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The Effectiveness of Nudity in Advertising in Three European Countries Christian Dianoux, CEREFIGE - University of Paul Verlaine – Metz - IUT, Ile du Saulcy, 57045 METZ, France – [email protected] Zdenek Linhart, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kamycka 129, 165 21 Praha 6, Czech Republic – [email protected] Abstract This paper shows several interesting results obtained from an experiment in which Czech, Spanish, and French students were exposed to a folder containing a 12 page mock-up of a magazine, that included an advertisement for a mobile phone where one could see a woman showing either her face, or being topless. The principal differences observed in attitude toward the advertisement primarily originate in the gender of the individuals. The Czech, French, or Spanish women tend to judge more negatively than the men the advertisements showing a woman with a naked breast. However, even if important differences between countries were found, nationality does not have an influence on the preference of the advertisement with or without nudity on display. These results justify the proposition that it is not necessary to adapt a communication campaign containing nudity in these three countries, and undoubtedly on the European level as well. Key-words Nudity, advertising, print media, Czech Republic, France, Spain, attitude toward advertising 1 The effectiveness of Nudity in Advertising in Three European Countries Abstract This paper shows several interesting results obtained from an experiment in which Czech, Spanish, and French students were exposed to a folder containing a 12 page mock-up of a magazine, that included an advertisement for a mobile phone where one could see a woman showing either her face, or being topless. The principal differences observed in attitude toward the advertisement primarily originate in the gender of the individuals. The Czech, French, or Spanish women tend to judge more negatively than the men the advertisements showing a woman with a naked breast. However, even if important differences between countries were found, nationality does not have an influence on the preference of the advertisement with or without nudity on display. These results justify the proposition that it is not necessary to adapt a communication campaign containing nudity in these three countries, and undoubtedly on the European level as well. Key-words Nudity, advertising, print media, Czech Republic, France, Spain, attitude toward advertising 2 Introduction Although the use of the eroticism in advertising is not a recent phenomenon (Soley and Kurzbard, 1986), it would seem that it has increased in recent years. The observations of Reichert, LaTour, and Kim (2007) show that “the proportion of sexualised women rose from less than one-third in 1964 to one-half in 2003”. Simultaneous to this quantitative development, some authors have also recognised a qualitative evolution where “graphic sexual images seem more extreme, more pervasive and more perverse than before” (Kilbourne, 2005). This tendency is also observed in the general media environment. According to the last report of the Parents Television Council (PTC), the number of sexual references on the North American TV networks increased by 22% during Family Hour when compared to programming from the same time slot in 2000-2001 (Brodesser-Akner, 2007). The consumer appears to be increasingly tolerant to this form of communication. A recent study by Zimmerman and Dahlberg (2008) shows that the questioned women were less offended by advertisements with sexual connotations than those questioned a few years before by Ford, LaTour, and Lundstrom (1991). Moreover, we can see this trend of consumer tolerance, or rather the absence of sanction by the consumer toward ads containing sexual or violent content, by an examination of the results of Toyota in the USA. Indeed Toyota increased its sales in 2007 by 3% whereas those of its main competitors dropped (- 6% for GM and -12% for Ford), while the US Parents’ television council, PTC, had classified Toyota first in 2007, and second in 2006 in its report of the worst advertisers - www.parentstv.org). These various tendencies observed in the USA exist also in other areas of the world, but apparently on different levels. According to Piron and Young (1996), nudity is used less in Germany than in the United States, because north Europeans are more accustomed to certain forms of nudity which has therefore lost its impact. In the same way, the study of Nelson and Hye-Jin (2005), which is based on the observation of advertisements published in seven 3 editions of the female magazine Cosmopolitan, shows strong divergences between France and Thailand where the advertisements have strong sexual contents, and the USA, Brazil, Korea, or China where the sexual contents are weaker. It can be supposed that these differences are the reflection of different attitudes of the