來源國，廣告訴求，文化價值觀:航空公司廣告在台灣的內容分析法研究 - 政大學術集成

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(1)RUNNING HEAD: COO, APPEALS, VALUES IN AIRLINE ADS. Examining the Relationship between Country of Origin, Appeals, and Cultural Values in Advertising: A Content Analysis Study of Airline Ads in Taiwan. 立. 政治大. ‧ 國. 學 Master’s Thesis. ‧. n. er. io. al. sit. y. Nat Student: Gulenok, Kateryna. i n C Advisor: I-Huei h e nCheng, gchi U. National Chengchi University. July 2014. v.

(2) RUNNING HEAD: COO, APPEALS, VALUES IN AIRLINE ADS Table of Contents Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................... ii Abstract .........................................................................................................................iv Chapter 1: Airline Industry as a Prospective Field for Advertising Research ............... 1 Chapter 2: Literature Review ......................................................................................... 7 Country of Origin in Advertising ............................................................................... 7 Domain of COO ............................................................................................ 7 Country of Origin Research .......................................................................... 9 COO as Rational and Emotional Appeals................................................................ 12 Studies of COO in Advertising ................................................................................ 14 Country of Origin in Advertising for Service Sector ............................................... 15 Cultural Meanings of COO in Advertising .............................................................. 23 Research Questions Proposed ...................................................................................... 27 Chapter 3: Methodology .............................................................................................. 32 Sampling .................................................................................................................. 32 Unit of Analysis ....................................................................................................... 34 Coding ...................................................................................................................... 35 Country of Origin Coding Categories ......................................................... 35 Advertising Appeals Coding Categories ..................................................... 36 Rational Appeal ................................................................................... 36 Emotional Appeal ................................................................................ 36 Cultural Value Coding Categories ........................................................................... 36 Eastern Values ..................................................................................... 37 Western Values ..................................................................................... 37 Coding Procedure..................................................................................................... 37. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. sit. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. Chapter 4: Results ........................................................................................................ 39 General Findings ...................................................................................................... 39 COO Use in Ads (RQ1) ........................................................................................... 41 COO and Advertising Appeals (RQ2 and RQ3) ...................................................... 43 COO and Cultural Values (RQ4 and RQ5).............................................................. 45 Correlation between COO, Appeals and Values...................................................... 46. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Chapter 5: Discussion .................................................................................................. 49 General COO Discussion ......................................................................................... 49 Advertising Appeals Discussion .............................................................................. 51 Cultural Values Discussion ...................................................................................... 54 COO, Appeals and Values Intersection Discussion ................................................. 58 Chapter 6: Conclusions ................................................................................................ 60 Limitations and Opportunities for Future Research................................................. 60 Contributions and Practical Suggestions ................................................................. 61 References .................................................................................................................... 67 Appendix 1: Coding Sheet ........................................................................................... 80 Appendix 2: Codebook ................................................................................................ 83 Appendix 3: Advertisement (COO, Appeals and Values codes) ................................. 87.

(3) COO, APPEALS, VALUES IN AIRLINE ADS. ii. Acknowledgements Students usually perceive writing papers like this as a heavy duty – when you think: “Oh, I have to sit/go and do it”, finding any reason to postpone the start of the process – Facebook, washing clothes, “urgent” need to go and buy something, etc. At first, I was also like this. But close to the finish of the literature review phase (the most boring part, we have to admit) I unexpectedly started enjoying it. The process of actual research – the thing I have never done before – turned into an exciting journey that was keeping me toned during the last months.. 治政大– Professor I-Huei Cheng – Without the tactful guidance of my thesis advisor 立. it would have never happened like this. She was (and is) amazing both as a highly. ‧ 國. 學. qualified professional and a personality. Her ability to see the whole picture and. ‧. evaluate it comprehensively with excited admiration has constantly inspired me.. sit. y. Nat. Professor Cheng, thank you so much!. n. al. er. io. I would also like to thank committee members – director of IMICS, Professor. i n U. v. Barry Shiaw-Chian Fong, and professor Chia-Hsin Pan from Chinese Culture. Ch. engchi. University who kindly agreed to join my thesis committee and provide me with valuable comments and suggestions.. During a time- and effort-consuming process of collecting data and coding, my schoolmate and close friend – Elena Kovableva was with me and helped a lot. Abby Moreno saved me with mastering statistics via SPSS – I never could have done it without her. Thank you, girls! It would definitely be too much for one person to handle. It was much easier when there were three of us. The people who will probably never read it – my parents – are just the best. I.

(4) COO, APPEALS, VALUES IN AIRLINE ADS. iii. simply want to send a piece of my love for them to the Universe. Last but not least – Taiwan. Thank you for providing me with an opportunity to spend, if not always easy, definitely remarkable two years here – studying not just international communications, but also life and myself. That was an exciting and valuable journey!. P.S. Dear Professor Fong and Professor Cheng, words cannot express how grateful I am for that final fight we had together. I will always remember and. 政治大. appreciate all you have done for me.. 立. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v.

(5) COO, APPEALS, VALUES IN AIRLINE ADS. iv. Abstract The current study is a content analysis of airlines’ printed ads, exploring an intersection of country-of-origin (COO), advertising appeals (rational and emotional), and cultural values (Eastern or Western). The study focuses on airlines advertising to understand the role of COO and its interaction with ad appeals and cultural values. The goal of the study is to explore the ways in which airlines or service businesses (selling intangible products) communicate with consumers about the values and meanings in their advertising, especially since the market for travel services is. 政治大. growing and the airline industry is facing drastic competition.. 立. The statistical analysis showed clear consistent patterns in the use of COO and other. ‧ 國. 學. advertising appeals: the ads that used COO are more likely to use emotional appeals. ‧. and express more Eastern values. Adding to our understanding about the branding of. sit. y. Nat. airlines, the findings are in line with the literature that claimed emphasis on emotional. io. n. al. er. aspects for service advertisements. Implications for practitioners are also discussed.. i n U. v. Key words: airlines, country-of-origin, services, advertising appeals, cultural values, content analysis. Ch. engchi.

(6) COO, APPEALS, VALUES IN AIRLINE ADS. 1. Chapter 1. Introduction. Airline Industry as a Prospective Field for Advertising Research Today’s world is changing and evolving extremely fast, and communication as both a science and a set of various tools accompanies this evolution (or sometimes even revolution). As a science dealing with symbols, meanings and messages, it can be applied to political, cultural, economic, semiotic, and social dimensions. As a. 治政大 almost any field of human techniques, corporate affairs, and diplomacy. We can study 立 business tool, it finds its embodiment in advertising, public relations strategies and. activity from a communicational perspective, while communication itself is inherently. ‧ 國. 學. valued as well. For businesses, it turns out to be a battleground for their consumers –. ‧. on par with material spheres of production, sales, and innovation. Our globalized. sit. y. Nat. world is rapidly becoming a “global village” (McLuhan, 1962), with a tendency of. io. al. er. homogenizing everything – from baby food to values, in many spheres distinguishing itself is a topic of crucial importance. To be successful, a business or person has to be. n. v i n special, to make the difference, C to stand the crowd – and communicate this h e noutgfrom chi U particularity in a proper way.. Given the dynamic nature of the aviation industry, studying airlines in terms of their communications provides valuable data for analysis. Belonging to the service sector, being global by their nature and operating across cultures, their communication exemplifies different approaches of dealing with cultural values, national peculiarities and internationalism at the same time. The industry of civil aviation is one of the most dynamically growing in the world and due to rapid technological progress this world is becoming smaller and smaller. The development.

