In the 17 low white space ad, a picture of a square clock measuring 8 inches by 8 inches was present. In the high white space condition the clock was 2 inches by 2 inches. The font size of the text information remained constant across conditions. A fictitious logo for Hastings was presented in the lower right hand corner (see Figure 2 for an example of the advertisements used in the mutual fund condition). Individuals were given thirty seconds to examine the advertisement. Respondents then provided their level of agreement on seven point scales anchored by “strongly disagree (1)” and “strongly agree (7)” to each of the following statements: (1) Hastings is a large company; (2) Hastings’ clothing/mutual funds is/are of high quality; (3) It is not risky to purchase Hastings clothing/mutual funds; (4) Hastings is a prestigious brand of clothing/mutual funds; (5) Hastings has considerable market share; (6) It is more expensive to purchase Hastings clothing/mutual funds relative to competitors; (7) Hastings can be trusted; (8) Hastings is a leader rather than a follower; (9) Overall, I have a positive attitude toward Hastings; and, (10) If Hastings comes to my region I will buy from them. Finally a series of control measures were taken regarding knowledge of product class and frequency of purchase. Respondents were asked about purchase behaviour of clothing/mutual funds and if they had ever traveled to Europe or England (this measure was collected to explore whether those individuals who had been to England might respond differently) and whether they had heard of Hastings before completing the survey. ---------------------------------Insert figure 2 about here ---------------------------------Results Table 2 reports mean values by condition, as well as MANOVA results. Values of Cohen’s f may also be used to examine effect sizes (see Cohen 1988; Cohen 1992). For Cohen’s f, effect sizes are demarcated by the values 0.10 to 0.24 (small), 0.25 to 0.39 (moderate), and 0.4 18 or higher (large). It appears that white space is, in fact, influential in consumer brand perceptions. Of more interest to our investigation of reception and interpretation of the meaning conveyed by white space, the meaning mentioned by the most creative directors, prestige, was significantly conveyed to consumers through the use of white space (f = 0.27). Another meaning mentioned by creative directors and understood by a significant number of respondents was brand trustworthiness: white space significantly conveyed a lack of risk (f = 0.24) and that the brand can be trusted (f = 0.28). Brand quality was found to be significantly greater under conditions of high white space (f = 0.26), as was attitude toward the brand (f = 0.35) and purchase intention (f = 0.18). Not all of the meanings mentioned by the creative directors were received by the respondents in this study. The use of white space was not seen as implying market power (measured by “company size” and “market share”), brand leadership or expensiveness. Product class only impacted purchase intention, with clothing ( x = 3.62) being significantly greater than mutual funds ( x = 3.18, f = 0.20). Perhaps this is not surprising given the relative familiarity and salience of the two categories to the sampled population. The only significant interaction between product class and white space was on perceived expensiveness (f = 0.35). Follow-up analysis revealed that for mutual funds, there was no impact of white space on perceived expensiveness of the brand (t65 = 0.75, n.s.) but for the clothing category, there was a significant impact of white space on perceived expensiveness (t61=2.03, p<.05). This makes sense in that prestigious clothing stores are, almost by definition, quite expensive, whereas the same may not hold true for mutual funds. ---------------------------------Insert table 2 about here 19 ---------------------------------Discussion It appears that consumers do receive consistent meaning from visual elements like white space in advertising, and that the interpreted meaning is highly congruent (but not entirely) with that intended by those creating the ads. Specifically, trust, prestige and quality, were all significantly conveyed by the use of white space. One key meaning that 40% of the creative directors mentioned as being conveyed about a brand through the use of white space is company size/market power. However, participants did not decode or infer this meaning. This may be due to the lack of a reference point (i.e. it was unclear how big the ad would be relative to the size of the publication) in study 2. It could also be that this construct “market size/power” is simply less salient to consumers than to those making the ads. Still, what was intended by the makers of the ads for consumers to take away, i.e. prestige, trustworthiness, quality, and overall positive attitude toward the brand, was taken away by consumers. As noted in Study 1, a majority of the creative directors felt that the impact of white space was a function of advertisement size. Hence, in Study 3 we examine how the size of the ad might influence