Download Alcohol Product Placements and the Third-Person Effect

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Alcohol Product
Placements and the
Third-Person Effect
Television & New Media
12(5) 412­–440
© Author(s) 2011
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DOI: 10.1177/1527476410385477
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Dong-Hee Shin1 and Jun Kyo Kim1
Abstract
The third-person effect framework assumes that people attribute different effects
to mediated messages on themselves as opposed to others. It assumes further that
they perceive that persuasive media messages have greater effects on others than
on themselves. This study investigated perceptions of the possible effects of alcohol
product placement in youth-oriented films on different target groups, thereby
extending current third-person effects research to an area of advertising other
than the traditional forms. Specifically, this study examined (1) whether and to
what degree the third-person effect functions in the special case of alcohol product
placement in youth-oriented movies; (2) the influence of selected demographic,
perceptual, and attitudinal variables on consumer perceptions of third-person alcohol
product placement effects; and (3) the relationship between perceived third-person
effects and support for alcohol product placement regulation in youth movies. The
authors found a significant disparity between the perceived effect of alcohol product
placement in youth movies on oneself and others and offer empirical support for the
theoretical link between third-person perception and a procensorship attitude.
Keywords
perceived effects, alcohol product placements, third-person effect
This study examined the third-person effect with regard to perceptions of the influence
of alcohol product placement in movies. Placement of certain types of products, such
as cigarettes, in movies is considered a way of circumventing other media bans that
exist for the product. Products placed in adult-oriented films and programs can be
1
Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, Korea
Corresponding Author:
Dong-Hee Shin, Sungkyunkwan University, Department of Interaction Science,
53 Myeongnyun-dong 3-ga Jongno-gu, Seoul, 110-745, Korea
Email: [email protected]
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viewed by inappropriate audiences to which they are not directed. For example, underage viewers may see products such as alcoholic beverages and cigarettes. The implication of this kind message is worrisome. For example, some feature films have presented
drinkers as powerful and successful people, which is problematic for opponents of
drinking. Alcohol industry watchdogs say that there should be a new movie rating
system that includes alcohol use in its evaluation to reduce the number of young people exposed to these kinds of messages (Wake 2002).
The presence of alcohol brands in youth movies has generated sharp criticism from
alcohol industry watchdogs, who have called attention to its possible effect on young
viewers. The problem with alcohol product placements in youth movies is that young
people can see these products being used even though they are not supposed to see
such advertising. The portrayal of alcohol in youth movies conveys messages about
drinking that may encourage young people to drink. For example, underage drinking
is often treated humorously, and the seriousness of problematic drinking is often overlooked (Grube 1993). Watchdog groups are stepping up their criticism of alcohol
product placements—which, they say, are relatively ignored by federal regulators—
amid evidence that alcohol companies are turning to them more regularly.
Like tobacco, alcoholic beverages are controversial products. Traditionally, advertising for controversial products has been criticized when it promotes socially undesirable and potentially harmful behaviors in consumers (Youn, Faber, and Shah 2000).
Studies have reported rather high levels of public support for the regulation of controversial product advertising, even though the products are not illegal, and such advertising has limited protection as free speech (Calfee and Ringold 1994). Support for
regulating controversial product advertisements has been attributed to the belief that
such regulation will help prevent undesirable influences on consumers and protect
vulnerable consumer segments (Grube and Wallack 1994).
Advertisers and marketers are increasingly using product placement to reach consumers as new technology and an expanding range of media options makes controversial television advertising a less feasible way to promote alcohol brands. Faced with
various challenges, alcohol beverage advertisers have started to use product placement
to reach a mass audience or as part of tailored campaigns targeting specific audiences.
This study explores questions related to young consumers’ perceptions of alcohol
product placement in youth-oriented movies and the relationship of consumer perceptions and other factors to behavioral outcomes, using research on the third-person effect
as an empirical framework.
Literature Review
Concerns with Alcohol Product Placement in Movies
Young people are constantly exposed to alcohol ads, and both parents and teens are
concerned. According to a poll by the Center for Science in the Public Interest
(2001), 67 percent of teens and 72 percent of adults surveyed agreed that beer and
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liquor companies target underage drinkers or teenagers with their ads. In a recent
survey in Maine, more than two-thirds of the nearly five hundred youth (both college
and high school students) surveyed believe that the alcohol industry is trying to
appeal to young people through advertising (Maine Youth Empowerment and Policy
2005). A survey of alcohol ads in the most popular men’s and women’s magazine
(Austin et al. 2003) found that college students believed underage drinkers were
targeted 65 percent of the time in men’s magazines and 54 percent of the time in
women’s magazines.
Early studies on alcohol and youth have shown small but significant correlations
between exposure to alcohol advertising and drinking (Atkin and Block 1981; Atkin,
Neuendorf, and McDermott 1983). Young drinkers who were more frequently exposed
to alcohol ads were more accurate in identifying brands of beer when shown alcohol
ads with masked brand names (Aitken et al. 1988). Awareness of beer advertising was
predicted by exposure to television sports and weekend afternoon and evening television viewing; awareness was significantly correlated with drinking beliefs and knowledge of beer brands and slogans among fifth and sixth graders (Grube and Wallack
1994). Children who were more aware of beer ads had more favorable beliefs about
drinking, which then influenced their intentions to drink as adults; those who expected
to drink more frequently as adults also believed that their peers were more approving
of drinking and their parents drank more frequently (Grube and Wallack 1994). Further­
more, there have been a handful of experimental studies of responses to beer ads that
showed a significant and immediate impact on attitudes and predicted future use of
alcohol (Kohn, Smart, and Oghorne 1984; Slater et al. 1997).
Product placement, or brand placement, in the movies “involves incorporating brands
in movies in return for money or for some promotional or other consideration” (Gupta
and Gould 1997, 37). Although product placement is a well-known and widely acce­
pted practice today, the controversy surrounding it has not disappeared. Critics believe
that product placement involves an inherent kind of deception in that placements are
not clearly labeled as advertisements and therefore may be viewed as hidden but paid
persuasive messages (Balasubramanian 1994).
Some research studies have established that the effect of alcohol advertising is
likely to be found more often among underage youth and young adults because exposure to alcohol advertising is greater for them than for older adults (Atkin and Block
1981; Atkin, Neuendorf, and McDermott 1983). As advertisers use appealing images
that try to associate alcohol brands with favorable characters and lifestyles, such as
Budweiser’s talking lizards and Spuds MacKenzie, repeated exposure is believed
particularly to influence young people’s perceptions and attitudes toward alcohol
advertising messages and thereby create positive expectations about alcohol use.
Consequently, it is possible that the portrayals of alcohol and alcohol drinking contribute to an overall social climate that tends to normalize and approve of alcohol use.
From the perspective of uses and gratifications theory, it is argued that children and
adolescents particularly welcome information about a substance with which they are
experimenting and thus likely acquire more ideas and images from alcohol advertising messages (Atkin, Neuendorf, and McDermott 1983).
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Concerns about product placement reduce to two kinds of issues. One is related to
the ethics of the product itself. The other is connected to the ethics of product placement as a marketing strategy. Both of these issues are controversial among consumers
and practitioners.
