Coding Scheme

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has increased the efforts in fighting the cruel fashion industry by using its own weapon – celebrity female models. Thus, for the years of 2007-2010, the research observes the widest use of celebrity endorsement and sexual appeal in 109 print advertisements printed during that time period, which is a large fraction of the total amount of 128, those were included in the analysis.

Author’s choice of the Skins case study investigation is caused by following reasons. “Skins” involve greater number celebrity endorsements rather than other PETA’s campaign (vegetarianism, animals in entertainment, animals companion). In addition, the author finds it a very effective way to advertise while using celebrities who are actually fashion workers to stand up against cruel fashion.

109 print ads were categorized in 4 sets according to the advertised topic (refer to Appendix 3), coded and analyzed (refer Appendix 4) in order to achieve a match for the representative sample.

3.4.1 Coding Scheme

The coding scheme is developed by the identification of the categories of each set, enumerating the specific dimensions of each category, and measuring each category at the nominal level, and then counting the number of occurrences falling into each dimension.

All of the total 109 print ads have been presented by celebrity spokeswomen. The identification of specific dimensions represents a type of characteristic, the amount of characteristic, or the presence or absence of characteristics.

The classification system includes 9 categories partially developed by author according to the presented print PSA content and based on previous research tradition.

The procedure was applied to 4 sets of PETA print ads:

Top Popularity of Celebrity Endorser – this category is meant to define whether the spokeswoman celebrity is popular all over the world, or only has celebrity status in her locality. The category is based on the rating data of independent chart, celebchart.com, which provides the scale of popularity for each celebrity (“who?” (unknown), “average”

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and “star” (top popularity). The author has modified the category of top popularity to the present or absent dimension.

Use of Sexual Appeal – this category is meant to define the nature of the sexual appeal in each ad. Sexual appeal is rated from “explicit” to “latent”. The “explicit” dimension is based on previous research presented in order of typology in Reichert (2003), “What is Sex in Advertising?". The author uses “latent” dimension in order to investigate opposite meaning of the presented category.

Use of Fear Appeal – this category is meant to define the content of fear appeal. A

“minor” dimension (or “minimal fear appeal” from Janis and Feshbach, 1953; Miller, 1963) means an appearance of only non-dominant verbal and visual elements, such as spoken elements of the message that elicit suitably terrifying emotion produced by a spokesperson, or a non-obvious occurrence of blood spots in the print image. The

“unpleasant” dimension of fear appeal (Boster and Mongeau, 1984) signifies a presence of visibly terrifying elements such as a pool of blood (whether around a model or animal), a representation of a death of a human, or the representation of an animal being skinned alive. The “brutal” dimension of fear appeal (“strong fear appeal” from Janis and Feshbach, 1953; Miller, 1963) signifies the use of overly bloody images with both humans and animals covered in blood, and strongly disgusting image elements of dead animal being skinned alive.

Use of Humor Appeal – this category is meant to define the content of humor appeal.

Appeal is rated from “amusing” (Sternthal and Craig, 1973) to “latent” (used by author as an opposite meaning of the presented category).

Message characteristic – this category is meant to define the message characteristics of an ad with both fear and humor appeal by characterizing it as either “educative” (or

“informative” from Ogilvy, 1983) or “amusing” (Sternthal and Craig, 1973). An

“educative” dimension in this category means such facts as the numbers of killed animals, killing methods, the amount of pain the animal senses etc. are presented. An

“amusing” dimension in this category means a joke, or some phrase that has a sense of humor is presented.

Dominant Tone of Non-verbal Communication – this category defines the types of

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different gestures and poses taken by a spokeswomen. The “enticing” (Reichert, 2003) gestures, poses could be defined by arousal or the suggestion of initiating sexual contact.

The “ultimative” gestures, poses taken by a spokesperson present her strong disagreement and show the public her ability to prove her point of view. The author applied dimension of ultimative tone of non-verbal communication by the reason of the PSA content specificity. The “warmth” gestures, poses suggest the dimension of warmth (Aaker and Bruzzone, 1981; Edell and Burke, 1987; Wells, Leavitt and McConville, 1971) by presenting friendliness and caring (such as smiling, hugging an animal or a toy, etc.).

Type of dress – this category defines whether the spokeswoman is not dressed (“nudity”) is wearing revealing clothing designed to increase sexual appeal (“revealing”), or is Bruzzone, 1981; Edell and Burke, 1987; Wells, Leavitt and McConville, 1971) such as cute animals, or fluffy toys etc. or “unpleasant” (Boster and Mongeau, 1984) such as skinned animals, or hung toys, etc.

Spokesperson Skin highlight – this category is meant to define the creative match of the chosen spokesperson’s skin highlights and the advertised topic. Highlights such as a black spokeswoman who suggests staying comfortable in her own skin, a tattooed model who speak out for using “ink” instead of “mink” on their bodies, and a model who takes action “being inside” an exotic animal skin, which makes her one of them, are marked as “exoticism”. Those spokeswomen, bare or dressed, that do not exhibit anything out of the ordinary were marked as “ordinariness”. The category is developed by author in order to improve the meaning of existing “physical attractiveness”

classification (Buss, 1994) by incorporating skin highlights, which is playing an important role among the Skins PSA campaign.

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Set A: I’d Rather Go Naked (52 Print Ads were analyzed)

In the present set of print advertisements the dominant appeal is sexual appeal.

Thus humor appeal does not take a place in this set. All models in this set are completely naked so the “nudity” type of dress is the default type. The category of

“Types of Objects and Accessories in Use” is inappropriate.

Category: Dimension:

Set B: Don’t Wear Fur (33 Print Ads were analyzed)

In the present set of categories no skin highlights were mentioned, thus the category of SpokespersonSkin Highlight was excluded.

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Use of Sexual Appeal Explicit Latent

Use of Fear Appeal Minor Unpleasant Brutal

Use of Humour Appeal Amusing Latent

Tone of Non-verbal Communication Enticing Ultimative Warmth

Type of Objects and Accessories in Use Pleasant Unpleasant

Type of Dress Nudity Revealing Common

Set C: Skins (9 Print Ads were analyzed)

Top Popularity of Celebrity Endorser Present Absent

SpokespersonSkin Highlight Exoticism Ordinariness

Message Characteristics Educative

Amusing

Use of Sexual Appeal Explicit Latent

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Tone of Non-verbal Communication Enticing Ultimative

Set D: Stop the Seal Hunt (15 Print Ads were analyzed)

Category: Dimension:

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Message Characteristics Educative

Amusing

Type of Dress Nudity Revealing Common

SpokespersonSkin Highlight Exoticism Ordinariness

Type of objects and Accessories in use Pleasant Unpleasant

For the detailed coding scheme, please refer to Appendix 3 and Appendix 4.