the interpretation of white space. Beyond the impetus provided by the creative directors, there are two reasons for doing so. First, we increase the ecological validity of the stimuli and thus increase mundane reality of the study (see Aronson and Carlsmith 1968). Ad size, however, has also been shown to impact consumer perceptions of market power of the firm (Homer 1995). We seek to replicate and extend this finding by exploring whether consumer interpretations of white space interact with ad size, as well as comparing the relative size of the two effects. As much as a large advertisement may send signals about the market power of the firm, one possibility is that a large ad with high white space may magnify this perception (e.g., a 20 company which chooses to purchase a large block of space and leave much of it empty may result in the perception that they have “money to burn”). Furthermore, in Study 2 the advertisement is presented alone, and out of context. Although it is approximately the same size of ad one might find in a magazine, it appeared without any referent. Hence, while an absolute sense of the size of the advertisement would have been present, a relative sense would not. By placing the advertisement in a “size context”, it was thought that the impact of white space on perceived market power might be elevated. STUDY 3 Participants One-hundred and seventy-nine undergraduate students participated in this study for research credit. Design and Stimuli A 3 X 2 between-subjects design was employed, manipulating advertisement size (quarter-page; half-page and, full-page), and amount of white space (low vs. high). Note, that in this study the advertisements were printed on 11 by 14.5 inch paper (the approximate size of a tabloid newspaper). The full-page ad was 10 by 12.75 inches long, with the high white space condition using a 3 by 3 inch image and the low white space condition using a 9.75 by 9.75 inch image. The half-page ad was 7.5 by 9.75 inches, with a 2.25 by 2.25 inch image in the high white-space condition and a 7.4 by 7.4 inch image used in the low white space condition. Finally, the quarter-page ad was 5 by 6.5 inches with a 1.5. by 1.5 inch image used in the high white space condition and a 4.9 by 4.9 inch image used in the low white space condition. For all conditions the image was the same as that used in Study 2. It may also be noted that the halfpage ad is approximately the same size as the ads used in Study 2. See Figure 3 for a graphical 21 breakdown of conditions employed. The cover story for the study was that we were interested in international advertising. Participants were told they would view an actual ad for Hastings Mutual Funds that was about to be run in “The Guardian”, a British newspaper. In order to remove a confound between the advertisement size and the amount of information present on the same sheet (e.g., other advertisements or news stories), with the exception of the Banner (i.e., the top portion of the page listing the name of the paper), the remainder of the page was filled with nonsense words of varying length from one to seven letters (a layout technique known as “greeking”), laid out in four columns in the space surrounding the ads. The advertisement always occupied the lower right hand corner of the page. In the full-page condition no filler text was required. As noted above, efforts were taken to remove the possible confound between the presentation of the advertisement and the amount of additional information presented on the page. Obviously, in the case of the full-page advertisement, no other information would be present. For the half-page and quarter-page advertisements this concern was of greater issue. That is why we opted for the industry practice of using greeking in the layout. Greeking is the practice of using nonsense words (e.g., rkdjg skm smdkfh awojd kmqw) in textual environments to provide a feel for what the layout will look like. The use of the words (albeit meaningless), provides the same level of contrast that might be expected in a newspaper reading environment, excluding, of course, the presence of competing advertisements that are particularly light or dark. In an effort to mitigate the confounding influence of competing information in the layout for the half and quarter-page advertisements, no extraneous advertisements were included. We concede that there are limits to the mundane realism created in this context. However, we suggest that providing the advertisements in this context is consistent with industry practice regarding copy 22 testing and provides the viewer with a reference point to assess the meaning of the advertisement (i.e., beyond viewing the advertisement in isolation). In order to prevent questions regarding this filler text during the study, all participants were first shown a mock front-page of the Guardian. A brief discussion was given regarding the developmental process of laying out news copy and advertising in newspapers. By having the front-page consistent: (1) the appearance was given that all participants were receiving the same information; (2) all