Sung and Gregorio (2008) found that attitudes toward brand placement are positive
overall across media but that brand placements in songs and video games are less
acceptable than within films and television programs. Gupta and Gould (1997) conducted a survey of consumer acceptance of product placement in light of ethical issues,
and the results were consistent with the outcomes of prior research. Consumers generally approved the presence in movies of uncontroversial products more than controversial products, such as tobacco, alcohol, and guns. In addition, differences in individual
characteristics, such as the frequency of watching movies, attitudes toward product
placement, and gender, were found with regard to consumer acceptability of product
placement. Consumers who went to movie theaters more frequently objected less to
restrictions against product placement, and those who had positive attitudes toward
product placement were more likely to be accepting of product placement. In addition,
males were more likely than females to accept placing controversial products in movies.
The ethics of branded product placement can be considered from two perspectives:
(1) common concerns about the ethical nature of placement and (2) the ethical nature
of specific products. While research conducted to determine the effectiveness of product placements in entertainment media, such as television programs, movies, and music,
is inconsistent and often dependent on several different factors, the consensus seems
to be that, with regard to consumer and audience attitudes, Americans in general do
not object to its practice (Gupta and Gould 1997; Nebenzahl and Secunda 1993; Ong
and Meri 1994).
A content analysis of an eight-week sample of eighteen prime-time programs
revealed that alcohol messages are tied to the plot and communicated verbally and that
positive messages are associated with subtle visual portrayals (Russell and Russell
2009). The problem with alcohol product placements in movies and television programs is that young people can see these products being used, even though such use is
not considered advertising, which they are not allowed to see. Alcohol portrayals on
television convey messages about drinking that may encourage young people to drink.
For example, underage drinking is often treated humorously, and the seriousness of
problematic drinking is often overlooked (Grube 1993).
Alcohol use is often depicted in movies. Several content analyses have pointed out
the high prevalence of alcohol use in G-rated movies and G-rated animated films.
However, because G-rated films represent fewer than 10 percent of all films released,
this covers only a select sample of movies watched by children and adolescents.
Everett et al. (1998) examined the use of alcohol in a sample of the top-grossing
American films released between 1986 and 1994 (N = 100). They found it disturbing
that protobacco and proalcohol events were common in PG and PG-13 films. Most
films (96 percent) had references that seemed to support alcohol use. Only one-third
of films had any references that discouraged the use of alcohol, and at least one lead
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character used alcohol in 79 percent of this sample. In addition, the hazards of drinking
were not reflected in the behaviors of film characters. In the most complete content
analysis performed to date, Roberts et al. (1999) examined alcohol use in the top two
hundred video rentals for 1996–1997, of which alcohol appeared in 93 percent. Of
adult characters, 65 percent used alcohol. Only 9 percent of movies contained an antiuse statement, and refusal of alcohol was depicted in only 14 percent. In 43 percent of
movies, drinking was depicted as a positive experience. Thus, the available data on
movie content indicate that alcohol depictions are prevalent and, for the most part,
positive.
Teens consume a huge amount of media, spending some five to seven hours per day
using all types of media. Nonetheless, few researchers have exa­mined the role played
by entertainment media in youth alcohol use. Bahk (2001) showed 148 college students
positive and negative movie depictions of alcohol use. The study found that the attractiveness of the drinking character’s personality increased favorable attitudes and dispositions toward alcohol in the positive condition. Given the prevalence of drinking
depictions in movies, and the great extent to which young people may be exposed, the
paucity of research exploring the relationships between movie alcohol advertising and
young consumers’ alcohol perceptions is surprising.
In addition to implicitly advertising products through placement, movies can associate a product with a celebrity. Indeed, celebrities increase the impact of the mass media,
which allows products and brands to be associated with well-known, attractive role
models. For example, when Tom Cruise is seen drinking Miller beer in the film Cocktail,
the consumer may form an association between the actor and/or his character and the
product or brand. Mr. Cruise is shown drinking from bottles of Miller during several
bar scenes. Research has shown that the endorsed product can take on the characteristics of the endorser.
The most common alcohol product targeted toward young adult audiences is beer.
In 2004, the Marin Institute for the Prevention of Alcohol and Other Drug Problems
criticized the film Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story for marketing beer to teenagers
through product placement. The movie, which was the nation’s top-grossing film in
its first week after release, is rated PG-13. However, the movie prominently displays
packaging and signs for Budweiser and Bud Light, brands sold by Anheuser-Busch.
In 2006, Sony Pictures Entertainment signed a six-figure promotional partnership
with the Netherlands-based Heineken Brewing Company to showcase the company’s
product in the James Bond action thriller Casino Royale. Promotional activities
included heavy product placement in the film, including scenes in which the new
James Bond actor Daniel Craig is seen drinking the beer. Everyone knows that James
Bond likes his martinis, but why is he being used to advertise vodka and beer to the
audience, some of whom are children, in his new PG-13 movie Casino Royale? Both
Smirnoff vodka and Heineken appear in the film and in a massive worldwide copromotional campaign. The alcohol brands are featured in many 007 films.
In summary, youth-oriented movies should be off-limits to alcohol advertising
according to the industry’s own marketing guidelines, which maintain that companies
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cannot advertise in venues where more than 30 percent of the audience is underage.
No one keeps a close eye on how many teens actually go to youth-oriented movies, so
alcohol companies feel free to exploit this channel to reach young people.
The Third-Person Effect in Alcohol Product Placements
The third-person effect has generated a considerable body of mass communication
research and has influenced the way researchers think about media effects. The thirdperson effect suggests that people tend to believe that a media message has greater
effects on others, or the third person, than on themselves and that these perceived media
effects may influence behavior (Davison 1983).
The third-person effect framework is situated in the indirect effects approach to the
study of mass media influence. Other frameworks of the indirect effects approach include
the two-step flow model, second-level agenda setting, the spiral of silence, pluralistic
ignorance, the theory of planned behavior, and the presumed influence model. The
indirect effects approach hypothesizes that people who attend to media develop perceptions about the influence of messages on others and then react to those perceptions.
This approach does not challenge or deny the existence of direct media effects—the
dominant approach to the study of media influence. Rather, the indirect effects approach
suggests that media influence how people perceive the way media affect others and then
react to those presumed effects by changing their beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors. In the
direct effects approach, a person’s reactions to messages must be real; in the indirect
approach, reactions are based on the presumed effects that media have on others, which
can occur whether the presumptions are accurate or not (Gunther and Storey 2003).
Third-person effect inquiry has focused on two major components: (1) the perceptual component hypothesis, which predicts that people perceive that the media influence other people more than themselves, and (2) the behavioral component hypothesis,
which predicts that people will act on perceived third-person effects. The behavioral
hypothesis has not drawn much attention, however, except for research about support
for media censorship in the context of socially undesirable media content (Gunther
1995; Hoffner and Buchanan 1999; McLeod, Eveland, and Nathanson 1997; Youn, Faber,
and Shah 2000).