(7) COO, APPEALS, VALUES IN AIRLINE ADS. 2. of the aviation industry is to a huge degree both cause and effect of the progress: technology lets people cover huge distances in a short period of time, thus making traveling an easy task. On the other hand, it is the need for faster and more comfortable transportation that makes aviation evolve rapidly. As the market grows, more players appear. Therefore, competition becomes tougher. Airlines compete in services, technologies, destinations, and prices. To fight for their consumers, they compete in communications as well. What are the strings of the human soul they play on when advertising its services? Is it a rational part of our nature that is appealed to. 治政大 adventure that makes and value-for-money, or is it emotions promising, for example, 立 in order to choose a certain airline? Do we value quality, sustainability, technology. a decision in favor of a specific carrier? What is the essence of air travel that. ‧ 國. 學. advertisers are trying to deliver? Does it depend on the market they operate in? What. ‧. about the airline’s country of origin – does it matter? What role does it play when. sit. y. Nat. communicating with consumers? Studying airlines’ communication will help us. io. n. al. er. answer these questions.. i n U. v. Being interested in the cultural aspects of advertisements, communication. Ch. engchi. scholars often turn their attention to the national “flavor” of the product/service – as a point of differentiation that is used to underline uniqueness. It often becomes if not a product itself, but an additional value added to the subject and used in its advertisement – whether directly or indirectly. McCracken (2005) stresses that the main point here is that today’s consumers are not buying features – they buy meanings, thus making goods become vehicles of meanings, particularly cultural ones. That national “flavor”, or, as it is called in academic circles, country-of-origin effect in advertising offers specific meanings: in the case of airlines, Singapore Airlines, for example, depicts an image of the friendly Singapore girl, and Cathay Pacific shows.

(8) COO, APPEALS, VALUES IN AIRLINE ADS. 3. characters that are evocative of Chinese characters – in such a way they leverage country stereotypes acting in their favor (Karunarantra, Quester & Johnson, 1998). Communicating the origin of the product/service, COO links them to certain national stereotypes – it is the fact that cannot be ignored when using the COO effect as an advertising tool. As a mean of differentiation, COO becomes extremely important in the global environment. With a global approach as an overall idea of operation and the concept influencing the tactics of business performance, and international as a practice applied, national airlines – as bearers of national identity – contribute largely. 治政大the air industry is terms of civil aviation, we may beyond all doubt say that 立. to the construction of national images among foreign publics, i.e. internationally. In. experiencing one of the strongest country-of-origin effects, since airlines have always. ‧ 國. 學. been naturally associated with their native country, and thus treated as one of its key. ‧. brand ambassadors. For example, the planes of Qatar Airways with its slogan “The. sit. y. Nat. World’s Five Star Airline” spread around the globe the desired image of Qatar – the. io. al. er. world’s richest country by GDP per capita, nation of richness, modernity and progress,. n. home of luxury and prosperity. As a branding tool, the national air carrier is useful. Ch. engchi. and powerful, since it reaches far and wide.. i n U. v. The primarily roots of the phenomenon of national airlines treated as influential brand ambassadors could be found in history: initially, most of the airlines were created by states and regarded as flag carriers (government-owned commercial passenger airline, as that term is generally used in commercial aviation) – having its national airline has been regarded almost as important as having a national army. Countries often do not consider themselves as “real” unless they have their own.

(9) COO, APPEALS, VALUES IN AIRLINE ADS. 4. national carrier1. For example, we could observe the “explosion” of the founding of national airlines during the first years after the Soviet Union crash in 1991 – every former Soviet Republic created its national carrier: Ukraine International Airlines (1992), Belavia (national carrier of Belorussia, 1996), Air Baltic (Latvian national carrier, 2005), etc. In most cases, the governments established the airlines and became their major shareholders – having its national airline was and still remains a question of national pride and a declaration of a state’s independence. The creation of a national airline was understood to fulfill many pragmatic and ideological functions.. 政治大. As time goes on, the states’ participation in airlines’ performance has been. 立. minimized. For example, in 2011 Ukraine's government sold its majority stake. ‧ 國. 學. (61.6%) in Ukraine International Airlines, now the airline is 100% privately owned. However, it is still strongly emphasizing its belonging to the Ukrainian nation having. ‧. sit. io. er. Nat. Ukrainian hospitality among its key features.. y. the colors of the national flag as their corporate colors and declaring traditional. However, we may easily observe that the degree of a county – airline. al. n. v i n C h assumes that theUairline’s association to the connection varies. Markessinis (2011) engchi country of origin is less significant when an airline is initially private-held, or it is a newly established airline designed to be a global brand from the beginning – such airlines are mainly country-neutral, at least in a significant portion of their brand identity2. On the other hand, the old, veteran state-founded carriers continue to tell a story that is much bigger than just the fleet itself. National airlines of the US, UK, France, and Germany are the reminders of the times when the bigger aircraft was a 1Nation. Branding: Everything about National Branding and Country Brandshttp://nationbranding.info/2010/04/14/airline-companies-nation-branding-ambassadors/ 2 Nation Branding: Everything about National Branding and Country Brandshttp://nationbranding.info/2010/04/14/airline-companies-nation-branding-ambassadors/.

(10) COO, APPEALS, VALUES IN AIRLINE ADS. 5. manifestation of bigger economic muscles of its country of origin – having national meaning, they demonstrated a country’s industrial strength. Germany’s engineering power was embodied in Lufthansa’s impressive aircraft, ongoing growth and prosperity of the state was represented in Emirates – the national carrier of UAE, Nordic togetherness found its evocation in SAS (Scandinavian Airlines System), etc. Given examples show us that airlines indeed are hugely symbolic – they remind us of the still-enormous power of nationalism. According to McRae (2001), unlike trains or cars, aircraft bear flags and brand themselves with national flags. It is. 政治大. no surprise that they use this – national – part of their nature in advertising. 立. campaigns – symbolism here is a good card to play: associations with certain. ‧ 國. 學. countries allow a triggering of positive connotations among consumers. National airlines provide international services, and it makes them progressively global as well.. ‧. At the same time, their international operation does not become an obstacle for an. y. Nat. sit. active use of country-of-origin information as a part of their differentiation strategy. n. al. er. io. that also finds its embodiment in advertising – global nature of aviation business is. i n U. v. the factor that rather enhances the tendency of country-of-origin effect use than. Ch. engchi. depresses it (Hoenen, Karunaratna & Quester, 2005). Being providers of international services, national airlines – national companies with international profiles and global performance (both in terms of actual operations and marketing and communications – advertising and PR activities) appear to actively use country-of-origin information as a part of their communications. If we look at the phenomenon from another – national interest perspective, we see how airlines become a part of national identity. Being ambassadors of their native countries, national carriers can gain tangible results from aligning their brand strategy.