individuals in the study were exposed to some of the filler text; and, (3) questions regarding the filler text that may have come up during the study were avoided. All advertisements were viewed in a dedicated lab setting where desks were spaced so that individuals were unable to see what other participants were reading. The dependent variables used remained identical to those in Study 2. Separate testing was performed to examine whether perceptions of image quality varied with image size. A total of 48 participants, drawn from the same pool as those participating in the experimental portion of the study, evaluated the image quality of either the large, 9.75 by 9.75 image (n=24) or small, 1.5 by 1.5 inch, image (n=24). Individuals were asked to provide evaluations on three scales: The picture quality is, “very bad (1), very good (7)”; The resolution of the image is, “very low (1), very high (7)”; The detail in the picture is, “very bad (1), very good (7).” MANOVA was used to assess the extent to which each of these differed. The mean score for picture quality was 4.46 and did not differ as a function of image size (F1, 46 = 1.26, n.s.). The mean evaluation regarding resolution was 4.56 and did not vary with image size (F1, 46 = 1.05, n.s.). Finally, the mean score for detail was 4.94 and did not differ as a function of the size of the image (F1, 46 = 1.12, p = 0.30). ---------------------------------Insert figure 3 about here 23 ---------------------------------Results White space is again found to be influential in consumer brand perceptions (see Table 3). As in Study 2, quality, risk, prestige, and trust are all significantly impacted by white space. As was previously found for mutual funds, perceived brand prestige was significantly impacted by white space (f = 0.35), but perceived expensiveness was not. The two measures of trustworthiness, lack of risk (f = 0.25) and brand can be trusted (f = 0.33) were again significantly impacted by white space in the ad. Additionally, attitude toward the brand (f = 0.29) and purchase intention (f = 0.16) are also found to be significantly influenced by the use of this visual element. For the first time, white space is also found to positively affect perceived brand leadership (f = 0.25), a meaning which was mentioned by 32.3% of the creative directors. Further, the two measures of market power, considerable market share (f = 0.27) and large company (f = 0.28) were both significantly affected by white space in this study. Additionally, the latter measure, large company, was also influenced by the size of the ad (f = 0.28) . The interaction between white space and ad size, however, was not significant. Follow-up analysis of the main effect of ad size on perceived company size revealed that company size was perceived to be smaller for the quarter-page ad, relative to the half-page ad (t115=2.61, p < .01) and that no difference in perceived company size was detectable between the half-page and full-page ad conditions (t118 = 0.32, n.s.). ---------------------------------Insert table 3 about here ---------------------------------- 24 Discussion Once again, we find that consumers’ actual brand perceptions can be shaped by a simple visual element in an ad for the brand and that the nature of this impact was well understood by the creators of the ad. In this study, participants not only interpreted messages about prestige, trust and quality, as others had done in previous studies, but they also “correctly” interpreted messages about company size and brand leadership. These latter two messages were both mentioned by a substantial number of creative directors as brand signals/meanings conveyed by white space in an ad. Although the intent of this study was, in part, to see whether these meanings would be inferred by participants only under some size conditions, the effects did not interact with ad size. In fact, follow-up analysis shows that these effects obtained in each of the three size conditions, including “half-page”, which was approximately the same size as the ads in study 2. We propose that evidence for message inferences about market power and brand leadership in this study is the result of the increase in mundane reality accomplished through the placement of the ads into the mock newspaper. In this experiment, the largest graphic in the low-white space conditions (i.e., the one in the quarter-page advertisement), was still larger than the largest graphic in the high-white space conditions (i.e., the full-page advertisement). Hence, one possible explanation for the effect observed is that the impact is not due to white-space, per se, but rather, due to the size of the graphic, with smaller graphics resulting in greater liking of the advertisement and subsequently the advertiser. Consequently, further investigation is required to examine the impact of white space, holding the image size constant. Two additional aspects of the visual also require further consideration. First, given that the low-white space ads in the full-page and half-page conditions portray a clock that is likely to 25 be perceived