consumers of each country toward advertising with sexual stimuli. However, in spite of the interest in, and better understanding of these mechanisms, there are rarely studies showing cross-cultural comparisons, particularly in Europe (e.g. Lass and Hart, 2004; Orth et al, 2007). Indeed, according to Moiij (2003) it would seem that “the persistence of cultural variety of countries worldwide as well as in Europe implies that a successful advertising approach in one country does not automatically mean similar success in other countries”. In this spirit, the objective of this paper is to better understand the effects of the recourse to nudity in a European advertising campaign, originating from an experiment carried out in three various European countries: in the east in a country of the former Soviet bloc (the Czech Republic), in the west in a country considered as tolerant with regard to this form of communication (France), and in the south in a country (Spain) which, as we shall see, has a record of its refusal to accept sexy advertising by Dolce & Gabbana which had already been tolerated in many other countries. Following this, after having given a literature review on the principal research results leading to this subject, we will focus our research hypotheses by taking the European context into account. We will then present the methodology used and the results which come out from this experiment. We will finish by highlighting the principal results and prospects which emerge for an advertiser who would wish to use this form of communication. 1- Literature review and research question 4 The sexual characteristic of an advertisement will be identified here by the degree of dress of individuals, which, according to Reichert and Ramirez (2000), is the characteristic most likely to give a sexy connotation to an advertisement. Although the degree of dress of individuals is not always a necessary and sufficient condition for which a stimulus could be regarded as sexual, it remains the most obvious pointer, because nudity makes the sexual connotation of the advertisement more explicit. Reichert and Ramirez (2000) showed that more than 50% of the questioned people made a close link between eroticism and nudity. 1.1. Impact of nudity on attention, memory and attitude toward the ad For McInnis, Noorman, and Jaworski (1991) when the motivation to process the data on the brand is weak, the objective of the advertiser is to draw attention to the advertisement starting with executional cues to which the individual will be sensitive, independent of the brand. Among these executional cues, sexual sources are likely to play this role. Many researchers (Vezina & Paul 1997; Geuens & De Pelsmacker 1998; Manceau and Tissier Desbordes, 2006; Lombardot, 2007) confirm that this increase of attention is due to the positive role of nudity. The interest to reinforce the attention is then able to “subsequently increase brand information processing within the ad” (McInnis, Noorman, and Jaworski, 1991). However, it would seem that this bond between attention and treatment cannot be empirically observed when sexual sources are used. Lombardot (2007), starting from a review of literature relating to 23 research sources, indeed shows that nudity affects the cognitive process of treatment and comprehension of the message in a negative way, as well as the memory of the brand, and “paradoxically, this should lead to increased memory for sexual advertising for those individuals for whom the use of sexual appeal is least appealing” (Davies, Zhu, and Brantley, 2007). 5 As for the impact of nudity on the attitude toward the brand and the intention to purchase, the results are contradictory (Severn and Al 1990; De Pelsmacker & Van Den Bergh 1996; Vezina & Paul 1997). These differences undoubtedly come from factors such as the type of methodology used (very few studies set up experimental protocols making it possible only to check the influence of variable nudity), the choice of the product (the use of nudity for underclothing is undoubtedly better perceived than nudity in advertising related to a car), and the profile of the individuals. On this last point, several individual characteristics have indeed been highlighted, such as age (e.g. differences in perception between generation Y and Baby boomers, see Loroz, 2006), or the kind with the “viewers [who] respond much more favourably to opposite-sex sexual images than to their own sex images” (Reichert, LaTour, and Kim, 2007), or the masculinity (vs. femininity) as regards the advertisements focused on the image and the utility aspect (Chang, 2006). These various results make it possible to suggest that recourse to nudity should have an impact on the attitude toward the advertisement varying in strength according to individual characteristics such as the age or the gender in particular. The question which interests us then is to know if this effect is homogeneous regardless of the country. 