Few third-person effect studies have examined product or service advertising; most
have focused on public service announcements (PSAs), political campaigns, or directto-consumer prescription drug advertising (Gunther and Thorson 1992). Cohen and
Davis (1991) examined the perceived influences of negative political ads. The study
found that respondents perceived that attack ads for their candidates influenced other
people more than themselves, whereas attack ads for disliked candidates influenced
themselves more than others. Gunther and Thorson (1992) reported third-person
effects for general product ads but not for PSAs. Among various product ads, they
found that those that included more positive emotions generated weaker third-person
effects, suggesting that the third-person effect is contingent on not only the type of
media content but also viewers’ attitudes toward a particular message.
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Gunther and Mundy (1993) compared informative and persuasive message formats
and found that messages with the explicit intention to persuade generated greater
third-person effects than informative messages without persuasive intentions. Brosius
and Engel (1996) found that television commercials and campaign ads were associated
with a greater third-person effect than television news or radio music programs.
Youn, Faber, and Shah (2000) found that people perceived that gambling ads had
more effects on others and that the third-person effect is positively associated with
support for censorship of gambling advertising. Leshner, Holbert, and Yoon (2002)
studied the influence of the third-person effect of negative political advertising on
actual voter turnout and found that people are more likely to vote (i.e., there is greater
voter turnout) when they perceive greater counterendorsement effects on others.
According to Umphrey (2002), the third-person effect perspective holds great promise in the advertising research arena, particularly for the topic of the third-person effect
as a moderator of advertising-prompted outcomes. Conventional wisdom suggests that
consumers act in the real, everyday world on their perceptions, whether those perceptions are accurate or inaccurate.
An interesting aspect of product placement in films is that people tend to exhibit
mixed perceptions of the message’s value. In general, advertising is considered less
valuable than other types of communication (e.g., Shavitt, Lowery, and Haefner 1998).
Two studies have shown that advertising messages are associated with strong thirdperson effects because of their explicit persuasive intent (Brosius and Engel 1996;
Gunther and Mundy 1993). Alcohol product placements in movies are a form of product advertising that has explicit and implicit persuasive purposes. Thus, as with other
forms of product advertising, people are likely to perceive that being influenced by
alcohol product placements in movies is socially undesirable.
Most of the public concern about the effects of product placements in the United
States has focused on the appearance of harmful products, especially those aimed at
children and teenagers (Lackey 1993), while other critiques have noted the hidden
nature of this technique in general (Balasubramanian 1994). These critiques are based
on the notion that the potential subconscious influence of product placements will inf­
luence the viewers most susceptible to being harmed by them. Many critics believe
that children and adolescents are most vulnerable to media (Wakefield et al. 2003).
Since alcohol advertising is generally perceived to be harmful either to individuals
or society, this study, using the third-person effect framework, attempts to explain the
motivations that drive third-person effect perceptions for alcohol product placement in
youth-oriented movies.
Predictors of Third-Person Perception
A careful look at third-person research reveals that some respondents are more prone
to third-person perceptions than others. What are the major factors that delimit thirdperson perceptions? The following considerations address this question.
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Self-esteem denotes the collection of beliefs or feelings that people have about
themselves. In other words, self-esteem refers to the beliefs about values, confidence,
and worthiness that people hold. How they define themselves influences motivation,
attitudes, and behaviors. Few research studies have focused on the relationship between
self-esteem and self-other disparity in message impact perception. This is true, despite
the third-person effect having been interpreted in several studies under the theoretical
framework of motivational bias engaging in self-esteem as a related factor and finding
that participants with high self-esteem exhibited stronger third-person effects than
those with low self-esteem. Self-esteem is taken into account in this study as one of the
receiver’s characteristics.
According to the social comparison framework, the third-person effect is explained
by self-enhancement motivation (Duck, Terry, and Hogg 1995). According to studies
based on motivational mechanisms, the third-person effect seems to occur especially
through downward comparisons in which people enhance their self-esteem and subjective well-being via comparison to less fortunate people. In other words, when people are asked to compare themselves to others, people assume for comparison a person
less intelligent or knowledgeable than themselves. They are then supposed to think
that those referents are less intelligent than themselves in noticing and understanding
the persuasive intent of message sources, which leads to an enhancement of
self-esteem.
The perceived desirability of a message is defined as people’s perceptions of the
extent to which being influenced by the message is desirable (Gunther and Mundy
1993). In many studies, the message topic was assumed to be perceived as positive
(desirable) or negative (undesirable) at face value, as manipulated by researchers. In
most cases, researchers have assumed that participants exposed to negative topics
(e.g., messages related to violence or pornography) would perceive the message as
undesirable, thereby showing the third-person effect (e.g., Wu and Koo 2001).
Meanwhile, positive topics were supposed to bring about a reverse third-person effect
in that a prosocial message was assumed to be good enough to influence the people
viewing it.
Many researchers have suggested that the desirability of a message should be tested
empirically because individuals may perceive the same message differently, thus leading to different perceptions of message impacts on themselves and others (Duck and
Mullin 1995; Duck, Terry, and Hogg 1995; Eveland and McLeod 1999; Gunther and
Thorson 1992; Perloff, 1999). For example, Duck and Mullin (1995) found that even
in a study with positive content, people perceive themselves as less influenced or more
influenced than others, depending on whether they perceive the impact of the message
as desirable or undesirable (i.e., perceived desirability of message). In this sense, the
perceived desirability of a message should be measured, and its role in the third person
effect should be exa­mined (Perloff 1999).
In the social comparison framework, the perceived desirability of events or messages plays an important role in the perception of one’s own risk vulnerability as
compared to that of others. According to social comparison, for self-esteem
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enhancement, individuals make downward comparisons and perceive that they are less
susceptible to undesirable messages and more susceptible to desirable ones than are
others. The less individuals perceive that the influence of a message is desirable, the
more they perceive the message will affect other people. Therefore, the expectation is
that the less the perceived desirability of alcohol product placement in youth movies,
the greater the third-person perception.
The importance of fit in the context of placement is acknowledged by both movie
viewers (DeLorme and Reid 1999) and placement practitioners. Perceived fit may
embed individual-level judgments about product, medium, communicator, and message dimensions (Balasubramanian 1994).
Indeed, fit, match, and congruence are concepts that have been well studied in many
areas of marketing communication and advertising, and the results of those studies
unequivocally show that a better fit creates more positive effects.
Attribution theory may provide some insight into the impact of a consumer’s perception of fit between alcoholic beverages and the medium (youth-oriented movies)
into which they are placed. Consumers will naturally question why the alcohol company is participating in a product placement advertising strategy. When consumers are
asked to evaluate the congruence between products and media, if they perceive that the
level of congruence is high, that attribution will then favorably affect their attitude to
the brand and their intention to purchase it. A logical association between the brand or
product and medium may help to form positive attribution as to the firm’s involvement
in product placement practice. A high-fit advertising strategy could minimize the consumer’s judgment or skepticism about the company’s motive and facilitate the acceptance of the advertising strategy. However, a low-fit strategy would adversely affect
consumers’ attitudes by encouraging questions about the brand’s appearance in the
medium, and if the brand placement is perceived as objectionable, these questions might
prompt resistance toward the message and counterargumentation. Therefore, it is reasonable to expect that people with a low-fit perception of alcohol product placement
in youth movies will assume that they are less affected than others.