(11) COO, APPEALS, VALUES IN AIRLINE ADS. 6. with that of the nation. For example, in 2008 Alitalia took Pope Benedict to Australia on its longest non-stop flight, which was rather symbolic. We can also estimate the level of attention paid to airlines during such kinds of official visits: the fact that there is a habit that the return flight of the Pope is provided by the airline of the visited nation (Qantas in our case) shows that airlines are treated as something more than just a means of transportation. Apart from reputational benefits, national identity can also result in companies’ revenues. Swiss Airlines is strongly associated with Switzerlandinherent high quality, reliability and upscaleness, British Airlines is treated as a part of the British heritage and pride – there are the reasons, among others, why. 治政大 passengers choose them, thus keeping them going. 立 ‧ 國. 學. However, in nowadays’ competitive reality the above-mentioned belonging is not as valued as it used to be – just to be treated as a national carrier and associated. ‧. with a country is not enough. Time flies, and with the appearance of new market. y. Nat. sit. players, people tend to forget what certain carriers were appreciated for in the past.. n. al. er. io. Thus, it is still crucially important to communicate with consumers, both via. i n U. v. marketing and PR channels. Airlines do communicate: almost every air carrier in the. Ch. engchi. world is producing a huge amount of different ads. Some of them use country of origin and some of them do not, some appeal to rational, while others play with human emotions, some of them represent Eastern values and some are purely a Western product.. The goal of the present research is to find whether certain patterns exist in advertising for civil aviation through answering, among other, the questions about interrelations between variables under research. The study employs content analysis of airlines’ printed advertisements in terms of country-of-origin cues, the strategies of.

(12) COO, APPEALS, VALUES IN AIRLINE ADS. 7. advertising appeals (rational and emotional), and the system of cultural values (Eastern and Western) where the ad operates. Analyzing an intersection of the three above-mentioned phenomena – COO, rationality vs. emotionality, and systems of culture values – we obtain a comprehensive understanding of what the advertising for the specific industry of air travel is.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v.

(13) COO, APPEALS, VALUES IN AIRLINE ADS. 8. Chapter 2 Literature Review Country of Origin in Advertising Domain of COO. Shaping their preferences and making purchase decisions, consumers pay attention to the product origin– this phenomenon has been widely researched and repeatedly proven by communication scholars starting from the 1960s. Papadopoulos and Heslop (2002) report that more than 750 country-of-origin (COO) studies have been published from the time the role of national stereotypes in product. 政治大. evaluations was first considered till the end of the twentieth century. Dmitrovic and. 立. Vida (2010) add that recent reviews include more than 1,000 studies published in. ‧ 國. 學. journal articles, with numerous articles dealing with this issue appearing in the. ‧. business press as well. They also point out a continuous emerging of new issues in the field related to product nationality, such as health and product safety issues,. y. Nat. al. er. io. sit. environmental concerns, globalization as a threatening issue, etc.. v. n. Attention paid to the issue of COO is a part of the trend of recent decades –. Ch. engchi. i n U. competition and innovation being drivers of profits in a global system of free markets, where national cultural specificity acts as the “competitive edge” (Griffiths & Zammuto, 2005). Here we deal with country-of-origin effect – a multidimensional construct that evokes a wide range of cognitive responses (Han & Terpstra, 1988; Nebenzahl & Jaffe, 1996; Lim & Darley, 1997). According to Kotler (2002), countryof-origin perceptions are mental associations and beliefs triggered by a country. These cognitive responses and mental associations are a fertile ground to appeal to when advertising. It could be done in different spheres, as well as within specific industries, and country-of-origin issue use can be observed both in goods and service sectors,.

(14) COO, APPEALS, VALUES IN AIRLINE ADS. 9. since almost any industry can benefit from a positive country image that influences a business’s ability to compete in the global market (Chandra, Fealey & Rau, 2006). Thus, being not able just to rely on product features – even the excellent ones – any more, companies in general and airlines in particular regard country of origin as an important tool for marketing communication that can possibly act as a variable in the consumer’s evaluation of products and brands (Verlegh, Steenkamp & Meulenberg, 2005). In a world rapidly turning into one large market it becomes crucially important to be different. When prices and destination offers are mostly. 政治大. equal, it is important to find ways of differentiating – to create additional value and to. 立. communicate it properly. Striving to be distinguished, brands use a country of origin. ‧ 國. 學. as the above-mentioned value, since it is a way to differentiate the product from the competitors. Although it is not the only value they have, it still significantly affects an. ‧. audience’s perception of brands, including their quality. Perceived quality here acts as. Nat. sit. y. a key driver to brand equity (Aaker, 1991) – the value of a brand, customer loyalty,. n. al. er. io. and market share obtained from a recognizable name, which influences a company’s. i n U. v. performance (sales, margins, etc.). Companies eager to build strong brand equity,. Ch. engchi. since it enhances a brands’ cost and stimulates buying decisions. Working on brand equity, they try to make their products/services memorable, easily recognizable, and superior in quality and reliability. Country of origin is often linked with the quality issue in a consumer’s consciousness – it also acts as one of the factors determining a consumer’s choice, thus influencing the formation of brand equity. Companies that due to certain reasons can be associated with particular countries may use these connotations as their competitive advantages for commercial and reputational purposes, thus creating an.

(15) COO, APPEALS, VALUES IN AIRLINE ADS. 10. additional value for their products or services. If properly communicated, this additional value has a potential to be turned into a material one – another reason why companies use country of origin is its “monetization”. Bello and Holbrook (1995) claim that brand equity finds its embodiment in consumers’ will to pay more for the same level of quality due to the attractiveness of the name attached to the product. Koschate-Fisher, Diamantopoulos and Oldenkotte (2012) further explain that being a dimension of brand equity, favorable country image may result in higher prices, which, in turn, leads to an increase in operating income and, thus, higher profitability.. 治政 image is the additional benefit that makes people assign大 a higher value to products 立. Their research claims that the COO effect associated with a country with a favorable. from this country. Consumers, in many cases, are ready to spend more money on such. ‧ 國. 學. products as well. The COO cues help customers recognize certain attributes of the. ‧. product, which also play a favorable role in profits. In terms of advertising, Lin and. sit. y. Nat. Chen (2006) believe that COO in ads is an effective strategy since consumers’. io. n. al. er. perception of the country is generally favorable.. i n U. v. Country of Origin Research. There have been mainly two lines of studies in. Ch. engchi. COO research: those observing the phenomena in relation to consumers’ evaluation of the product (consumer perspective) and those looking at COO as a part of brand identity (company’s perspective). For the first types of research, numerous academic studies (predominantly exploratory and descriptive, using interviews or questionnaires followed by quantitative analysis) have shown that a positive country-of-origin image influences a consumer’s evaluation of the country’s products and, as a result, their intention to buy those products (Paterlini, 2012; Chao & Rajendran, 1993; Essoussi & Merunka, 2007; Jaffe & Nebenzahl, 2001). Scholars mostly agree that COO is an important feature for consumers when choosing the product/service and evaluating its.

(16) COO, APPEALS, VALUES IN AIRLINE ADS. 11. quality. Schooler (1965), considered as the first researcher to empirically study this effect, found that consumers perceived products identical in every respect except for their country-of-origin, and this allows them to be perceived differently. More recent research, i.e. by Lee (1999) and Tseng (2001) confirm the earlier findings claiming that COO does affect both product/service and purchasing intention: when consumers are to make a decision, they will, among other factors, rely on country image in the context of the country-of-origin effect – it will effect consumer’s preference level as well as their purchasing and information search intention. These behavioral responses. 治政 these associations is widely used in advertisements. 大立. have implications on brand equity. The importance of this effect explains why using. ‧ 國. 學. Consumers tend to use stereotypes of countries to simplify information possessing, as well as a surrogate indicator of product quality (Johansson 1989). The. ‧. findings by Huber and McCann (1982) show that this is particularly true in lack of. y. Nat. sit. product familiarity: country-of-origin claims are used as predictors of product quality. n. al. er. io. when more explicit product knowledge is missing. Here we deal with the halo effect –. i n U. v. one of the ways COO has been observed to operate – when the country-of-origin cue. Ch. engchi. influences consumers’ beliefs about product attributes and only indirectly influences their overall evaluations of products through these beliefs (Han, 1989; Hong & Wyer, 1989).. When consumers are more or less familiar with the product, these halo effects happen to be less influential in product evaluations. However, the problem appears to be particularly acute in services with the tremendous worldwide growth in the sector, leading to a substantial increase contribution by services to most national economies. In this case consumers tend to operate with summary effects – when the country-of-.