1.2 Impact of nudity according to the country For Ford, La Tour, and Clarke (2004), it is clear that the perception of nudity in advertising varies to a significant degree according to the studied countries (China, India, Singapore, the USA). The qualitative study undertaken by Lass and Hart (2004) in Germany, in Italy, and the United Kingdom also goes in this direction by showing however that, apart from the differences between country, the gender and the values of the consumers simultaneously plays a significant role. 6 If the differences in terms of gender or values do not represent a real problem for the advertiser, since these elements are usually taken into account during segmentation within each country, the cultural and legal differences between countries are more delicate to solve when the campaign covers more than one country. Two examples of international brands having roughly identical worldwide targets, illustrate perfectly the problems with which the advertiser can be confronted (even if nudity is not here the only crucial factor). In February 2007, an advertisement for the collection of ready-made clothes by Dolce & Gabbana (showing a woman lying, surrounded by bare-chested men) had to be withdrawn from Spanish magazines after a complaint of the Spanish Women’s Institute. Following this, the ad was also withdrawn from Italy then finally, on account of this dispute, the company decided to stop it completely in the whole world. As for the advertising poster for the fashion designers Marithé and Girbaud (showing a man with a naked back, together with twelve women, all together around a table, reminiscent of Leonardo da Vinci’s painting “La Cène” “Last Supper”), it was prohibited in Italy in 2005, and only authorised in France after a long legal battle which finished in 2006. In relation to these various disputes, the question is whether those are the feelings of more or less influential local groups, or whether there are more fundamental differences between the attitudes of the consumers in each country, which would confirm the observations of Orth et al (2007). These authors indeed showed considerable differences in terms of attitude toward the advertisement between closely-neighbouring European countries (Croatia, The Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland). They concluded from it that “using one advertising campaign is questionable, if not potentially damaging to advertisers’ efforts”. These results are on the other hand contradictory to the practices observed. Indeed, the few comparative studies undertaken in Europe on the proportion of advertising which have recourse to nudity show that a significant difference between countries does not exist. 7 Koudelova and Whitelock (2001) who compared TV spots of the United Kingdom and in the Czech Republic, and Dianoux, Kettnerová, and Linhart (2006) who compared the advertisements in the Czech Republic and France in the 5 principal categories of journals, have observed differences between some published formats, but none in regard to the use of nudity. We did not have such precise information concerning the Spanish territory, at the origin of the dispute on Dolce and Gabbana, but it would seem according to our various observations that the practices do not basically differ. These results a priori paradoxical must however be relativised because the academic research results presented above are not basically contradictory to the practices observed. Indeed, with regard to the study undertaken by Ford, La Tour, and Clarke (2004), in addition to the fact that its objective (to identify the perception of the individuals toward the portrayal of the sex role) differs from ours, it relates to two continents (Asia and North America) which undoubtedly accentuates the cross cultural differences. The research of Orth at al. (2007) relates to a set of themes broader than those which interest us here. Lastly, we have to note that Lass and Hart (2004), starting from a qualitative methodology relating to a very broad sample (students, bankers, housewives,…), remark that, in addition to the country, the individual characteristics play a considerable part. It is thus possible that starting from a more homogeneous group (e.g students), we did not find differences between countries, even if it is about a product having neither a direct nor indirect relationship with nudity. Thus, in such a context, we should check the following assumption for the three selected countries (Spain, France, and the Czech Republic): H1: The superiority (or inferiority) of an ad using nudity compared with an ad not using nudity will be the same in Spain, France, and the Czech Republic in terms of attention, memory, or attitude toward the ad. 8 If any differences cannot be observed between countries, it is probable that some individual characteristics play a major role in the preference of ad using nudity in comparison with an ad not using nudity, especially regarding the attitude towards the