Issue involvement is another characteristic that has been associated with the thirdperson effect (Gunther 1992). Issue involvement is the extent to which individuals are
concerned about an issue and the extent to which the issue is relevant and matters to
them. Mutz (1989) found a linear relationship between the size of the third-person
effect and the perceived level of involvement of a given issue, indicating that the size
of the third-person effect of news coverage was greatest among those who viewed the
riots in South Africa as “very important.”
Research provides evidence that more knowledgeable people tend think that media
content has slightly weaker effects on themselves than on other people. Price and
Tewkesbury (1996) found that more knowledgeable individuals believed that news
stories had less impact on themselves than others. Lasorsa (1989) demonstrated that
the third-person effect was greatest among people with greater perceived knowledge
of a given issue, and Driscoll and Salwen (1997) reported that the third-person effect
was greatest among people with higher levels of self-perceived knowledge of the media
content.
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Hypotheses and Research Questions
Hypothesis 1 is predicated on the well-established finding that people perceive media
messages to influence other people, not themselves (the third-person effect). Therefore,
the expectation is that respondents will perceive alcohol product placements in youthoriented films to have less influence on themselves than on other respondents.
Hypothesis 1 (H1): College students will perceive alcohol product placement in
youth-oriented movies to exert greater influence on others than on themselves.
There are two different effects of alcohol product placement in youth-oriented
movies: (1) effects on drinking (positive drinking expectancy; increase in drinking) and
(2) effects on brand preference (positive brand attitude, increase in the purchase of a
particular brand). However, the empirical results are somewhat mixed with regard to
the effect of alcohol advertising on drinking rates and brand preference. A study by
Saffer (2002) found that alcohol advertising increased consumption, whereas other
studies found that alcohol advertising affects brand choice but not overall consumption. Therefore, the first research question asks if there is a significant difference in
the size of the third-person effect between the effects on drinking and those on brand
preference.
Research Question 1 (RQ1): Does the magnitude of the third-person perception
differ according to the two different effects of alcohol product placements
(drinking and brand effects)?
The comparison referent refers to the people whom individuals have in mind when
asked to compare message impacts on themselves and other people. Consistent with
optimistic bias research, the magnitude of the third-person effect varies depending on
who is chosen as a comparative referent (Alicke et al. 1995). As with optimistic bias
research, the third-person effect has been reported to be greatest when participants
have compared themselves to others generally, such as typical or average group members (Cohen et al. 1988).
The social distance corollary assumes that the discrepancy between the perceived
media effects on others and those on oneself increases as others are defined in broader
and more global terms, that is, when there is more social distance between oneself and
others (Cohen et al. 1988; Cohen and Davis 1991; Gunther 1991).
Evidence of the relationships between social distance factors and the third-person
effect is particularly abundant in studies involving student samples. Early research of
the social distance corollary by Mutz (1989) found that the third-person effect was
greater among Stanford students when they compared themselves to people outside of
campus relative to other Stanford students. Cohen et al. (1988) found linear increases
in the third-person effect as social distance increased from other students to other people residing in the town to the general public. Gunther (1995) and Wu and Koo (2001)
found a greater third-person effect between student respondents and the general public
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than that between student participants and other students. Duck and Mullin (1995)
found that the third-person effect was more pronounced when people compared their
own vulnerability with that of vague and distant others. Henriksen and Flora (1999)
found that children believed antismoking messages had a greater influence on other
peers than on their best friends.
Concern over brand placements may be particularly great when one is considering
their impact on children and teens. Recently, much concern regarding socially controversial products such as tobacco or alcoholic beverages has centered on these products’
effect on children and teens. Children may be seen as more distant from themselves
than other adults and, therefore, potentially more vulnerable to message effects.
Therefore, to emphasize the age-based dimension of social distance (Eveland et al.
1999), the following hypothesis is proposed:
Hypothesis 2 (H2): As social distance increases, the magnitude of the third-person
perception increases (children > teens > other college students).
The search for individual differences in third-person perceptions has pointed to
self-identified knowledge and self-esteem as potentially important factors that delimit
third-person perceptions. Self-perceived knowledge (perceiving that one has exp­ertise
on the topic in question) and believing that one is better educated than others accurately predict the third-person effect (Driscoll and Salwen 1997; Lasorsa 1989). These
findings, coupled with evidence that self-esteem magnitude affects third-person perceptions, are consistent with the view that self-enhancement underlies the third-person
effect. Consistent with these findings, some research has found that people perceive
that content typically thought to be antisocial has a larger impact on others than on
themselves (e.g., television violence, pornography, antisocial rap; see Perloff 1999).
When people are highly involved in an issue, they tend to make rash and exaggerated judgments about media effects. These judgments can polarize attitudes, possibly
leading to increased fragmentation of social groups and greater intolerance. Several
studies on the third-person effect have demonstrated that a high level of product
involvement is related to a greater third-person effect.
The second question is posed to explore which factors might be related to the size
of the third-person effect in alcohol product placement in youth movies.
Research Question 2 (RQ2): When taken as a group of predictors (self-esteem,
self-perceived knowledge, issue involvement, perceived fit, and perceived
desirability), which of the factors under examination will be the strongest
predictor of the size of the third-person effect?
The perceptual bias of the self-other difference with regard to media effects is exp­
ected to influence people’s willingness to take action. The behavioral consequence of
the third-person effect has been observed in some studies regarding negative topics—
violence, pornography, or defamatory communication (e.g., Hoffner et al. 2001;
McLeod, Eveland, and Nathanson 1997; Rojas, Shah, and Faber 1996; Salwen and
Dupagne 1999; Wu and Koo 2001).
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Researchers have generally assumed that a link between the third-person effect and
support for censorship reflects a desire to protect others from undesirable media effects.
Several studies have addressed this assumption by separately examining perceived
effects on the self and others (Gunther 1995; Salwen 1998). Salwen (1998), for
example, noted that if support for media restrictions is a function of the third-person
effect, this outcome might be from increased concern about the effects these restriction
have on others, thereby reducing feelings of personal vulnerability, or a combination
of these responses. In fact, there is evidence that in some circumstances, the perceived
personal impact of messages may influence support for media restrictions (Gunther
1995). Recently, Neuwirth and Frederick (2002) suggested that the second-person
effect (i.e., the shared media effect) may be a better predictor of support for regulation
than the third-person effect because the second-person effect is grounded in judgments
of mutually shared influences and, therefore, may increase the possibility of common social interests and subsequent social actions.
Thus, the following research question is proposed:
Research Question 3 (RQ3): How will college students’ third-person perceptions (and perceived effects on themselves and others, separately and jointly)
be related to support for the regulation of alcohol product placement in youthoriented movies?
Method
Data Collection
To gain a better understanding of the perceived effects of alcohol product placements
in youth-oriented movies on oneself and related groups, a survey was administered to
college students from a large southeastern university.