as “larger than life” it is possible that this awkward size contributed to the effect. Second, in the first two experiments the visual has not been directly related to the product category. It is not clear whether the impact of white-space will be mitigated by an image relevant to the product category. One possibility is that a product relevant image will result in a diminished impact of white space, given that the presence of the larger image may serve to stress the qualities of the product. A further issue for investigation relates to the nature of the responses provided. While the survey questions used were premised on the signals sent by using white-space, it may be the case that the evaluations provided by respondents reflect some global impression regarding the advertisement. The addition of items unrelated to the white-space signals would help to better understand whether a general response bias is occurring. Study 4 is presented to examine the impact of white space, controlling for image size, and to investigate the potential impact of image-product relatedness. STUDY 4 Participants. One hundred and eighty-four undergraduate students participated in this study for research credit. Design and Stimuli. A 2 X 3 full-factorial, between-subjects design was used, manipulating the product category (furniture vs. mutual funds) and the nature of the advertisement (full-page, low white space; full-page, high white space; and, fifth-page low white space). The latter condition permits an investigation of the impact of white space controlling for image size (i.e., the image size used in the fifth-page advertisement is the same as the image size used in the full-page low-white 26 space advertisement). Hence, if effects are witnessed in contrasts between the full-page highwhite space ad and the full-page low white space ad, advertisement size would be ruled out as a causal variable. Further, if effects are witness in contrasts between the full-page high-white space ad and the fifth-page low-white space ad, image size may be ruled out. The procedure and general format of presentation remained identical to study 3, with the exception that the cover and the layout of the second page (in the case of the fifth-page ad) contained five columns of greeked material. The advertisement was similar to previous advertisements, however, a photograph of an arm-chair was used. As in Study 3, the full-page ad was 10 by 12.75 inches. The image in the full-page, low white space ad was 9.75 X 9.75 inches, whereas the high white space version had an image 3.5 by 3.5 inches. The fifth-page advertisement was 5 by 6.5 inches in dimension and employed an image that was 3.5 by 3.5 inches. Although the brand (Hastings) was carried over to this experiment, the copy was altered slightly. Sit for a while. No matter what day of the week or week of the year, there are many things that we have to deal with. From what to wear…to where to invest [buy furniture]. We don’t pretend to have the answers to all of life’s demands, but we can help when it comes to mutual funds [furniture]. In a world where every day is different you can depend on us to give you consistency and comfort. Visit us on the web at www.hastings.com or call 1-800-686-3321 today to find out where our mutual funds are [furniture is] available. The same dependent variables used in studies 2 and 3 were also employed in this study. Two additional items were also included to rule out a general response bias explanation (i.e., that people in the high white space condition generally respond positively to all scales placed before them). The two additional items not mentioned by creative directors as a meaning of white space were: “Hastings promotes equality in the work-place”, and “Hastings donates considerable money to the community”. As with other items, these were assessed on a seven-point scale anchored by 1= “Strongly Disagree” and 7 = “Strongly Agree”. Further, image quality was also 27 assessed using the same scales reported in Study 3. Results An initial MANOVA was used to assess the attitude measures, using the product category and nature of ad as dependent variables (see Table 5). The product category demonstrated a number of main effects, with the furniture product category demonstrating higher values on the quality (f = 0.16), not risky (f = 0.27), expensiveness (f = 0.25), general attitude toward the brand (f = 0.16) and purchase intention (f = 0.19). This is likely due to greater product relevance (e.g., people could actually assess the value of the product by looking at the picture). Product category, however did not interact with the type of the advertisement. For cases where the type of the advertisement differed, contrasts were conducted to examine the source of the difference. In order to demonstrate that the level of white-space was having an effect, it is necessary to see a significant difference between the full-page low white space ad and the full-page high white space ad (i.e., to rule out advertisement size) and also a significant contrast between the full-page high white space ad and the fifth-page low