advertisement. Indeed, according to the type of advertising, women generally express a different attitude toward the ad compared to men (Putrevu, 2004). The results of Reichert et al (2007b) confirm these conclusions within the precise framework of a sexy advertisement. For those “overall, the findings support a media literacy effect and a gender effect that should be considered by advertising executives and in any media literacy component pertaining to sexualised images of women in advertising”. These effects should be even stronger if the product being the subject of advertising does not have a direct or indirect relationship with nudity, hence: H2: The preferences in terms of attitude toward the advertisement resorting to nudity with sexual connotation compared to advertisement without it will differ more because of the sex of the individual respondent than because of the nationality. 2- Methodology 2.1. The choice of the support A magazine was used for this experiment for two reasons. It is, on the one hand, the media in which nudity is most frequently used, as Reichert et al (1999) have shown in the American context. In addition, the magazine facilitates, compared to the other media, the treatment of the message because of its positive action on two of the three dimensions of the MOA model of McInnis et al (1991): the opportunity and the ability. 2.2. The sample 9 The choice of a sample made up of students, though sometimes criticised (Soley and Reid, 1983), comprises the major advantage here as it makes it possible to have homogeneous groups in each country, easy to compare, and being able to constitute an identical target for an international brand. Moreover, the use of nudity in advertising is accepted better by young people than older people (Manceau and Tissier-Desbordes, 2006). As for the three countries selected, each one represents a strong stage of European participation (notably in terms of the practice of harmonisation): France, as a founder country, Spain joining in 1986, and the Czech Republic in 2004. They in addition have their own specificities, making them potentially different from each other: in the east, the Czech Republic representing a country of the former Soviet bloc, in the west, France, a country considered as tolerant with regard to this form of communication, and in the south, Spain, a country which was illustrated recently, as we have just seen, by its refusal of the advertising of Dolce & Gabbana. 2.3. The choice of the advertisement Many researchers have highlighted the different attitudes which could be generated when the use of nudity was relevant to the advertised product (e.g. shower gel) or not relevant (e.g. car). We will focus here the second option in order to reinforce the possible differences between each country. A mobile phone was chosen as the product which is likely to interest our entire sample, whichever the country and the sex of the individuals, and which represents a rather involving product, having neither a direct nor indirect link with nudity. We have chosen a leading international communications brand in the three countries: Nokia (The European leader with nearly 50% of the market share in Europe in 2007, well ahead of its three main competitors Samsung, Motorola, and Sony Ericsson). We took a real advertisement of the brand to which we added a female model showing either her naked breast (appendix 1), or her face on the screen of the telephone (appendix 2). To 10 make sure of the erotic character of the photograph, we selected ten photographs of naked models and by a process of successive elimination (standard Delphi) we arrived at a photograph on which all of the questioned experts (two male and two female in each country) came to an agreement based on the typology suggested by Triandis (cf Nelson and Paek, 2005): photograph concerned with level 4 of the scale that starts from 0 = “no sexual appeal/fully clothed” to 4 = “nudity with bare bodies, wearing translucent under apparel or lingerie, poses where the model wears only a towel”. The experts in addition took care to avoid what could be regarded as a sexist ad (see Lysonski, 2005). Lastly, the size of the advertisement being likely to influence the attention of the individual, and the Czech Republic being a country where advertisements are published more frequently on a half page than a full page, this element will be taken into account in our experimental design. 