The sample’s age range was appropriate because eighteen- to twenty-four-year-olds
are frequently the primary target audience movie producers hope to attract. In addition
to convenience, we considered both the participants and the comparison group as part
of the target market for alcoholic beverages and as current or future users of alcohol
beverages. The data for this study came from questionnaires administered to 301 students in five mass communication classes using convenience sampling. Participants
were compensated with extra credit points for their participation.
Participants were told that the purpose of the study was to gather consumer feedback on alcohol brands and how they are used in movies. After watching ten minutes
of video clips with ten alcohol brands edited from real movies for youth (rated G, PG,
or PG-13), they were asked to complete a questionnaire on which they recorded their
beliefs about general product placement practices. Participants were allowed as much
time as necessary to complete the questionnaire. The questionnaire took approximately
fifteen minutes to complete.
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Alcohol product placement in youth-oriented movies was used because it was presumed that such placement was undesirable. Third-person effect studies that examine
alcohol advertising found support for the perceptual hypothesis, underscoring the
robustness of the hypothesis with this issue (Rojas, Shah, and Faber 1996; Shah, Faber,
and Youn 1999; Banning 2001). In addition, one study that assessed media effects by
asking adolescents to estimate the perceived influence of product placements on themselves as compared with that on other people showed strong third-person effects (Nelson
and McLeod 2005).
Measures
Third-person perceptions. The third-person effect is typically operationalized as the
difference between perceptions of the influence of mass-mediated messages on the self
and on others. Usually, a positive value is interpreted as indicating a third-person effect
and a negative value as indicating a reverse third-person effect or a first-person effect.
In some cases, separate assessments of third-person effect or first-person perception are
conducted (Perloff 1999). This section included scales designed to measure respondents’ perceptions of alcohol product placement effects on themselves, other college
students, teens (thirteen to seventeen years old), and children younger than thirteen.
The perceived effects of alcohol product placement in youth-oriented movies on
oneself and others (children, teens, and other college students) were measured using a
7-point scale (Cho and Han 2004), ranging from not at all to very much. Respondents
were instructed to rate each of the statements by placing a check mark in one of seven
spaces, where 1 meant not at all and 7 meant very much. The four statements were
related to two different perceived effects of alcohol product placement in youthoriented movies: alcohol drinking effects and brand-specific effects.
The four statements were used to measure the four different types of third-person
effect for alcohol product placement in youth movies (G, PG, or PG-13), namely, the
affective drinking effect (“perception of whether myself/others would be influenced to
believe that alcohol drinking is glamorous by watching youth movies with scenes of
the main actors drinking branded alcohol”); the conative drinking effect (“perception
of whether myself/others would be influenced to increase alcohol consumption by
watching youth movies with scenes of the main actors drinking branded alcohol”); the
affective brand effect (“perception of whether myself/others would be influenced to
have a positive attitude toward particular alcohol brands by watching youth movies
with scenes of the main actors drinking a certain brand alcohol”); and the conative
brand effect (“perception of whether myself/others would be influenced to repeatedly
use particular alcohol brands by watching youth movies with scenes of the main actors
drinking a certain brand of alcohol”). These question formats are consistent with previous third-person effect studies (e.g., Duck and Mullin 1995; Eveland and McLeod
1999; Rucinski and Salmon 1990).
Support for alcohol product placement regulation. Respondents were asked to rate four
statements about the regulation of alcohol product placement in youth-oriented
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movies on a 7-point scale, on which 1 meant strongly disagree and 7 meant strongly
agree. The statements were identified from regulatory remedies suggested by previous
studies of consumers’ beliefs about advertising-related regulations (e.g., Gunther
1995; Salwen and Dupagne 1999; Youn, Faber, and Shah 2000).
The four statements were “Alcohol brand placements in movies should be restricted
to movies that are R rated,” “Any alcohol company that wants to use alcohol brand
placements in youth movies (G/PG/PG-13) should be allowed to do so without any
regulation,” “The government should leave the regulation of alcohol brand placement
in youth movies (G/PG/PG-13) to the film industry,” and “I support legislation to
prohibit the product placement of alcohol brands in youth movies (G/PG/PG-13).”
The Cronbach’s alpha reliability estimate for this scale was .87.
The scales used in this study, developed previously, were proven to be highly reliable in previous research. Table 1, including independent and dependent measures, shows
the reliability of this test.
Perceived desirability of alcohol product placement. The perceived desirability of alcohol product placement is operationalized as the extent to which people perceive it as
personally desirable to be affected by it (Jensen and Hurley 2005). To be clear, this
issue is about the desirability of being affected by alcohol product placement, not the
perceived goodness of this kind of product placement. Perceived desirability was
measured on a 7-point scale anchored by descriptive terms such as good or bad, desirable or undesirable, harmless or harmful, favorable or unfavorable, and beneficial or
not beneficial. The Cronbach’s alpha reliability estimate for this scale was .80.
Self-esteem. The operational definition for self-esteem is the individual’s score on a
standard psychological self-esteem test. Self-esteem was measured by the Rosenberg
Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg 1979). The Cronbach’s alpha reliability estimate for
this scale was .83.
Self-perceived knowledge. The measurement scale for self-perceived knowledge
(subjective knowledge) is composed of three items based on previous research (Darley
1999). Respondents assessed their knowledge of alcohol brands by answering three
questions: “Compared to other students, how familiar do you think you are with alcohol brands?” “Do you have an opinion about what brand of alcoholic beverage has the
best taste?” and “Do you think you can pick out a certain brand of alcoholic beverage
based only on your own knowledge, without another person’s help?” The Cronbach’s
alpha reliability estimate for this scale was .73.
Issue involvement. Issue involvement was measured on a 7-point scale anchored by
descriptive terms developed by Zaichkowsky (1985). These terms included important
or unimportant, of concern to me or of no concern to me, relevant or irrelevant, means
a lot to me or means nothing to me, and matters to me or doesn’t matter to me. The
Cronbach’s alpha reliability estimate for this scale was .85.
Perceived fit. Perceived fit was measured by adapting a scale developed to measure
the fit of a proposed brand extension (Keller and Aaker 1992). The scale was a threeitem 7-point semantic differential; the reliabilities, as reported by the authors, were
greater than .70 (bad fit or good fit, not at all logical or very logical, and not at all
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Table 1. Alpha Reliability for Measures
Variable
Self-esteem
Self-perceived knowledge
Issue involvement
Perceived fit
Perceived desirability
Support for regulation
Number of items
α
9
3
5
3
5
4
.83
.73
.85
.71
.80
.87
N = 280.
appropriate or very appropriate). The Cronbach’s alpha reliability estimate for this
scale was .71.
Alcohol consumption. Alcohol use was measured by three standard open-ended items
assessing drinking frequency, quantity, and maximum quantity. Similar questions were
used on the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (Foster et al. 2003) and the
Monitoring the Future Survey (Johnston, O’Malley, and Bachman 2003). Drinking
behavior is operationalized as the number of days on which a person drank alcohol in
the past month, multiplied by the mean average quantity of drinks consumed and the
maximum quantity of drinks consumed. For example, if a participant reported drinking 5 times in the past month, having 2 drinks on average, and a maximum quantity on
one occasion of 4, 5 × (2 + 4) / 2 results in a final score of 15.