(17) COO, APPEALS, VALUES IN AIRLINE ADS. 12. origin cue directly influences those who already have previous experience with the products from this country (Han, 1989). In addition to halo and summary effects, the country-of-origin allusion can also be used as an additional criterion for product evaluation (Hong & Wyer, 1989).. On the other hand, if no strong connections between a country of origin and a product are observed, companies may try to create these links intentionally using a nation’s cultural heritage communicated through symbols, emblems, icons and other popular associations, as a potent part of their identity. Florek and Insch (2008) believe. 政治大. that collective identification with these symbols built up over time and shared among. 立. generations makes them a rich source of brands.. ‧ 國. 學. Thus, at the defined level of the second type of studies, we deal with product-. ‧. country image as a part of product brand (and as an issue of advertising as well). In. sit. y. Nat. this case our performance is based on two concepts: brand and country of origin.. n. al. er. io. Olins (2002, 2011) and Duncan (2011) claim that branding deals with. i n U. v. belongings as well – it is something that gives you a sense of familiarity. It is the. Ch. engchi. main competitor advantage used by companies to create strong customer equity, since brand is a network of values, perceptions and associations. In relation to branding, a survey-based study by Okechuku (1994) on the relative importance of the COO cue as one of several attributes including brand name, price, and warranty also revealed that the importance of the COO variable was often equal or greater than that assigned to others. Moreover, respondents believed that brand couldn’t be separated from COO, and considered them to be bound together. In this regard, national carriers use their belonging to a specific country as a part of their own identity, as well as a promotional tool in their communication campaigns. They advertise their national.

(18) COO, APPEALS, VALUES IN AIRLINE ADS. 13. belonging using a huge variety of tools and techniques: from printed ads bearing COO cues to national dishes offered as onboard meals. Content analysis of a sample of print advertisements by Hoenen, Karunaratna and Quester (2005) showed that airline advertisements are rich in graphical content and present images that represent one or more national characteristics. That is what national airlines do: they enhance the country-of-origin effect extensively using country-related content, thus establishing links that perhaps didn’t exist before. As a part of this process, airlines and countries can feed each other with a mutually supportive, two-way flow of brand equity, and. 政治大. exchange with each other their reputations.. 立. COO as Rational and Emotional Appeals. At the same time, scholars also. ‧ 國. 學. define another reason why COO is persuasive: its appeal to human nature – whether its rational or emotional side. Country of origin affects people’s perception and. ‧. evaluation of a product/service as having both strong emotional and rational influence. y. Nat. sit. (depending on perspective chosen by advertiser). As can be predicted, belonging to. n. al. er. io. services also to a certain degree predetermines the choice of advertising appeals,. i n U. v. divided by Kotler (2003) into rational and emotional. An appeal, as described by. Ch. engchi. Manrai et al. (1992), is the basic idea behind an advertisement or the basic reason why an audience should act. Berkman and Gilson (1987) defined advertising appeal as an attempt at creativity that inspires consumers’ motives for purchase and affects consumers’ attitudes towards a specific product or service, while another definition by Kotler (1991) states that advertising appeal refers to packaging products, services, organizations, or individuals in a variety of ways that clearly deliver a certain benefit, stimulation, identification, or reason to explain what consumers are thinking about and why they buy products. To do so – to draw attention, to influence, to stimulate, to make consumers think of a product or service – advertisers use rational and emotional.

(19) COO, APPEALS, VALUES IN AIRLINE ADS. 14. appeals. Rational appeals here deal with direct persuasion: via emphasizing benefits and functions of a product/service, it shows the rationality of a consumer’s choice (Kotler, 1991). Emotional appeals, on the other hand, are aimed at indirect influence: they try to operate a consumer’s psychological, social, and symbolic requirements, where many purchase motives come from (Lin, 2011), usually dealing with either negative (fear, guilt, shame, etc.) or positive (love, joy, pride, etc.) emotions (Kotler & Armstrong, 1991). Zinkhan and colleagues (Johnson & Zinkhan, 1990, Villanova, Zinkhan & Hyman, 1990) also claim that products do not only have physical nature,. 治政大for purchase choice. We can feelings that consumers possess about them are essential 立 but psychological and social as well. Therefore, perceptions, ideas, emotions, and. further add that it is especially true for services due to their intangible nature.. ‧ 國. 學. Herz and Diamantopoulos (2013) claim that country of origin cues (or, what. ‧. they alternatively call country-specific associations (CSAs) can be both rational and. y. Nat. sit. emotional. They refer to internally stored knowledge and beliefs about the country. n. al. er. io. (both including country facets like politics, economy, culture, and technology, and. i n U. v. people facets like competence, creativity, and labor) in their linkage to a brand as. Ch. engchi. rational, while emotional associations are believed to be those based on positive/negative feelings toward a country. In their study, scholars explored applicability of these approaches to the COO effect with the help of a collage technique and semi-structured interviews aimed at defining differences in consumers’ communication of two distinct types of country-specific associations. Their research revealed that rational appeal in terms of relation to a country included references to quality (to describe Lufthansa, participants used pictures of a German flag, a watch, and a police officer as those describing punctuality and reliability, and German origin of the brand), ethics (production conditions: care for environment, no children labor.

(20) COO, APPEALS, VALUES IN AIRLINE ADS. 15. use, etc.), ethnicity(interconnection of BMW and Germany in people’s perceptions), and economic support (flyNiki – the last remaining Austrian-owned airline – was chosen to support the home economy). Applying the same technique to emotional country-specific associations, the scholars found that it included expressions of feelings (summer, pizza, and holiday were linked with Alfa Romeo), episodic memories, and symbolic references. Although this study explores the relation between COO and appeals (rational and emotional) and clearly distinguishes tactics, it does not unveil the difference of these approaches and techniques depending on the brand’s. 治政大 crucial factor for choosing advertising appeals. 立. belonging to goods or to services, whereas such belonging influence is sometimes a. ‧ 國. 學. Studies of COO in Advertising. The above-mentioned studies predominantly utilize survey as the method of data collection, while content analysis, experiment and. ‧. other methods are used much less frequently, especially when dealing with cross-. y. Nat. sit. cultural studies. However, studies conducted to explore the phenomenon within one. n. al. er. io. country have been using the method of experiment as well and tend to prove the. i n U. v. same – country of origin significantly influences product judgments (Zdravkovic,. Ch. engchi. 2013) and their purchase intentions (Cai et al., 2004).. The lack of content analysis studies – those exploring, among others, existing advertisements and photographs – in this field that can be attributed to consumer research is partially explained by Kassarjian (1977). He claims that consumer studies are mainly concentrated on verbal and symbolic behavior: they study characteristics of the communicator or opinions, behaviors and – again – characteristics of the interpreter of communication messages. Content analysis, on the other hand, studies the message itself – it is the study of the stimulus field. Among the studies that had.