white space ad (i.e., to rule out image size). Note that this is a very conservative test criterion. Based on the initial MANOVA results (i.e., those reported in Table 5), significant effects were observed for the type of advertisement along the following dimensions: quality (f = 0.36), low risk (f = 0.30), prestige (f = 0.28), market share (f = 0.29), trust (f = 0.36), leadership (f = 0.28) and attitude toward the brand (f = 0.16). Based on the supplemental, preplanned contrasts (see Table 6), the following observations can be made: similar to Studies 2 and 3, white space is found to significantly contribute to perceptions of higher quality, lower risk, higher prestige, increased trust, and a higher general evaluation of the brand. Similar to Study 3, white space was found to contribute to perceptions that Hastings is a leader. Unlike Study 3, white space is not found to significantly impact on the perceived size of the company or the perceived market share. 28 Furthermore, although purchase intention was found to vary in Studies 2 and 3, it is not found to vary in the present context. It is important to note that neither of the “extraneous” items (i.e., the perception of equality in the work-place and donation of money to the community) were significantly influenced by either of the independent variables. A separate MANOVA was conducted to examine whether the size of the image impacted perceived image quality. Perceived resolution for the large image ( x = 5.33) was found to differ, at marginal levels of significance, from the smaller image ( x = 4.89, F1,178 = 3.43, p < .10), but this is in a direction opposite to what one would expect if resolution was driving the other effects. The perceived level of detail in the larger image ( x = 5.23) did not differ significantly from the smaller image ( x = 4.90, F1,178 = 2.35, n.s.). Further, the perceived picture quality for the large image ( x = 5.13) relative to the smaller image was not significant ( x = 4.83, F1,178 = 1.94, n.s.). ---------------------------------Insert table 4 about here ------------------------------------------------------------------Insert table 5 about here ---------------------------------Discussion The purpose of Study 4 was to determine whether the white space results in previous studies might be explained by image size alone. A further motivating factor underlying this experiment was to examine whether the effect of white space would be attenuated by the use of an image-related product (in this case furniture) versus an image-unrelated product (mutual funds). One possibility would have been that the larger image in the image-related condition would tend to be more effective because of a greater visual presence of product relevant cues in 29 the image. This is not found to be the case. White space was equally effective at conveying meaning whether the image it surrounded was related to the product or not. Results from this study generally affirm the findings from the prior two experiments. White space is again found to positively impact on perceptions of quality, low risk, prestige, trust, leadership, and brand attitude. While measures of quality, low risk, increased expensiveness, attitude toward the brand, and purchase intentions were greater for the product category related to the image (i.e., the furniture company) relative to the mutual fund condition, no interactions between white space and product category were observed. That is, the meanings conveyed by white space were equivalent for both products. GENERAL DISCUSSION This paper is about visual rhetoric and employs social science methods. It makes the argument that one promising way to study advertising is by treating it as rhetoric. It points to the paucity of research on advertising visuals, particularly given the well documented trend toward visual advertising. Its empirical efforts are supported by a very straightforward theoretical foundation in visual rhetoric. We chose the white space trope due to its particular properties, and its rhetorical appropriateness for this argument: something understood by advertising professionals and consumers alike, but literally seen as nothing (the absence of information) in the extant consumer research literature. Unlike other debates about pictures, representation and information, there can be little ambiguity about the amount of white space in an ad. This makes white space different from pictures of objects where resemblance to a “real” analogue becomes a point of debate (see Scott 1994a; Mitchell and Olson 1981). We chose this specific figure to make a point, in fact several points. First among them being that advertising possesses a well established rhetorical system, much of it visual in nature and understood by the people who make 30 the ads and the people who read them. We also point to this being overlooked by the extant literature, and suggest taking a much broader view of “information” and advertising. We believe our data support this thesis. Our first study demonstrated that creative directors had very similar beliefs about the meaning of white space. Surrounding