Media use. Media use was assessed through open-ended questions; respondents were
asked to write in the number of hours per week they spent reading newspapers and
magazines, watching TV, listening to the radio, and using the internet. In addition, res­
pondents are asked to write the number of movies they watch per week.
Demographics. In the final section of the questionnaire, demographic and background information was collected. Age was determined through an open-ended question. Information about gender and year in college was collected through closed-ended
questions.
Results
Profile of Survey Respondents
A total of 301 young adult undergraduate students participated in this study, from
which 280 usable completed questionnaires were obtained. Of the survey respondents,
51 percent (n = 143) were men, and about 49 percent (n = 137) were women. About
39 percent of the respondents (n = 109) were younger than twenty-one years old
(illegal drinkers), and about 61 percent of the respondents (n = 171) were twenty-one
or older (legal drinkers). The average age of the respondents was about twenty-one
and ranged from nineteen to forty-two years of age. The survey respondents were all
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undergraduate students. Of the respondents, 35 percent (n = 98) were seniors, about
34 percent (n = 96) were juniors, about 16 percent (n = 44) were sophomores, and
15 percent (n = 42) were freshman. More white respondents participated in the survey
than any other race; about 82 percent of the respondents (n = 229) were white. The dis­
crepancies among the characteristics of the survey respondents suggest caution should
be exercised in generalizing the study’s results.
Results by Hypotheses and Research Questions
H1: College students will perceive alcohol product placement in youth-oriented
movies to exert greater influence on others than on themselves.
To test H1 at the aggregate level, a paired t-test was conducted between the summated means of alcohol product placement effects on the self and others.
As hypothesized, the summated mean of alcohol product placement effects on others was significantly different from those on the self. The mean difference of 1.92
indicates that, at the aggregate level, alcohol product placement in youth movies was
perceived to have a greater influence on others than on oneself (t = 20.77, p < .01; see
Table 2).
This result supported H1, holding that college students will perceive alcohol product placement in youth movies to exert a greater influence on others than on themselves.
College students perceive alcohol brand placements in youth movies have a significantly greater impact on others than on themselves. More specifically, they believe that
alcohol product placement influences the attitude and behavior of other people (other
college students, teens, children) to a greater extent than it influences their own attitude and behavior.
RQ1: Does the magnitude of the third-person perception differ according to the two
different effects of alcohol product placements (drinking and brand effects)?
RQ1 asked whether the magnitude of the third-person perception differs according
to the two different effects. Four statements were used to measure the four different
types of third-person effect for alcohol product placement in youth-oriented movies
(G, PG, or PG-13). They included the affective drinking effect (influence to believe
that alcohol drinking is glamorous), the conative drinking effect (influence to increase
alcohol consumption), the affective brand effect (influence to have a positive attitude
toward particular alcohol brands), and the conative brand effect (influence to repeatedly
use particular alcohol brands). The drinking effects are the affective drinking effect
and the conative drinking effect, while the brand effects are the affective brand effect
and the conative brand effect.
A paired t-test was conducted to examine the mean differences in the third-person
perception estimates between drinking and brand effects. Table 3 indicates that
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Table 2. t-test between Effects on the Self and Effects on Others
Effect on
others
M
4.76
Effect on self
SD
M
SD
Mdiff
SD
t
df
p
0.98
2.84
1.41
1.92**
1.54
20.77
279
.000
**p < .01.
significant mean differences in third-person perception were found between drinking
and brand effects (t = 9.14, p < .01). The magnitude of the third-person perception was
greater for drinking effects (M = 2.21) than for brand effects (M = 1.62).
H2: As social distance increases, the magnitude of the third-person perception
increases (children > teens > other college students).
H2 predicted that as the target group was considered more socially distant, the perceptual gap would increase. Table 4 shows the differences in the size of third-person
effects between target groups. The examination of social distance revealed that respondents displayed the greatest perceptual gaps between themselves and teens (Mdiff = 2.58),
followed by children (Mdiff = 1.61) and college students (Mdiff = 1.56).
The results of a series of t-tests indicate that the same pattern emerged for each of
four effects in that a greater perceptual difference existed not for the youngest target
group (children younger than thirteen) but for the middle target group (thirteen to
seventeen) with regard to the four types of alcohol product placement effects. Hence,
these results did not support H2. t-tests for drinking effects show that the perceived
drinking effect on children is greater for affective effects (M = 4.83) than for behavioral effects (M = 4.47). Likewise, t-tests for brand effects present a similar pattern in
that the perceived affective brand effects on children (M = 4.38) are greater than the
perceived behavioral brand effects on children (M = 4.11). They also indicate that
lower perceived effects for brand were found among children (Maffection = 4.38, Mbehavior =
4.11), compared with teens (Maffection = 5.32, Mbehavior = 5.25) and college students
(Maffection = 4.74, Mbehavior = 4.39).
RQ2: When taken as a group of predictors (self-esteem, self-perceived knowledge, issue involvement, perceived fit, and perceived desirability), which of
the factors under examination will be the strongest predictor of the size of the
third-person effect?
Regression analysis was performed to explore which of the demographic, perceptual,
and attitudinal variables are the strongest, most significant predictors of perceived thirdperson alcohol product placement effects, when all variables are considered together.
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Table 3. t-test between Third-Person Effects for Drinking and Brand
Drinking
effect
M
2.21
Brand effect
SD
M
SD
Mdiff
SD
t
df
p
1.56
1.62
1.70
0.59**
1.07
9.14
279
.000
**p < .01.
Table 4. t-test between Effects on Self and Effects on Others for Summated Effects
Effect on others
College
Teen
Children
4.40
5.42
4.45
Effect on self
Self
Self
Self
2.84
2.84
2.84
Mdiff
SD
t
df
p
1.56**
2.58**
1.61**
1.54
1.68
2.08
17.02
25.70
12.90
279
279
279
.000
.000
.000
**p < .01.
A stepwise method was used to determine significant predictive variables. In stepwise regression, variables are added or deleted from a model in sequence to produce a
final good or the best predictive model. Stepwise model-building techniques for regression designs with a single dependent variable are described in numerous sources.
The basic procedures involve (1) identifying an initial model; (2) iteratively “stepping,” that is, repeatedly altering the model in the previous step by adding or removing
a predictor variable in accordance with the “stepping criteria”; and (3) terminating the
search when stepping is no longer possible given the stepping criteria, or when a
specified maximum number of steps has been reached.
Table 5 presents the stepwise regression result. Among the ten predictor variables,
excluded variables are perceived fit, media use, movie watching, age, and gender.
Of the predictor variables, perceived desirability was found to be the strongest predictor of the summated third-person alcohol product placement effect, explaining
24.5 percent of variance. Perceived desirability was negatively related to the thirdperson effect for alcohol product placement. Self-perceived knowledge was a negative
predictor, increasing slightly but significantly the amount of variance explained (R2
increment = 5.9 percent). Therefore, about 30 percent of variance was explained by
perceived desirability and self-perceived knowledge.