(21) COO, APPEALS, VALUES IN AIRLINE ADS. 16. applied this methodology and are related to our sphere of interest, he mentioned those measuring changing values in society as reflected in the analysis of mass periodic fiction (Johns-Heine & Gerth, 1949), product and company images’ reflection in the media (Stone, Dunphy & Bernstein, 1966), information content in television advertising (Resnik & Stern, 1977), etc. Searches for recent studies on COO have proven that little has changed since Kassarjian’s study – content analysis is still relatively rarely used to explore COO issues. We are interested not in the effect (which probably requires an experimental or survey study), but in the message itself –. 治政大 adds value to the aspect of communication research remains relatively unattended 立. how the defined industry employs COO in its visuals for advertising. The fact that this. research focused specifically on the documentary evidence – how COO is being. ‧ 國. 學. conveyed through specific types of advertisement.. ‧. As can be seen, the COO issue is found to be important for product perception,. y. Nat. sit. evaluation, purchasing intentions, creation of additional value for a product/service. n. al. er. io. with a further possibility to turn this value into financial profits. It has been. i n U. v. comprehensively researched in terms of the above-mentioned influences using mostly. Ch. engchi. survey-based methods of analysis, but relatively fewer studies are found to categorize it and research the message itself. The present study fills this gap in the existing research of the country of origin issue. Country of Origin in Advertising for Service Sector Although the COO issue has been extensively explored, most studies have focused on manufactured goods while little has been discovered about how COO is employed in advertising strategies for services or intangible products (Han & Schmidt, 1997). A literature review on COO research for services by Javalgi, Cutler and.

(22) COO, APPEALS, VALUES IN AIRLINE ADS. 17. Winans (2001) showed that the main focus of existing research has recently been put on education, telecommunications, finance and banking, medical services, tourism, and airlines – in the mentioned services COO cues play an important role in evaluation, especially when brand names are not well known to the consumer, and more explicit information is absent (Huber & McCann, 1982). While recent studies have considered the influence of the nationality of the service provider (HarrisonWalker, 1995) and customer loyalty to local airline travel (Bruning, 1997), the influence of the COO issue on service choice receives limited attention.. 政治大. The reason why there has been less attention paid to advertising for services in. 立. general and for COO used service advertising may be the very nature of services,. ‧ 國. 學. which are internally different from goods in four dimensions: intangibility, simultaneity, heterogeneity, and perishability (Legg & Baker, 1987; Shostack, 1977;. ‧. Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Berry, 1985; Zinkhan, Johnson & Zinkhan, 1992).. sit. y. Nat. io. er. Simultaneity of production and consumption is often aggravated by physical distance between the service provider and consumer (Berthon et al., 1999) – it. al. n. v i n Cemphasized influences approaches and issues production and U h e n g cin hads.i Simultaneous consumption associated with services, as well as their intangibility, may to some extent explain why COO effects are considered being less significant with services than with goods (Harisson-Walker, 1995).. Another possible explanation of less attention paid to advertising for services is referred to by Hoenen, Karunaratna and Quester (2005) to differences in the type of products evaluated, study designs and the use of single versus multiple cues. For example, when comparing the strength of a single cue (e.g., “made in Japan” as a single attribute) with multiple cues (e.g., COO and price and other product attributes.

(23) COO, APPEALS, VALUES IN AIRLINE ADS. 18. together), the relative effect of COO in the multi-cue context is much smaller, as found by Johansson, Douglas and Nonaka (1985) after spreading questionnaires between respondents of two different national origins.. However, intangibility and abstractness of most services is probably the most crucial issue to deal with in the context of marketing and advertising – it has been claimed as the most important characteristic differentiating services from products (Heesawat, 2005), a key to determine whether an offering belongs to services or goods (Zeithaml & Bitner, 1996). The primary goal here is to help consumers. 政治大. visualize the service, to make it tangible.. 立. Previous research in this sphere highlighted the fact that since services deserve. ‧ 國. 學. special attention when visualizing their values, they need to be made more tangible. ‧. and product-like (Berry & Clark, 1986; Berry & Parasuraman, 1991; Kindstrom et al.,. sit. y. Nat. 2012). Intangibility of services is a serious challenge for commercial communications.. io. al. er. Potential consumer cannot assess it before actually buying, so advertisers are to provide cues about its qualities and benefits. Thus, an important issue often chosen as. n. v i n a main point of attention in ads C forh services is quality U e n g c h i – one of the most important. elements in service advertisement (Grove, Pickett & Stafford, 1997). As has already been mentioned, trying to evaluate a potential level of service, consumers often use stereotypes about countries as a surrogate indicator of product quality (Johansson, 1989). It means that COO cues can act as a predictor of quality: here we deal with the halo effect – when the country-of-origin cue influences consumers’ beliefs about product attributes and only indirectly influences their overall evaluations of products through these beliefs (Han, 1989; Hong & Wyer, 1989). Different visual countryrelated content in airlines’ ads (pictures, physical symbols, specific facts, etc.) is used.

(24) COO, APPEALS, VALUES IN AIRLINE ADS. 19. not just in order to make it tangible, but also for the personification of the air carrier. Content analysis conducted by Karunaranta, Quester and Johnson (1998) demonstrated that at least one national characteristic is usually present in an airline’s printed ads that are rich in graphical content as well.. Airlines deal with marketing of services internationally, which is difficult. Certain difficulties appear since they cross geographical and cultural borders – in terms of quality, for example, their performance can be influenced by different perceptions of service quality that may vary significantly depending on different. 政治大. expectations across cultures (Stafford, 2005). Thus, emphasizing the quality issue in. 立. their ads might be challenging. An exploratory study by Karunarantra (1998) revealed. ‧ 國. 學. that for this purpose services such as airlines, banking, telecommunications and education appear to exhibit brand and country-of-origin cues: airlines, in particular,. ‧. exploit their national belongings in advertising, relying both on summary and halo. y. Nat. sit. effects acting as predictors of the quality to be delivered by the service provider.. n. al. er. io. Being providers of international services – national companies with international. i n U. v. profiles, – they globally approach their marketing and advertising activities and. Ch. engchi. appear to actively use country-of-origin information in their differentiation strategy. In line with exporting knowledge, information, technology, and creativity across the globe, world-class service providers like Singapore Airlines or American Express through the COO information often present their national character to the rest of the world as well (Ahmed at el., 2002).. It should be stressed that the issue of quality in ads is not limited just to quality itself – the area of quality references is found to be wider. Turley and Kelly (1997) assign both direct and indirect (reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy,.

(25) COO, APPEALS, VALUES IN AIRLINE ADS. 20. etc.) quality claims as quality declarations. They particularly stress that external communications with customers play a crucial role in their perception of service quality. In this regard, it is especially important to use advertising as one of the important dimensions of external communications with consumers to communicate quality issues that might not be obvious due to the intangible nature of services.. Another aspect of consumer involvement and a possible tool for tangibilization of services is intimacy. In attempts to strengthen relations with their customers, service providers eager to make these relations closer, often use intimacy. 政治大. for this reason. Stern (1988) illustrates this with an example of the United Airlines. 立. "friend" campaign aimed at associating the generic function of business travel with. ‧ 國. 學. the warmth and companionship of personal friendship. She also emphasized the emotional appeal implicit in the phrase "your friend," which associates personalized. ‧. intimacy with airline companies, generally viewed as impersonal and uncaring. Stern. y. Nat. sit. also argues that consumers experience closer human relationships and greater. n. al. er. io. intimacy particularly with service providers, since they are often viewed as emblematic of the total service product.. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. COO can also be regarded as a possible extent of the intimacy issue. In relation to an airline’s native country, this intimacy can be further deepened between not just a consumer and a service provider – airline, but often between a consumer and the whole country the airline represents. In this relationship, Hochschild’s (1983) used the term of “managed heart” (in our case, a country represented by an airline) to define the strategy of “handling” customer-provider relations. Therefore, working on development of relationships based on intimacy makes sense from two perspectives: airline – consumer (primarily business oriented relationships using the “intimacy”.