a good or service with white space is held by the actual makers of ads to indicate greater prestige, trustworthiness and quality. Study 2 demonstrates that when the amount of white space is experimentally manipulated, participants who see an ad that is high in white space assume the company to be more prestigious, trustworthy and of higher quality than those who see the same ads without this visual element. In study 1, a number of professionals (58.1%) thought that size of the ad should interact with white space, in other words, white space worked best in bigger ads. A substantial minority, however, thought that ad size would make no difference in the effectiveness of white space. Study 3 was designed to test this potential interaction of white space and ad size. It was found that size did not interact with white space. We did, however, find evidence of consumers inferring white space to mean market power and brand leadership, which were the other two brand meanings mentioned by a large number of creative directors. Study 4 found that the effect is not simply an artifact of the relevance of the image to the product category, or the physical size of the image. Taken together these findings indicate that the producers and receivers have very congruent understandings of white space as a visual figure of speech: it means power, prestige, quality, leadership and trust. The finding of a shared meaning from something previously considered to be “nothing” demonstrates that it is not only not nothing, it is part of a shared commercial language, a visual rhetoric. It should be noted that while we find a quite coherent pattern of results with respect to 31 prestige, trustworthiness and quality, the constructs of leadership and market power were a bit mixed. White space was found to convey leadership in both studies 3 and 4, where the ads were placed into a mock newspaper. We believe the replication across two studies using different brands and visuals supports the contention that this effect may not have been observed in study 2 due to the lack of context. Market power is a different matter. We only observed white space leading to perceptions of market power in study 3. Since the effect did not replicate in study 4, which also placed the ads into mock newspapers, we are left questioning the degree to which white space conveys market power to consumers. It appears, therefore, that while creative directors think white space conveys market power, consumers may not always share this view. Future research may wish to explore the factors which may moderate this relationship. Additionally, our results call attention to the critical need for the study of a visual rhetoric (Scott 1994a) and for research methods and measures that are sensitive to the type of visual communication which makes up most of the ads in the contemporary world. There is wide potential for the application of these visual communication findings: from copy testing more in line with practice to better informed public policy makers who have demonstrated a concern for the meaning associated with visual presentations in advertisements (e.g., the recently mandated restrictions on visuals in tobacco and alcohol advertising). The need for visual communication methodology should be abundantly clear. This article also offers implications for the larger scholarly discourse on what it means to live in a consumer society, how the language of consumption is largely one of visual rhetoric. The commercial visual is at the very eye of the storm in contemporary social theory (e.g.: Adorno 1967; Baudrillard 1988; Berger 1972; Bourdieu 1979, Eco 1975; Ewen 1988; Foucault 32 1988; Willamson 1978; Wollen 1993). Contemporary social thought argues that a sea of images (mostly commercial) are the defining aspect of our culture and our epoch. Leiss, Kline and Jhally (1986, p. 231) argue that it’s not just pictures replacing words, but the formation of a whole new way of thinking about how ads work. “The shift away from text (the dominant field of representation before the commercialization of media) is important because it indicates new relationships are being forged between language and visual image within the basic codes of advertising.” We argue that these basic codes of advertising have barely been mentioned in the consumer research literature. This is, of course, one of the modernist biases which many linguists and many critics bemoan: that language and picturing, in western thought, are so peculiarly divided. W. J. T. Mitchell’s invocation of Ludwig Wittgenstein is particularly apropos: “A picture held us captive. And we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably” (Wittgenstein 1953, cited in Mitchell 1980, p. 271). It is in our view good for consumer researchers to take note of, and even study what is one of the major socio-cultural event-streams of our day. Advertising, in no small part, works when and because it makes contact with this stream, swims in it, immerses the product in it. To read the extant consumer research literature, we would not even know the stream was there. We argue for