The final regression model included perceived desirability, self-perceived knowledge, and drinking as significant negative predictors and self-esteem and issue involvement as significant positive predictors of the third-person effect of alcohol product
placement. This model explained about 35 percent of the variance in the summated
third-person alcohol product placement effects.
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Table 5. Regression for Predicting Third-Person Effect
Predictor
Perceived desirability
Self-perceived
knowledge
Self-esteem
Drinking
Issue involvement
Adjusted R2 total
Model fit
df
ms
F
p
β
R2 change
R2 change %
−.349**
−.219**
.242
.056
24.2
29.8
.178**
−.115*
.105*
.033
.011
.008
.350
33.1
34.2
35.0
5
48.27
31.03
.000
*p < .05. **p < .01.
RQ3: How will college students’ third-person perceptions (and perceived effects
on themselves and others, separately and jointly) be related to support for the
regulation of alcohol product placement in youth-oriented movies?
RQ3 was about the consequence of third-person perception in the context of alcohol product placement in youth-oriented movies. Correlations were calculated to exa­
mine the relationship between support for alcohol product placement regulation and
the four perceived effects: third-person perception (others – self), second-person
perception (others + self), perceived effects on the self only, and perceived effects on
others only.
The correlation analysis with the four perceived effects and the regulation support
score revealed that the third-person effect (r = .363, p < .01) and the effect on others
only (r = .313, p < .01) were significantly and positively related to the level of support
for regulation at the level of .01. However, the analysis also revealed that the effect on
self (r = –.179, p < .01) was significantly and negatively related to the level of support
for regulation.
Table 6 shows the stepwise regression result. Of the four predictor variables, the
second-person effect (joint influence on self and others) and the effect on self were
excluded.
Of the predictor variables, the third-person effect was found to be the strongest predictor of the level of support for alcohol placement regulation, explaining 12.9 percent
of the variance. The third-person effect was positively related to support for alcohol
placement regulation. The perceived effect on others was the only positive predictor,
increasing slightly but significantly the amount of variance explained (R2 increment =
2.6 percent). The final regression model, including third-person effect and the effect
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Table 6. Regression for Predicting Regulation Support by Perceived Effects
β
Predictor
Self–other (third person)
Other
Adjusted R2 total
Model fit
df
ms
F
p
.279**
.189**
R2 change
R2 change %
.129
.026
.155
12.9
15.5
2
47.33
26.51
.000
**p < .01.
on others, explained about 16 percent of the variance in support for alcohol product
placement regulation.
Even though they were not mentioned in the hypotheses and research questions,
predictors of support for alcohol placement regulation may be important aspects about
which policy makers and alcohol beverage marketers and advertisers are concerned.
Regression analysis was performed to explore which of the variables are the strongest, most significant predictors of support for alcohol placement regulation, when all
variables are considered together. Table 7 presents the stepwise regression results. Of
the predictor variables, the size of the third-person effect was found to be the strongest
predictor of the level of support for alcohol placement regulation, explaining about
13 percent of the variance.
The final regression model included the size of the third-person effect as a significant positive predictor and perceived fit and drinking as negative predictors of the
level of support for alcohol placement regulation. This model explained about 20 percent of the variance in support for regulation for alcohol product placement in youthoriented movies.
Discussion
The authors found a significant disparity between the perceived effect of alcohol
product placement in youth-oriented movies on oneself and others and provided additional empirical support for the theoretical link between third-person perception and
a procensorship attitude. The results confirmed Perloff’s (1999) observation that the
relationship between third-person perception and willingness to regulate media content is most likely to appear in the context of socially undesirable entertainment and
advertising.
Research demonstrates that the third-person perspective is a viable empirical framework through which to study the alcohol product placement phenomena in youthoriented movies. Clear evidence shows that college students perceptually differentiate
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Table 7. Regression for Predicting Regulation Support by All Variables
β
Predictor
Size of the third-person effect
Perceived fit
Drinking
Adjusted R2 total
Model fit
df
ms
F
p
.273**
−.200**
−.182**
R2 change
R2 change %
.129
.049
.026
.204
12.9
4.9
2.6
3
41.763
24.84
.000
**p < .01.
between alcohol movie placement effects on others and on themselves and that they
believe alcohol brand appearances in youth movies exert more influence over other
people’s attitudes and behaviors than their own. These findings suggest that people are
more likely to believe in the power of alcohol placement in youth-oriented movies as
an influence on other people and less likely to dismiss the power of alcohol placement
to influence themselves.
This perceptual tendency involving alcohol brand movie placement effects is consistent with attribution theory’s ideas of fundamental attribution effort and egotistical
differential attribution (Rucinski and Salmon 1990; Gunther 1991; Gunther and Thorson
1992) and with the findings of existing third-person effect research. Mass mediated
messages that have explicit persuasive intentions are associated with stronger thirdperson effects, particularly when these messages are perceived as something by which
it is not desirable to be influenced (Gunther and Thorson 1992; Gunther and Mundy
1993; Brosius and Engel 1996; Perloff 1999).
Of particular interest, a greater perceptual difference was observed not for the
youngest target group (children younger than thirteen) but for the middle target group
(thirteen to seventeen). An examination of social distance revealed that college student
respondents displayed the greatest perceptual gaps between themselves and teens, followed by children and other college students. Although past research suggests that the
strength of the third-person effect increases with social distance (Cohen et al. 1988;
Gunther 1991; McLeod, Eveland, and Nathanson 1997), this study failed to support
this notion. Although there was variation in the four types of effects, respondents did not
follow the predicted pattern of judging people furthest from themselves in age as most
influenced. It is noteworthy that the college-age respondents did not perceive younger
children (children younger than thirteen) as more susceptible to alcohol product placement in youth movies than teens, perhaps because they employed normative strategies
in determining the “fit” of an advertising product to the target group (S. A. Reid and
Hogg 2005).
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We know that as children age their attitudes toward alcohol change. Younger children
are likely to report more negative consequences related to drinking alcohol (Goldberg,
Halpern-Felsher, and Millstein 2002). Early research on alcohol advertising found that
as adolescents become older teenagers, alcohol advertising becomes increasingly
salient and attractive (Aitken et al. 1988; Covell, Dion, and Dion 1994). At age fourteen alcohol ads become salient to youth, and by age sixteen young people list alcohol
ads among their favorite kinds of advertisement (Aitken et al. 1988). Therefore, it
seems logical that college students might think fourteen- to seventeen-year-old young
adults would be more likely to feel targeted and influenced by alcohol product placement in youth-oriented movies rather than children younger than thirteen and other
college students.
In addition, it seems reasonable to speculate that (1) participants are more likely
to perceive that product placement has a greater influence on teens than on children
because the age of drinking onset ascertained by this study was 15.84 and (2) participants are less likely to perceive a greater influence on children because they know
children are not allowed to buy alcoholic beverages and teens drink much more alcohol
than children.