2.4. Experimental design and procedure The experimental advertisement for Nokia was inserted in a 12 page mock-up of a magazine duplicated in three versions (Spanish, Czech, and French). This contained ten different advertisements (4 of a quarter of page, 3 of a half-page, and 2 of a full page, plus one or the other of the experimental advertisements for Nokia presented either on half a page, or on a full page). The cover page (with title “campus”) and the advertisements were strictly identical in the three countries (except of course the rare texts requiring a translation). As for the articles, they included all of the similar subjects likely to appear in a magazine intended for students. The experimental design is summarised in table 1. Table 1: Experiment plan Nokia ad with naked woman (ad-NW) Nokia ad with face of woman (ad-FW) Ad size Half size Full size Half size CR 43 44 45 SP 40 44 43 FR 44 44 32 Total 259 255 11 Full size Total 47 179 42 169 46 166 514 The mock-up magazines were given out with the following comment: “a new magazine model is being tested which may become a students’ magazine. However before finalising this model your opinion would be appreciated concerning the form and the content. A short period of time is allotted you to consult the model (10 minutes exactly), after we will ask you some questions on the subject”. Ten minutes after the participants were shown the magazine, they were asked to close it with the cover page facing upwards, and to answer a first questionnaire. This questionnaire concerned particularly the attitudes towards the advertisements in general (Mehta, 2000), spontaneous and assisted recall of brands and products in this magazine, and purchase intention for five telephone brands. When everyone had finished answering the first part of the questionnaire, they were asked to re-open the magazine and to look carefully at the experimental advertisement. They then had to answer different questions. The principals were: 4 questions to determine those who declared having paid attention to the ad; 21 questions to measure verbally the affective reactions (Derbaix, 1995); 8 questions about their attitudes toward the ad (Aad) with each item used as a separate Aad indicator (adapted and extended from Coulter, 1998; MacKenzie, Lutz, Belch, 1986); 4 questions intended to measure the beliefs concerning the brand (quality), attitude (like the phone Nokia), and intention (would like to have and intention to purchase); 16 questions to evaluate the product involvement concerning mobile phones (Kapferer and Laurent, 1986). All items in English were translated into Spanish, Czech, and French with the back translation and decentring procedure suggested by Brislin (1976), and finalised by three focus groups from each country. 12 3- Results With regard to the attention, a greater number of those who were exposed to ad-NW (ad with naked woman) stated that they had paid attention to this ad (answer was given with the advertisement in front of them), than those exposed to ad-FW (ad with face of the woman), and that applied, whichever the country (table 2). Table 2: Attention toward the ad according to the country I paid attention to this ad (5points Osgood scale) CR Spain France Ad with naked woman (adAd with face woman (adNW) FW) Half-page Full page Half-page Full page 96 99 73 93 p.=0.061 90 96 68 84 p.=0.027 88 93 66 77 p.=0.048 Mean rank- Kruskal-Wallis test On the other hand, although the individuals able to remember spontaneously the name of the brand Nokia are proportionally more numerous in the group of the ad-NW than in the group of the ad-FW, this difference is not significant with the threshold of 5% (table 3). The comparisons country by country do not make it possible to note differences, either. Also let us note that the remark of Baron (1982) that “sexual arousal created on page 1 may contribute to the appeal of a product advertised on page 5”, does not seem to apply here, at least with regard to memory. The spontaneous recall of the name of the advertised brand Nokia is indeed very largely the best score obtained (m=82%) compared to all other ads for international brands inserted in the magazine (i.e. Coca-Cola, Yves Saint Laurent, and Smart which have scores lower than 70%), and no significant difference is observed between individuals exposed to the ad-NW and the ad-FW with regard to the spontaneous memory of these three brands. Lastly, let us note that the individuals exposed to the ad-FW in the full page remember better than those exposed to the same advertisement on a half page, but we 13 found no difference between the half page and full page for the individuals who were exposed to the ad-NW. Table 3: Recall of the brand name (any confused group) Ad with naked woman (adNW) Half-page Full page Spontaneous quotation of the advertised brand (Nokia) No answer or bad answer Ad with face woman (adFW) Half-page Full page 84,3% 84,0% 78,1% 82,4% 15,7% 16,0% 21,9% 17,6% N=121 N=125 N=105 N=125 Chi² = 1,85 - df = 3 - p=0,602 As for the verbal measurement of the affective reactions produced by the advertisement, we can note that for all items, the ad-NW systematically causes negative or positive reactions stronger than ad-FW. This tendency can be observed in each of the three countries with bigger differences for Czechs and French than for Spanish. The fact that the advertisement is on full page or half-page does not change anything. With regard to the attitude toward the advertisement (table 4), the tendencies are identical whichever the