attention to the reality and relevance of advertising’s visual rhetorical system. But let us be clear on another point: we do not dispute for a moment that consumers process information, or that the study of consumer information processing is wrongheaded or useless. To the contrary, in fact, we argue that a visual figure of speech is information that has to be processed. We simply take an approach that is socially, historically and rhetorically grounded. The studies presented here have some limitations. For one, we studied one visual 33 rhetorical device and one device only. While making for a “cleaner” set of experiments, not all ads operate with the aid of a single visual device, although quite a few do. Second, we fully acknowledge the fact that consumers exposed to ads in these artificial exposure conditions may not operate like those in a more natural ecology. Third, the scales we used to assess betweengroup differences in brand perceptions may have cued respondents in a somewhat artificial manner. 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Mitchell (ed.), The Language of Images (1980), Chicago: University of Chicago Press, p. 271 40 Wollen, Peter (1993), Raiding the Icebox: Reflections on Twentieth-Century Culture, Bloomington: University of Indiana Press. 41 TABLE 1 CREATIVE DIRECTORS BELIEFS ABOUT BRAND SIGNALS/MEANINGS CONVEYED BY WHITE SPACE (N=31) Category Number Meaning/Signal % of Respondents 1 Prestigious/Upscale/Expensive/High-End 61.3% 2 Confidence/Power/Financial Strength 41.9% 3 Trust/Stability 35.5% 4 Leadership/Cutting Edge 32.3% 5 Quality 16.7% 6 Fashionable/Contemporary 12.9% 7 Healthy/Good for Environment 9.7% 8 Approachable 9.7% 9 Other Signal/Meaning 9.7% 42 TABLE 2 EFFECT OF PRODUCT CATEGORY AND WHITE SPACE ON BRAND PERCEPTIONS (STUDY 2) Statement Mean Evaluation by Conditiona Clothing Mutual Fund Low High Low High White Space White Space White Space White Space (n=31) (n=32) (n=33) (n=34) Analysis of Variance (F-Value) White Space (WS) Main Effect Product (P) Main Effect WS X P Interaction Hastings is a large company. 4.35 4.56 4.45 4.32 --- --- --- Hastings mutual funds/clothes are of high quality. 4.55 5.13 4.39 5.00 8.56 ** --- --- It is not risky to purchase Hastings mutual funds/clothes. 4.45 4.91 4.18 4.88 7.23 ** --- --- Hastings is a prestigious brand of mutual funds/clothes. 4.19 4.88 3.94 4.71 9.04 ** --- --- Hastings has considerable market share. 3.90 3.94 3.97 4.24 --- --- --- It is more expensive to purchase Hastings mutual funds/clothes, relative to competitors. 4.26 4.84 4.03 3.82 --- 9.83 ** 3.96 *** Hastings can be trusted. 4.35 4.69 4.45 5.25 9.58 ** --- --- Hastings is a leader rather than a follower. 4.19 4.63 4.06 4.71 --- --- --- Overall, I have a positive attitude toward Hastings. 3.77 4.41 3.85 4.91 15.30 *** --- --- If Hastings comes to my region I will buy from them. 3.42 3.81 2.97 3.38 4.01 ** --- --- 0.859* (10, 117) 0.787*** (10, 117) 0.934 (10, 117) Overall MANOVA Modelb a Mean b of seven point scale anchored by 1= “Strongly Disagree” and 7 = “Strongly Agree”. Values for effects are Wilks’ Lambda, with Hypotheses Degrees of Freedom and Error Degrees of Freedom reported in parentheses beneath. * p<0.05 p<0.01 *** p<0.001 ** 43 TABLE 3 EFFECT OF AD SIZE AND WHITE SPACE ON BRAND PERCEPTIONS (STUDY 3) Statement Mean Evaluation by Conditiona Low White Space High White Space Small Medium Large Small Medium Large Ad Ad Ad Ad Ad Ad (n=28) (n=28) (n=29) (n=31) (n=30) (n=33) Analysis of Variance (F-Value) White Space (WS) Main Effect Size (S) Main Effect WS X S Interaction Hastings is a large company. 4.07 4.64 4.76 4.71 5.43 5.45 14.25*** 5.91** --- Hastings mutual funds/clothes are of high quality. 4.46 4.36 4.41 4.81 5.03 5.21 15.23 *** --- --- It is not risky to purchase Hastings mutual funds/clothes. 3.89 3.89 4.10 4.42 4.73 4.58 10.45 *** --- --- Hastings is a prestigious brand of mutual funds/clothes. 3.79 3.93 4.28 4.52 4.97 4.91 20.45 *** --- --- Hastings has considerable market share. 3.61 4.14 4.17 4.42 4.67 4.64 12.50 *** --- --- It is more expensive to purchase Hastings mutual funds/clothes, relative to competitors. 3.29 3.50 3.93 3.84 3.73 3.82 --- --- Hastings can be trusted. 4.25 4.18 4.31 4.87 5.07 4.76 18.97 *** --- --- Hastings is a leader rather than a follower. 4.00 4.43 4.41 4.68 4.93 5.06 10.76 *** --- --- Overall, I have a positive attitude toward Hastings. 4.25 4.32 4.00 4.81 5.03 4.79 15.58 *** --- --- If Hastings comes to my region I will buy from them. 3.14 3.36 3.07 3.74 3.60 3.42 4.67 * --- --- 0.808*** (10, 164) 0.877 (20, 328) 0.931 (20, 328) Overall MANOVA Modelb aMean of seven point scale anchored by 1= “Strongly Disagree” and 7 = “Strongly Agree”. Values for effects are Wilks’ Lambda, with Hypotheses Degrees of Freedom and Error Degrees of Freedom reported in parentheses beneath. * p<0.05 ** p<0.01 ***p<0.001 b --- 44 TABLE 4 EFFECT OF AD SIZE AND WHITE SPACE ON BRAND PERCEPTIONS (STUDY 4) Mean Evaluation by Conditiona Mutual Funds 1/5 Full-page 1/5 Full-page Page Low WS Full-page Page High WS Low WS (n=31) High WS Low WS (n=32) (n=30) (n=31) (n=30) 4.45 4.53 4.58 4.60 4.03 MANOVA (F-Value) Furniture Statement Full-page Low WS (n=30) Hastings is a large company. 