The results also indicate that people perceived a greater third-person effect for the
drinking effect than for the brand effect. Advertising-induced alcohol drinking clearly
has widespread societal implications that can threaten public health and safety, whereas
brand preference is less likely to have immediate implications for society. This interpretation is supported by the finding that support for regulation correlated more strongly
with the third-person effect for drinking (r = .34) than with the third-person effect for
brand preference (r = .30). Previous research has shown only a marginal increase in
brand recall from product placement and little change in attitude toward the brand.
While some new brands have been successfully launched with placement strategies,
many brands featured in movies are already familiar to viewers. In this case, placement
may best serve as a means of maintaining visibility and top-of-mind awareness among
target markets. However, the formation of brand preferences and choice based on product placement seems complex. Therefore, more in-depth study should be conducted on
this aspect, considering factors such as execution styles, salience, modality, and plot
connection.
Predictors of the third-person effect were estimated by regression analysis. In the
context of alcohol product placement in youth movies, the perceived desirability of the
message was found to be the most significant explanatory variable for the third-person
effect. This result suggests that to win public support for branded alcohol placement in
movies, communication messages should be sufficiently persuasive to cause the public to perceive the message as socially desirable so as not to elicit unintended communication effects such as the third-person perception. Therefore, alcoholic beverage
companies should be more careful in putting their branded alcohol beverages in youthoriented movies because they might be perceived as supporting drinking among teens.
In summary, perceived desirability appears to be a position factor that consistently
influences an individual’s tendency to experience third-person perception. If an
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individual considers a specific effect desirable, it will reduce his or her potential for
third-person perception.
Past studies on several forms of undesirable entertainment messages and advertising have shown a relationship between the third-person effect and a procensorship
attitude. Consistent with this research, the current study attempted to test behavioral
outcomes (i.e., support for regulation) of the third-person effect in the domain of alcohol product placement in youth movies to expand the external validation of this relationship. A willingness to prohibit or restrict alcohol advertising in youth movies would
have important implications for alcohol marketers.
This study found a significant positive relationship between the third-person effect
and support for the regulation of alcohol product placement in movies. This finding
agrees with the findings from the broader third-person effect literature. Gunther (1995),
McLeod, Eveland, and Nathanson (1997), and Youn, Faber, and Shah (2000) found
significant relationships between the third-person effect and support for message regulation. The findings in this study showed that third-person effects were a better predictor than second-person effects (or shared effects), effects on others only, and effects on
oneself only. It seems that participants in this study were concerned about the potentially harmful influence of alcohol product placement in youth-oriented movies not for
their own sake but for the sake others, so that the need for regulation seems to be motivated to protect not the self but others. This study confirms that if people consider a
message negative and socially undesirable, it is thought that a greater perceived thirdperson effect will lead them to support communication regulation (Davison 1983; Rojas,
Shah, and Faber 1996; Youn, Faber, and Shah 2000). However, one might argue that
the third-person effect and support for the regulation of alcohol product placement in
movies are simply correlated, without one causing the other. Therefore, the significant
positive relationship could be better understood through examining its related factors
for strong evidence that the perceived effects can lead to actual effects, specifically support for the regulation.
This study also demonstrated that the perceived effects for drinking behavior (conative drinking effect) were the strongest predictors of support for alcohol movie placement regulation among the four types of third-person effects: the affective drinking
effect (influence to believe that alcohol drinking is glamorous), the conative drinking
effect (influence to increase alcohol drinking), the affective brand effect (influence to
have a positive attitude toward particular alcohol brands), and the conative brand effect
(influence to repeatedly use particular alcohol brands). It has been demonstrated that
communication censorship is associated with the belief that the outcome of communications will be negative (Sullivan, Piereson, and Marcus 1982). In the case of alcohol
movie placement ads, viewers may consider other people in need of protection from
alcohol movie placement effects. Hence, greater perceived third-person effects caused
by alcohol movie placement advertisements may be a strong predictor of support for
alcohol movie placement ads regulation.
The results of the present study provide additional evidence for the third-person
effect and extend our understanding of public perceptions of the effects of alcohol
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product placement in youth-oriented movies. The use of attribution theory as an
explanatory framework suggests the inclusion of social comparison processes and perceived moderators of negative effects in studies of product placement. These variables
lent additional insight into the processes that underlie the third-person effect. The evidence was consistent with the notion that people’s attributions about media effects are
determined partially by their desire to maintain a positive self-image and to feel in
control of their own responses.
Possible contextual variations that might influence the third-person effect should
be examined. Do such effects vary as a function of message type (e.g., political news,
adver­tising, opinion polls), perceived communicator intent (which gives rise to differential attributions), and cultural context? Is the third-person effect less pronounced
in Asian cultures, which tend to stress the interrelatedness of the person to the social
environment, than in conventional Western cultures, which emphasize the uniqueness
of the individual?
Because alcohol use in youth-oriented movies can be studied in a number of other
ways, this study could be expanded by comparing alcohol placement in youth movies to
placements in other general or controversial products. This would gauge young people’s
third-person perceptions of product placements and suggest which types of products are
most likely to show third-person effects. Another possible experimental design in studying alcohol placements with the third-person effect framework is to show participants
video clips from real movies with different types of branded alcohol placements.
The third-person effects of alcohol product placements in movies versus alcohol
advertising in video games should also be studied among participants of various ages.
This could be used to gauge third-person perceptions as well as determine which type
or form of message is more closely related to the third-person effect. Future research
along these lines could include parents as respondents. By using the parents of children in high school or elementary school as a sample population and presenting them
with material at different levels, one could examine perceptual effects on different outgroups’ level of attitudes, behaviors, emotions, and understanding. A study such as this
could include a focus on cross-gender perceptions (i.e., mothers’ and fathers’ perceptions of perceived effects on sons and daughters).
Finally, an increasing amount of media content, including films full of branded
alcohol placements, is exported and imported around the globe, and many societies
around the world are becoming increasingly multicultural. The role of culture in thirdperson perceptions needs to be investigated to better understand how opinions differ
among diverse populations about media effects and control of the media.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interests with respect to the authorship and/or
publication of this article.
Financial Disclosure/Funding
The author(s) received the following financial support for the research and/or authorship of this
article: This research was supported by Grant No. R31-10062 from the World Class University
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Television & New Media 12(5)
program of the Korean Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST) and the Korea
National Research Foundation (NRF) through Sungkyunkwan University. This article was supported by a National Research Foundation of Korea grant funded by the Korean government
(NRF-2010-B00171).
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Bios
Dong-Hee Shin is an Associate Professor of Interaction Science, Sungkyunkwan University,
Seoul, South Korea. Dr. Shin has been appointed as a World Class University Project Scholar
by the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology in Korea. Dr. Shin was previously an
assistant professor at the College of Information Sciences and Technology, Penn State
University (2004-2009).
Jun Kyo Kim is a senior researcher of Interaction Science, Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul,
South Korea. Dr. Kim earned his Ph.D. in Advertising from the University of Alabama and
master of arts in Mass Communications from the University of Georgia. Dr. Kim’s research
areas include consumer research, advertising, media effects and marketing.
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