country. It would seem that overall the Czech, Spanish and French prefer the ad-FW (though not significant with 5%). This preference seems to come from a perception of lack of seriousness of the ad-NW, since the individuals (whichever the country) tend to consider this as having a less convincing message, and less objective information than the adFW, although the two advertisements were strictly identical as regards the informational contents. Nudity would thus cause discredit to the contents of the advertisement in each of the three countries. Table 4: Comparison of attitude toward the ad-NW and the ad-FW in each of the three countries I like this ad CR Naked Face 82 97 Spain Naked Face 79 90 France Naked Face 77 90 14 This ad is good (nice to look at) The message is completely convincing (you are favourable) The information in this ad is objective This ad appeals more to feelings than to reason The quantity of information in this ad satisfies you This ad is unusual This ad is sensual (sexy) p.=0.061 92 87 p.=0.481 79 100 p.=0.006 78 101 p.=0.002 111 69 p.=0.000 90 89 p.=0.928 110 70 p.=0.000 85 94 p.=0.221 p.=0.130 79 90 p.=0.173 74 95 p.=0.003 75 94 p.=0.008 103 66 p.=0.000 76 93 p.=0.028 111 59 p.=0.000 93 76 p.=0.027 p.=0.075 82 84 p.=0.768 75 92 p.=0.026 72 94 p.=0.004 102 61 p.=0.000 74 91 p.=0.017 92 73 p.=0.009 95 69 p.=0.000 Mean rank - Mann-Whitney test Generally, the tendencies in each of the three countries are similar, of the different qualities which were possible to select among the measured variables likely to influence attitude toward the ad, it was the gender which generally made the difference. The men generally give higher marks to the ad-NW compared to the women (on the items such as “I like this advertisement” or “this ad is good”), whereas there is no significant difference between the two groups for the ad-FW. Further conclusions can be derived from the comparison of the attitude to the ad-NW and the ad-FW within the women’s group and within the men’s group. It is noted here that the results are completely opposite (table 5): the men prefer the ad-NW compared to the ad-FW and the women the ad-FW compared to the ad-NW. Table 5: Comparison of ad-NW and ad-FW between men and the women Men I like this ad This ad is good (nice to look at) The message is completely convincing (you are favourable) The information in this ad is objective This ad appeals more to feelings Naked 134 144 122 117 154 Face 112 p.=0.014 102 p.=0.000 126 p.=0.634 130 p.=0.147 90 Women Naked 98 Face 164 p.=0.000 103 160 p.=0.000 106 158 p.=0.000 107 156 p.=0.000 160 107 15 than to reason The quantity of information in this ad satisfies you This ad is unusual This ad is sensual (sexy) p.=0.000 121 p.=0.000 126 119 p.=0.542 150 95 160 p.=0.000 146 107 p.=0.000 100 p.=0.000 144 p.=0.007 125 139 p.=0.117 Mean rank - Mann-Whitney test The observations of the affective reactions show an identical tendency. The men are more interested, satisfied, agreeably surprised, captivated, delighted, enthusiastic, and find the adNW advertisement more appealing, than the ad-FW, whereas the women on these same items prefer the ad-FW (p.< 0.05). For negative items, such as irritated, unpleasantly surprised, saddened, the two groups of men give identical answers for the two advertisements, whereas the women award higher marks to the ad-NW than the ad-FW (p.< 0.05). It would seem however that nobody is fooled by the recourse to nudity since on the question “while looking at this advertisement, it made me suspicious” the answers of the two sexes are convergent: the women, as the men, are more wary with regards to the ad-NW. Let us note however that, if the differences observed in terms of attitude toward the ad between the group exposed to the ad-NW and that exposed to the ad-FW are strongly influenced by the sex of the individual observing it, and not the nationality, we can observe the influence of the nationality when we compare the three countries with regard to ad-NW and ad-FW separately. Indeed, it is for the ad-NW or the ad-FW, that the attitude toward the ad differs to a significant degree between Czech, French and Spanish (Table 6). However this difference between countries does not come from the presence or the absence of the nudity characteristic in the advertisement, because we find essentially exactly the same tendencies in the answers for the ad-NW and the ad-FW. Table 6: Comparison of ad of three nationalities for each of the two advertisements 16 I like this ad This ad is good (nice to look at) The message is completely convincing (you are favourable) The information in this ad is objective This ad appeals more to feelings than to reason The quantity of information in this ad satisfies you This ad is unusual This ad is sensual (sexy) CR 149 115 120 123 145 166 146 105 Ad-NW France Spain 127 112 p.=0.005 136 137 p.=0.093 141 127 p.=0.140 107 160 p.=0.000 132 110 p.=0.008 122 99 p.=0.000 125 116 p.=0.025 142 142 p.