University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Masters Theses Graduate School 8-2012 Targeting Gender: A Content Analysis of Alcohol Advertising in Magazines A-Reum Jung [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes Recommended Citation Jung, A-Reum, "Targeting Gender: A Content Analysis of Alcohol Advertising in Magazines. " Master's Thesis, University of Tennessee, 2012. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes/5398 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a thesis written by A-Reum Jung entitled "Targeting Gender: A Content Analysis of Alcohol Advertising in Magazines." I have examined the final electronic copy of this thesis for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science, with a major in Communication and Information. Roxanne Hovland, Major Professor We have read this thesis and recommend its acceptance: Eric Haley, Jin Seong Park Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) Targeting Gender: A Content Analysis of Alcohol Advertising in Magazines A Thesis Presented for the Master of Science Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville A-Reum Jung August 2012 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to express thanks to major advisor, Dr. Roxanne Hovland, and committee members, Drs. Eric Haley and Jin Seong Park. Their guidance and support were very valuable to complete this thesis. Also, I wish to acknowledge my family and friends. I appreciate your patience and for reminding me to rest. Thank you all for your help. ii ABSTRACT Advertisers use different advertising strategies depending on their target audiences in order to maximize advertising effects. In general, the most frequently used target segmentation is gender because it meets requirements for successful advertising implementation. Thus, the focus of this study is to find whether advertisements contain ingredients that are likely to have special appeal for target audiences. The study analyzed message strategy and creative strategy of alcohol advertising in magazines. For the analysis, from January 2004 to December 2011, a total number of 474 alcohol advertisements were examined from six magazines divided by three categories: men (Playboy and Sports Illustrated), women (Southern Living and Vogue), and gender- neutral (Gourmet and Gentlemen's Quarterly). The results of this study point out that alcohol advertising appeals to gender differences through different creative strategies rather than through message strategies. However, regardless of gender, the most commonly used strategies in alcohol advertising are to appeal to target audience’s emotional aspects, especially within social situations. Also, results reveal several characteristics of alcohol advertising in magazines such as women’s increasing socio-economic aspects and magazines’ media characteristics. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER Ⅰ Introduction and General Information ........................................................ 1 CHAPTER Ⅱ Literature Review ....................................................................................... 4 Target segmentation and advertising effectiveness ........................................................ 4 Advertising effectiveness and contents ........................................................................... 5 Alcohol advertising and contents .................................................................................... 6 Framework of advertising strategies ............................................................................. 10 Advertising message strategy: Six-Segment Message Strategy Wheel .................... 10 Advertising creative strategy .................................................................................... 13 Reseaerch Questions ..................................................................................................... 14 CHAPTER Ⅲ Materials and Methods .............................................................................. 16 The sample .................................................................................................................... 16 The development of the coding frame .......................................................................... 18 The procedure of analysis ............................................................................................. 19 CHAPTER Ⅳ Results and Descussions ........................................................................... 21 Results ........................................................................................................................... 21 Message strategy differences .................................................................................... 22 Creative strategy differences ..................................................................................... 24 Discussion ..................................................................................................................... 27 CHAPTER Ⅴ Conclusions and Recommendatoins ......................................................... 31 LIST OF REFERENCES .................................................................................................. 33 iv APPENDIX ....................................................................................................................... 41 Coding sheet Ⅰ ............................................................................................................. 42 Message strategies coding guideline Ⅱ ........................................................................ 43 Creative strategies coding guideline Ⅲ ........................................................................ 44 Message strategies by alcohol types Ⅳ ........................................................................ 45 Creative strategies by alcohol types Ⅴ ......................................................................... 46 Post-hoc test of creative strategies by alcohol types Ⅵ ................................................ 47 Drinkers by alcohol types Ⅶ ........................................................................................ 47 Vita .................................................................................................................................... 48 v LIST OF TABLES Table Page Table 1. Sample magazines and readerships. ............................................................. 17 Table 2. Advertising frequency by alcohol types. ...................................................... 22 Table 3. Message strategies. ....................................................................................... 23 Table 4. Creatives strategies. ...................................................................................... 25 Table 5. Post hoc test of creative strategies. ............................................................... 26 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Six-Segment Message Strategy Wheel. ....................................................... 11 vii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL INFORMATION Advertisers use different advertising strategies depending on their target audiences in order to maximize advertising effects. Past studies supported the idea that segment- specific advertisements elicit a more positive response from its intended audiences than general advertisements (Feldman, 1975). In general, the most frequently used target segmentation is gender because it meets requirements for successful advertising implementation (Meyers-Levy & Sternthal, 1991). Thus, it can be assumed that different advertising strategies are used for each gender. Also, understanding gender is vital for advertisers to design gender-specific advertisements. Research on gender differences in advertising has been continuously explored in several categories such as information processing (for example, Darley & Smith, 1995; Meyers-Levy & Mathewaran, 1991), advertising response (for example, Bellizzi & Milner, 1991), gender-role portrayals or stereotyping (for example, Klassen et al., 1993; Knupfer, 1998; Sexton & Haberman, 1974), and gender brand positioning (for example, Alreck et al., 1982). Although research that supports gender differences exists, it is hard to find studies of how advertisers actually apply gender differences in their advertising. Thus, this study explores how different strategies are used for gender, especially focusing on advertising contents. This is because previous research found that message content is a crucial element that influences belief and attitude formation as well as behavioral intent (Wolin & Korgaonkar, 2003), generally considered as the purpose of advertising. Therefore, analysis of advertising content is one way of determining whether 1 advertisements contain ingredients that are likely to have special appeal for target audiences. In this study, gender differences are explored in alcohol advertising. There are four reasons to choose alcohol advertising: 1) the gender gap in the alcohol consumption rate has changed remarkably, 2) alcohol advertising