Highly attractive models in advertising: What causes negative affect?

Abstract

Highly attractive models (HAMs) have been popularly used in advertising to exert  psychological impacts on the message receiver in the hope of increasing advertisement’s effectiveness. The marketing literature is replete with evidence of the positive effects of using HAMs. However, support for their effectiveness is somewhat conflicted. The research attempts to add to the body of general knowledge, specifically through exploring the impact of individual difference variables (model characteristics, product types, comparison motives and culture) on negative effects. This study also investigates whether advertising skepticism determined by culture has an impact on negative effects as a result of a HAM comparison. The methodology uses a 3 [beauty types] x 2 [product types] x 2 [comparison motives] between-subjects experimental design. Respondents for the main study are female students across cultures from international programs and universities in Vietnam. The results supported all hypotheses; except product types shown having no impact on negative effects. The research also confirmed there are interrelationships between culture and skepticism. These findings have implications regarding the potentially negative influence of advertising including HAMs for practitioners, academics and public policy makers.