(26) COO, APPEALS, VALUES IN AIRLINE ADS. 21. tool to attract and keep consumers, thus getting profits) and country – consumer (where country is represented by the airline). In the latter case, intimacy in services is being operated for the sake of primarily reputational and image-establishing purposes, where achieving financial benefits is an indirect objective. Although, it is still in the question since we deal, above all, with huge businesses – airlines, even national, are for-profit organizations. At a wider level, the COO effect used by airlines is to brand a country (Anholt, 2007). Thus, “tangibilization” of services often turns into the #1 priority for. 政治大. advertisers – it helps not just to differentiate a service provider out of many, but it can. 立. also turn it into a persona with its own character, story and place of residence –. ‧ 國. 學. features that speak for the quality of services it provides. This persona can trigger different emotions, and consumers can communicate with it on different levels of. Nat. sit. y. ‧. involvement – both rational and emotional.. io. al. er. However, existing findings related to the use of appeals in advertisement for services are found to be contradicting: there is no generally accepted opinion. n. v i n C hadvertising approach. supporting the rational or emotional e n g c h i U For example, in her article “International Services Advertising. Defining the domain and reviewing the. literature”(2005), Stafford opposes LaBand, Pickett, and Grove (1992), Zinkhan, Johnson, and Zinkhan (1992) with their findings that services advertisers used more informational or cognitive ads for the research by Cutler and Javalgi (1993) who reported the use of more emotional appeals. Assigning adventure, humor, romance, sensuousness/sex, status, care for loved ones, play/contest, affiliation issues in ads to emotional appeals, Turley and Kelly (1997) claim services advertising lends itself to use of mainly such type of appeals. Albers-Miller and Stafford (1999) proved the.

(27) COO, APPEALS, VALUES IN AIRLINE ADS. 22. same in their research discovered that advertisements for services in Taiwan contained expressively more emotional appeals as compared with goods. To be mentioned, though, that Taiwan ads used significantly more emotional appeals in general than ads of the U.S. In this relation, Wang (2000) suggests that rational appeals would be typical for Western cultures whereas emotional appeals are typical in Eastern cultures. These particular findings support the perception of services as those significantly differing from goods in terms of intangibility, which makes them more suitable for advertising via emotional appeals (Swaminathan, Zinkhan & Reddy,. 治政大 examining appeals and cultural values in Chinese TV commercials the researcher 立. 1996). A recent study by Shen (2013) again provides support for this point of view:. found that ads for services categories (represented by finance and travel) used more. ‧ 國. 學. emotional than rational appeals.. ‧. In their article “A Comparison of Advertising Content: Business to Business. Nat. sit. y. Versus Consumer Services” they cite Young (1981) who also argued that the nature. n. al. er. io. of services differs from those of goods – in terms of a special hierarchy of effects: it is. i n U. v. feel -> do -> learn rather than learn ->feel -> do. Such peculiarity, according to. Ch. engchi. Young, makes emotional appeals more effective for service advertising. Here we come to “tangibilization” and personification again: Firestone (1983) noted the importance of developing a service personality (e.g. iconic Singapore Girl in case of Singapore Airlines) through services advertising, and emotional appeals would be the most efficient in representing a service-provider personality to consumers. Reacting on emotional impulse, people tend to project a warm-hearted attitude of Singapore Girl to people (particularly stressed in the airline’s ads) to the company’s image in general and its attitude to its passengers, which is useful for the airline’s business. The same article by Turley and Kelly (1997) also provides the data by Stafford and Day.

(28) COO, APPEALS, VALUES IN AIRLINE ADS. 23. (1995) that contradicts the findings of the paper cited above. Using message appeal as an independent variable, Stafford and Day conducted an experiment that demonstrated that rational appeals (comfort, convenience, ease of use, economy, health, profitability, quality, reliability, time-saving, efficiency, variety/diversity, environmental friendliness, etc.) were more effective in causing positive response and attitude from the consumers of service ads. However, Turley and Kelly (1997) debate that contradictions in findings can be explained by different types of services and, thus, different types of appeals they might require.. 政治大. That is what deals with whether to use one appeal or another, and the. 立. discussion about possible impacts and influences both approaches might have.. ‧ 國. 學. Another questionable point is mutual exclusiveness of categories: rational vs. emotional differentiation by Herz and Diamantopoulos (2013), for example, does not. ‧. provide a clear view of whether positive/negative feelings toward a country as a part. Nat. sit. y. of emotional appeal (and, therefore, response’s belonging to emotional class) are. n. al. er. io. automatically exclusive of those associations triggered by rational knowledge. In. i n U. v. other words, if we, for example, have negative feelings about a certain brand that is. Ch. engchi. caused by a political situation in the country where it is produced, will it still be considered as rational, since we deal with facts (rational aspect) that are not directly related to the brand itself, but which affect our perception of this brand mainly based on emotional response? What are the positive/negative feelings based on?. What triggers associations? What makes us relate foiegras with Air France? Is it knowledge about French cuisine? Yes. What about romance? Chances are we will still consciously or unconsciously link an ad using this value to France. Kanso and Kitchen (2004) stressed that services might be even more susceptible to the influence.

(29) COO, APPEALS, VALUES IN AIRLINE ADS. 24. of culture, since they inherently involve human communication. Thus, we are interested in cultural codes used to create certain links in peoples’ brains when they see airlines’ advertising as well. Are these codes something else other than directly communicated country-specific associations (e.g. country name, flag or folk costumes)? How are indirect associations conveyed then? Herz and Diamantopoulos (2013) mentioned, among others, symbolic references causing emotional countryspecific associations. What are these references? Apart from the rational knowledge, what is the stimulus causing them? What should be depicted on the ad to help the. 政治大. brain build certain links? In other words, how is the culture coded?. 立. Cultural Meanings of COO in Advertising. ‧ 國. 學. Besides being engaged in tangibilization as a persuasive approach aimed at making services more valuable, COO is also related to values – communication. ‧. scholars have also discussed the cultural meaning of using COO in advertisements.. y. Nat. sit. Cultural values depicted in ads usually directly address those dominated within the. n. al. er. io. targeted market. However, in order to attract consumers with a favorable country. i n U. v. image (potentially further projected to a product/service in general), advertisers often. Ch. engchi. operate with country-of-origin values as well.. Even international advertising cannot be isolated from values – whether native (possessed by country of origin) or targeted, since the value system is one of the key factors determining society. Rokeach (1968) defines a value as “an enduring belief that a specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is personally or socially preferable to alternate modes of conduct or end-state of existence”. Applied to cultural values, it turns into the prevailing beliefs and guiding ethics for thoughts and deeds that infuse culture (Srikandath, 1991). Belonging either to the Western or.