=0.001 CR 151 121 104 126 138 158 140 135 Ad-FW France Spain 126 103 p.=0.000 126 135 p.=0.419 149 130 p.=0.000 120 136 p.=0.356 135 109 p.=0.016 116 105 p.=0.000 121 120 p.=0.136 113 133 p.=0.099 Mean rank - Mann-Whitney test More basically, it would seem to be a question of a difference in terms of attitude toward advertising in general rather than of a preference of a country for the use of nudity in advertising. Indeed, very significant differences (largely lower than 0,01) are observed when we compare the answers of Czech, Spanish, and French on this variable and no significant difference between men and women, or between ad-NW and ad-FW groups were detected on any of the items measuring the attitude toward the advertising in general. Conclusion The results obtained within the framework of this experiment confirm our two hypotheses. If nationality does not influence the attitude toward a sexy advertisement compared to an advertisement without sexual connotation, the same tendencies having been observed in Czech Republic, Spain and France, then the gender on the other hand influences the ad whichever the country. 17 The results of Maciejewski (2004) which show that women clearly have a more negative attitude than men towards advertisements utilising sexy female models (from the kind of scale “It is right to use sex-appeal when selling sunscreen”), and that this is independent of the philosophic opinions of the individuals, is confirmed here and we can add that this is independent of the country of the individuals. The advertisers who would raise the question of the relevance of recourse to nudity in their campaign must thus more be aware of the definition of their target in terms of gender than about the European country in which the advertising will appear. Nevertheless, these results, which justify a homogeneous use of sexual stimulus in an European campaign when it is considered more efficient than an ad not using it, do not have to conceal the fact that attitudes toward advertising in general and attitudes toward the specific ad can vary significantly between several European countries even for an a priori homogeneous target. In addition to the necessary extrapolation of this work to a greater number of European countries in order to further validate our assumptions, several limits have to be underlined. First of all, the type of product selected does not justify recourse to nudity. What would happen in the case of a product more coherent with nudity? Wouldn't the difference observed between men and women tend to become blurred if there were more variables? Secondly, our experiment only took female nudity into account, it would be interesting to take into account male nudity which is less common, but which seems to developing nowadays (Elliott and Elliott, 2005), and with regard to which differences between country could perhaps be felt more strongly. Lastly, the choice of our experiment on a global brand and targeting young people can erase regional differences. What would happen in the case of an older target group maybe more culturally influenced by his country? Further, besides the choice of a target a priori more open to this form of communication, it is necessary to note that the contextual 18 aspect is likely to orientate results following the example of Moorman, Neijens, and Smit (2002) which showed that “magazine induced liking and positive feelings had a positive influence on the attitude toward the ad.“ What reaction would occur if the same ad appears in a male or female magazine? References Brislin, R. 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(1983) On the Validity of Students as Subjects in Advertising Experiments. Journal of Advertising Research, 23(4), pp. 57-59. Vezina, R. & Paul, O. (1997) Provocation in Advertising: A Conceptualization and an Empirical Assessment. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 14(2), pp. 177-192. Zimmerman, A. & Dahlberg, J. (2008) The Sexual Objectification of Women in Advertising: A Contemporary Cultural Perspective. Journal of Advertising Research, March, pp. 71-79. 21 Appendix 1: Advertisement for Nokia with naked woman Insert ad-NW Appendix 2: Advertisement for Nokia with face woman Insert ad-FW 22 Dear Professor, Please find our manuscript, entitled “The Effectiveness of Nudity in Advertising in Three European Countries” attached here for submission to the International Journal of Advertising. Although many studies focused on nudity in advertising have been published, and the question of the standardisation or adaptation of ads is often put in a European framework in particular, studies are rarely undertaken from the point of view of international comparison. We believe IJA represents an ideal outlet for this work, which provides both managerial and theoretical implications. We hope you agree there is a need for further work on this topic. Therefore, we ask you to kindly consider our article for publication. Yours sincerely, Christian Dianoux & Zdenek Linhart 23