4.53 Hastings promotes equality in the work-place. 4.03 4.00 4.17 4.03 4.17 4.00 Hastings furniture is/mutual funds are of high quality. 4.57 5.38 4.93 4.32 5.27 4.23 It is not risky to purchase Hastings furniture/mutual funds. 4.83 5.53 4.73 4.23 4.90 Hastings is a prestigious brand of furniture/mutual funds. 4.47 5.03 4.13 4.26 Hastings has considerable market share. 4.43 4.28 3.57 Hastings donates considerable money to the community. 3.50 3.78 It is more expensive to purchase Hastings furniture/mutual funds, relative to competitors. 4.43 Hastings can be trusted. Ad (A) Product (P) AXP Interaction --- --- --- --- --- --- 10.56 *** 4.35 * --- 4.07 8.34 *** 13.06 *** --- 4.63 3.83 7.00 *** --- --- 4.13 4.10 3.63 7.45 *** --- --- 3.70 3.90 3.90 3.77 --- --- --- 4.59 4.17 3.61 4.00 3.93 --- 10.68 *** --- 4.60 4.94 4.20 4.35 5.37 4.33 11.45 *** --- --- Hastings is a leader rather than a follower. 4.40 5.22 4.03 4.06 4.77 3.83 9.21 *** --- --- Overall, I have a positive attitude toward Hastings. Attitude toward the Brand 4.90 5.31 4.43 4.42 4.93 4.07 6.95 *** 4.56 * --- If Hastings comes to my region I will buy from them. Purchase intention Overall MANOVA Modelb 4.03 4.03 3.57 3.29 3.77 3.37 2.16 * 6.56 * --- aMean of seven point scale anchored by 1= “Strongly Disagree” and 7 = “Strongly Agree”. Values for effects are Wilks’ Lambda, with Hypotheses Degrees of Freedom and Error Degrees of Freedom reported in parentheses beneath. * p<0.05 ** p<0.01 ***p<0.001 b 0.678*** (24, 332) 0.754*** (12, 166) 0.873 (24, 332) 45 TABLE 5 CONTRASTS OF ADVERTISEMENT CONDITIONS (STUDY 4) Statement Mean Evaluation by Conditiona Furniture Full-page Full-page 1/5-page Low WS High WS Low WS (1) (2) (3) MANOVA (F-Value) Contrast (1) vs. (2) Contrast (1) vs. (3) Contrast (2) vs. (3) Hastings is a large company. 4.56 4.56 4.28 --- --- --- Hastings promotes equality in the work-place. 4.03 4.08 4.08 --- --- --- Hastings furniture is/mutual funds are of high quality. 4.44 5.32 4.58 19.39 *** --- 13.14 *** It is not risky to purchase Hastings furniture/mutual funds. 4.52 5.23 4.40 10.51 *** --- 14.08 *** Hastings is a prestigious brand of furniture/mutual funds. 4.36 4.84 3.98 4.71 * --- 12.09 *** Hastings has considerable market share. 4.28 4.19 3.60 --- 14.71 *** 9.34 *** Hastings donates considerable money to the community. 3.70 3.84 3.73 --- --- --- It is more expensive to purchase Hastings furniture/mutual funds, relative to competitors. 4.02 4.31 4.05 --- --- --- Hastings can be trusted. 4.48 5.15 4.27 13.15 *** --- 19.97 *** Hastings is a leader rather than a follower. 4.23 5.00 3.93 9.17 ** --- 18.28 *** Overall, I have a positive attitude toward Hastings. Attitude toward the Brand 4.66 5.13 4.25 4.19 * --- 12.84 ** If Hastings comes to my region I will buy from them. Purchase intention 3.66 3.90 3.47 --- --- 5.11 * aMean of seven point scale anchored by 1= “Strongly Disagree” and 7 = “Strongly Agree”. * p<0.05 ** p<0.01 ***p<0.001 46 FIGURE 1 SAMPLE ADVERTISEMENTS Panel A Panel B Panel C 47 FIGURE 2 EXPERIMENTAL STIMULI (STUDY 2)* Like Clockwork. No matter what day of the week or week of the year, there are a myriad of Like Clockwork. No matter what day of the week or week of the year, there are a myriad of things to deal with. From what to wear…to where to invest. We don’t pretend to have all the things to deal with. From what to wear…to where to invest. We don’t pretend to have all the answers to all of the demands life places on you, but we can help when it comes to mutual answers to all of the demands life places on you, but we can help when it comes to mutual funds. In a turbulent world where you can count on tomorrow being different than today you can funds. In a turbulent world where you can count on tomorrow being different than today you can depend on us to give you consistency and comfort. Visit us on the web at www.hastings.com or depend on us to give you consistency and comfort. Visit us on the web at www.hastings.com or call 1-800-686-3321 today to find out where our mutual funds are available. call 1-800-686-3321 today to find out where our mutual funds are available. Hastings Hastings Panel A: Low White Space Ad Panel B: High White Space Ad * Stimuli presented here are for the Clothing condition. The stimuli for the Mutual Fund condition were identical, with the exception that “Mutual Funds” was replaced by “Clothes”. Note: Image quality has been reduced to minimize file size. A high resolution image was used in the study, and is available on request. 48 FIGURE 3 EXPERIMENTAL STIMULI (STUDIES 3 & 4) Study 3 Full Page Low White Space Half Page Low White Space Quarter Page Low White Space Full Page High White Space Half Page High White Space Quarter Page High White Space Full Page High White Space 1/5 Page Low White Space Study 4* Full Page Low White Space * This experiment employed a 3 x 2 full factorial design manipulating the amount of white space and advertisement size (diagramed here) as well as product category (mutual funds versus furniture).