(30) COO, APPEALS, VALUES IN AIRLINE ADS. 25. Eastern world, for example, will impact cultural values stressed in a particular country and, consequently, will influence advertisers’ choice of appeals used to advertise in this country (or even region). In such a way values in advertising become appeals: advertisers appeal/play on certain ideas that are believed to be valued in a certain society.. The world is becoming more and more globalized, so is the advertising industry. An important question for the industry arises: how does advertising and culture interact? Scholars (Chan & Cheng, 2002; Cheng & Schweitzer, 1996; Pollay,. 政治大. 1983, 1986; Pollay & Gallagher, 1990) agree that advertising is a carrier of cultural. 立. messages and that the content of advertising appeals varies by culture (Alden, Hoyer. ‧ 國. 學. & Lee, 1993; Choi & Miracle, 2004; Kim & Markus, 1999). Mueller (1987) claims that, advertising tends to reflect the prevalent values of a culture in which it exists,. ‧. insofar as those values can be used to shape consumption ethic. On the other hand,. y. Nat. sit. cultural values transmitted through advertising are powerful forces affecting. n. al. er. io. consumer motivation, life-styles, and product choices (Tse et al., 1989). Advertising. i n U. v. messages shape and influence culture; and reflect culture at the same time (Frith &. Ch. engchi. Mueller, 2003). Here we again come face to face with mutual influences. Values affect advertising, while advertising promotes certain values, being, at the same time, also affected by the complex nature of powers: the advertisement industry is heavily influenced both by the distinctive cultural history, values, and philosophies of its audience, and those of its creators (Rotzoll & Haefner, 1990; Taylor, Hoy & Haley, 1996) – marketers’ beliefs in certain drivers of purchase behavior matter. Globalization finds its reflection in advertising content: now it is possible to observe how traditional value systems have been adapted to the world of the global market (Frith & Mueller, 2003)..

(31) COO, APPEALS, VALUES IN AIRLINE ADS. 26. Applied to the present research, beliefs of advertisers in one or another cultural value as tool to make consumers buy a product or service is important to construct the whole picture of advertising for services in general and ads for airlines in particular.. Systems of cultural values have long been an issue in cross-cultural advertising studies (Belk, Bryce & Pollay, 1985; Cheng & Patwardhan, 2010; Cheng & Schweitzer, 1996; Mueller, 1987, 1992; Sengupta & Frith, 1997). However, the problem was mainly researched in general, not in respect to the service sector. 政治大. specifically. Although previous researchers (Cheng & Schweitzer, 1996; Lu, Cheng &. 立. Phelps, 2007; Mueller, 1992) claimed that the type of appeal is often influenced by. ‧ 國. 學. the category of advertised product, they mainly focused their attention on goods: FMCG sector, industrial products, and automobiles have been repeatedly targeted in. ‧. the studies of value frameworks. Only the recent study by Shen (2013) partially. y. Nat. sit. covers this issue: researching the use of appeals and cultural values in television. n. al. er. io. commercials for indigenous Chinese brands and the difference in the use of these. i n U. v. appeals and cultural values across product categories, the author separates services. Ch. engchi. (represented by travel and finance) into a specific category and demonstrates that the most frequently used cultural values under the rational appeal were wisdom (for finance) and naturalness (for travel). For emotional appeals the most frequently used values were security (for finance) and adventure (for travel category).. Possible dependence between country of origin (of a brand, product, or advertiser) and values depicted in ads was previously researched as well (Cheng & Patwardhan, 2010; Lin & Chen, 2006; Lu, Cheng & Phelps, 2007; Zhang & Harwood, 2004). Content analysis-based research by Lu, Cheng and Phelps (2007) studying.

(32) COO, APPEALS, VALUES IN AIRLINE ADS. 27. advertisements in Chinese magazines to trace the relationship of a product category, advertisers’ origin and advertising appeals, as well as findings by Cheng and Patwardhan (2010) examining Chinese and Indian TV commercials for cultural values in their reference to a country of origin (through content analysis as well) demonstrate that these links do exist: frequency of certain appeals used varied in dependence whether the advertiser was of Chinese, European, or U.S. origin. Again, the studies mentioned above do not differentiate advertising for goods and advertising for services, which can differ in terms of category – appeal – country of origin correlation.. 治政 cultural values reflected in Chinese and U.S. television大 commercials put services into 立. Although the studies by Cheng and Schweitzer (1996) and Lin (2001) exploring. a separate category, it does not focus much on this issue, just briefly mentioning in the. ‧ 國. 學. findings that the most commonly discovered appeals in Chinese TV commercials for. ‧. services were collectivism, courtesy, magic, modernity, technology, wealth, and. sit. y. Nat. wisdom, while for U.S. commercials it was collectivism, competition, convenience,. io. er. economy, enjoyment, family, modernity, nurturance, safety, and youth. Another study – by Albers-Miller (1999) – suggests that cultural values might vary by product. al. n. v i n C h intentionally selected category. For this reason, the researcher e n g c h i U two service (travel and. finance) and two goods (apparel and office supply) categories for the study. However, the fact whether there was any difference between the products was not mentioned in the research.. Besides, none of the existing studies have focused specifically on the aviation industry.. What makes the area more comprehensive in terms of the present study is that for our frame of reference we did not find any research taking into consideration all.

(33) COO, APPEALS, VALUES IN AIRLINE ADS. 28. three variables (country of origin, advertising appeals and cultural values), using content analysis as the methodology, within the context of the service sector represented by a specific industry – air travel.. The sphere of aviation is believed to be that providing sufficient information for analysis. For an airline’s performance, it is always a challenge to deal with both the specific characteristics of services and the intrinsic differences across cultures. COO here plays an important role: for this reason it is widely used as a part of the brand nature and communicated via marketing and advertising channels. It is also. 政治大. used to meet the major challenge facing advertisements for international services –. 立. developing messages that accurately reflect the culture of interest (Stafford, 2005) –. ‧ 國. 學. in our case the culture of the airline’s home country. Thus, dealing with cultural values is an integral part of advertising activities. This challenge faced by advertisers. ‧. creates possibilities for researchers as well: exploring messages can help understand. y. Nat. sit. the ways culture is represented in the modern world, what cultural values are operated. n. al. er. io. and how they are portrayed, what appeals are addressed, etc. This is what the present. i n U. v. study does – examines advertising messages looking specifically at all these variables and their interaction.. Ch. engchi. Research Questions Proposed As can be seen from the literature review, the data from existing studies lets us predict the COO effect to be observed in airlines’ advertisements under the research, with only the percentage of such advertisements to be specified based on the results of the study applied to the Taiwan market. However, what is interesting to observe is the specific types of content predominantly used by advertisers in such kinds of advertisements. Thus, the following research question was proposed:.

(34) COO, APPEALS, VALUES IN AIRLINE ADS. 29. RQ1: What contents are used to portray country of origin (COO) in the airline advertisements in Taiwan?. To answer this question, we further looked at the dependence between COO appearance and advertiser’s origin: whether there were countries represented by airlines that value their nationality more, which found its embodiment in the advertisements they produced.. Going further with the issue of rational and emotional appeals, we have faced. 治政 applied to advertising for services in the existing scope大 of studies. Applicability of 立 contradictions regarding the dominance of whether rational or emotional appeals. these contradictory findings in service sector advertising to the specific industry of. ‧ 國. 學. civil aviation has created impressive possibilities for research. Taking into. ‧. consideration existing findings and their opposing results, it was particularly. sit. y. Nat. interesting to know what type of appeal airlines used in communication campaigns.. io. al. er. Researching the advertisings by airlines, the current study explored, among other. n. approaches and techniques, the use of rational and emotional appeals in such advertisements.. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Thus, in regard to opposition of two appeals in advertisements – rational versus emotional – we have come to the following research question:. RQ2: What advertising appeals (rational and emotional) are used by airlines in the airline advertisements in Taiwan?. If the COO effect is present in these advertisements as well, it is also useful to know the correlation between these two variables. Therefore, the third research question is the following:.

(35) COO, APPEALS, VALUES IN AIRLINE ADS. 30. RQ3: Is there a correlation between the presence of country of origin (COO) and use of advertising appeals (rational and emotional)?. As might be concluded from certain research, the issue of service quality often becomes the main focus of advertising for services. Bearing in mind that the category of “quality” belongs to rational appeals, it might be hypothesized that being a service provider of consumer services, airlines use rational appeals more frequently. However, research also shows that services also use emotional appeals in their ads in general and in those of them operating the COO effect in particular. Although COO research. 政治大. has long treated the role of COO as a cognitive, verbally expressed, and consciously. 立. processed allusion (e.g. dealings with quality), Herz and Diamantopoulos (2013), for. ‧ 國. 學. example, claim that emotional associations, personification, memories, and symbolism related to a country may also be part of the consumer’s brand perception.. ‧. Therefore, such kinds of associations may be used in advertising for services as well.. y. Nat. al. er. io. contradictive phenomenon.. sit. Taking into consideration these two points of view, we now face a largely. n. v i n C hstage appears premature, Thus, hypothesizing at this e n g c h i U since – as can be seen. from the above data – scholars have previously reached conclusions that were wide as the poles asunder. Another important aspect is that advertising for airlines as service providers appears to deal with the compound nature of such service and, therefore, a different approach to advertising that might be implied. There were no cues playing in favor of any point of view so far, hence we had to conduct our own research in order to clarify the issue of rational vs. emotional appeal applied to airline advertising in general and its relations with the COO effect in particular. Being interested in cultural values addressed in airlines’ advertising, in order.

(36) COO, APPEALS, VALUES IN AIRLINE ADS. 31. to further integrate the results of the value findings into the whole picture of interconnections between the use of certain appeals, engaging the COO effect and their correlation to the presence of certain values, we have formulated the fourth research question:. RQ4: What are the cultural values (Eastern vs. Western) manifested in airline advertisements?. Taking into consideration the debates over standardization or adaptation of. 治政大& Hennessey, 2001; Mueller, research of cultural values (Cho & Cheon, 2005; Jeannet 立 international advertising messages in different countries taking place as a part of. 1987, 1992; Stafford, 2005, Vrontis & Vignali, 1999), the research could take any of. ‧ 國. 學. the approaches. National country-based international airlines, by their very nature,. ‧. have brand names that have international recognition, and their advertisements might. sit. y. Nat. convey the idea “all over the world” through reflecting modern Western values. On. io. al. er. the other hand, we predicted that the region in broader understanding could influence the operation within a specific value system. Taiwan is an Asian country that is for. n. v i n C h with Asian countries geographical reasons better air connected than with European or engchi U American countries. It also means that foreign airlines acting in Taiwan’s market are. predominantly of Asian/Eastern origin. Another factor to be mentioned is that Taiwan as a traveler’s point is mainly a final destination, not an international hub situated in the same region like Hong Kong or Singapore, therefore the level of “cosmopolitanism” is less evident. Current research helps us to understand what trend is applicable to the Taiwan case. In relation to the COO effect as a possible dominant feature of airlines’ advertisements, we were also interested in the value context this effect was placed in..

(37) COO, APPEALS, VALUES IN AIRLINE ADS. 32. Thus, the following research question was formulated:. RQ5: Is there a correlation between cultural values and the presence of country of origin (COO) in airline advertisements?. Here we pay attention to three factors: the nature of the industry, target audience, and the essence of COO. Taking into consideration different values matters in each case (e.g. modernity for aviation, traditional values of a country for COO, and group consensus for the target audience as those representing Eastern mentality), a. 治政大 equal representation was under the question of the research. 立. hypothesis was not formulated, since the dominance of one of the factors or their. To further deepen the study and to trace possible correlations between the. ‧ 國. 學. phenomena observed, we looked at the interrelations between all three variables. Thus:. ‧. RQ6: What is the relationship between the presence of country of origin. y. sit. io. n. al. er. advertisements?. Nat. (COO), advertising appeals (rational and emotional), and cultural values in airline. i n U. v. Thus, our current study addressed general limitations for the service sector in. Ch. engchi. existing research and narrowed the area of research to civil aviation advertisements. It explored the relationships between the COO issue, its belonging to either rational or emotional appeal, the use of specific appeals in airlines’ advertisements, and the value context it was placed in..

(38) COO, APPEALS, VALUES IN AIRLINE ADS. 33. Chapter 3 Methodology In the current study, airline advertisements are content analyzed, mainly for the country of origin, advertising appeals and cultural aspects. Defined by Walizer and Weinir (1978) as a systematic procedure to examine the content of recorded information, content analysis is widely recognized as a systematic approach to describe media content and an effective way to analyze advertising materials. Within the frame of the present research focused on studying the message itself, this. 政治大. methodology provides well-structured quantitative data for further analysis.. 立. ‧ 國. 學. Sampling. The samples analyzed in the study include major magazines in Taiwan in the. ‧. categories of Finance/Business, General Interest, and Travel/Food/Lifestyle, as these. sit. y. Nat. were the most popular magazine genres in Taiwan3. The readers of these magazines. n. al. er. io. are similar to the target consumers of the airline industry, in their demographic profile,. i n U. v. that is, aged 24-55 with at least a college degree and working as professionals who. Ch. engchi. travel frequently both for business and leisure.. For “Finance and Business” magazines, the publications with the highest circulation and readership4 are chosen: 1) Business Weekly 商業周刊 (weekly publication) as the most popular business publication in Taiwan with the highest circulation among finance and business periodicals (average readership of every issue – 1 233 000 people; average circulation of 129 690 copies from January to June. 3Magazine 4Nielsen. Publishing Industry Survey, GIO Media Index 2013Q1 (12-65 years old).

(39) COO, APPEALS, VALUES IN AIRLINE ADS. 34. 20135; 2) Common Wealth 天下雜誌 (semi-monthly, average readership of every issue – 815 000 people, 120 000 copies per week6; 3) Business Today 今周刊 (weekly, average readership of every issue – 523 000 people, 140 000 copies per week7). Those magazines were selected not only as the most popular on the Taiwanese market, but also as those belonging to different publishing houses (Business Weekly 商業周刊 by Business Weekly Group, Common Wealth 天下雜誌 by The Common Wealth Magazine Group, and Business Today 今周刊 by Business Today Magazine) and thus representing different editorial policies and advertising approaches.. 政治大 Among the category of “General Interest” the following magazines with the 立. ‧ 國. 學. highest readership, also belonging to different media holdings were chosen: 1) Next Magazine 壹週刊 (Next Media, 114000 copies weekly8, dominates the market for. ‧. general-interest magazines); 2) China Times Weekly 時報周刊 (China Times Group,. Nat. sit. y. 120 000 copies weekly9); 3) Global Views Monthly 遠見雜誌 (Commonwealth. al. n. copies monthly11).. er. io. Publishing Group, average readership of every issue – 670 000 people10, 108 000. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Among the category of “Travel/Food/Lifestyle” the following magazines were chosen: 1) TRAVELCOM 行遍天下 (Hong Shuo Cultural Enterprises 宏碩文化事業股份有限公司, 80 000 copies monthly12); 2) az Travel 旅遊生活雜誌(65 000 copies monthly, Alltronics Utilities 華訊事業股份有限公); 3) Taipei Walker (Kadokawa 5Audit. Bureau of Circulation Wealth official website 7Business Today official website 8Magazine Business Association of Taipei, 2013 9Magazine Business Association of Taipei, 2013 10Nielsen Media Index 2013Q1 (12-65 years old) 11Magazine Business Association of Taipei, 2013 12Magazine Business Association of Taipei, 2013 6Common.