IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/bushor/v64y2021i4p415-424.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

“Unprecedented,” “extraordinary,” and “we're all in this together”: Does advertising really need to be so tedious in challenging times?

Author

Listed:
  • Demsar, Vlad
  • Sands, Sean
  • Campbell, Colin
  • Pitt, Leyland

Abstract

As government-mandated lockdowns and steep declines in trade set in because of the COVID-19 pandemic, a common theme became apparent in the advertising of the time: It was all the same. Regardless of the product category or brand personality, many ads were remarkably similar. They began with melancholy music, voiceovers reminding the audience that the brand is here for them, and referred to these times as “unprecedented” and “extraordinary.” Ads reassured viewers that “together, we can get through this.” In this installment of Marketing & Technology, we articulate the problem of advertising sameness and explore how and why it likely arises during a time of crisis. We then discuss why advertising uniformity is a problem and present a series of strategic, media, and creative considerations—taking into account the constraints of a crisis— to help marketing professionals produce more effective advertising in the context of a disaster.

Suggested Citation

  • Demsar, Vlad & Sands, Sean & Campbell, Colin & Pitt, Leyland, 2021. "“Unprecedented,” “extraordinary,” and “we're all in this together”: Does advertising really need to be so tedious in challenging times?," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 64(4), pages 415-424.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:bushor:v:64:y:2021:i:4:p:415-424
    DOI: 10.1016/j.bushor.2021.02.007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0007681321000094
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.bushor.2021.02.007?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert Picard, 2001. "Effects of Recessions on Advertising Expenditures: An Exploratory Study of Economic Downturns in Nine Developed Nations," Journal of Media Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(1), pages 1-14.
    2. Elaine Wallace & Isabel Buil & Leslie Chernatony, 2020. "‘Consuming Good’ on Social Media: What Can Conspicuous Virtue Signalling on Facebook Tell Us About Prosocial and Unethical Intentions?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 162(3), pages 577-592, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Demsar, Vlad & Sands, Sean & Rosengren, Sara & Campbell, Colin, 2022. "Ad creativity in a negative context: How a thanking message frame enhances purchase intention in times of crisis," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Del Barrio-García, Salvador & Kamakura, Wagner A. & Luque-Martínez, Teodoro, 2019. "A Longitudinal Cross-product Analysis of Media-budget Allocations: How Economic and Technological Disruptions Affected Media Choices Across Industries," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 1-15.
    2. Rollins, Minna & Nickell, David & Ennis, Justin, 2014. "The impact of economic downturns on marketing," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 2727-2731.
    3. Lamey, L. & Deleersnyder, B. & Dekimpe, M.G. & Steenkamp, J-B.E.M., 2005. "The Impact of Business-Cycle Fluctuations on Private-Label Share," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2005-061-MKT, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    4. Andres Silva & Lindsey M. Higgins & Mohamud Hussein, 2015. "An Evaluation of the Effect of Child-Directed Television Food Advertising Regulation in the United Kingdom," Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue canadienne d'agroeconomie, Canadian Agricultural Economics Society/Societe canadienne d'agroeconomie, vol. 63(4), pages 583-600, December.
    5. Deleersnyder, B. & Dekimpe, M.G. & Steenkamp, J-B.E.M. & Leeflang, P.S.H., 2007. "The Role of National Culture in Advertising’s Sensitivity to Business Cycles: An Investigation Across All Continents," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2007-095-MKT, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    6. Ambarish Chandra & Matthew Weinberg, 2018. "How Does Advertising Depend on Competition? Evidence from U.S. Brewing," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(11), pages 5132-5148, November.
    7. Rapert, Molly Inhofe & Thyroff, Anastasia & Grace, Sarah C., 2021. "The generous consumer: Interpersonal generosity and pro-social dispositions as antecedents to cause-related purchase intentions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 838-847.
    8. Gregory D. Saxton & Charlotte Ren & Chao Guo, 2021. "Responding to Diffused Stakeholders on Social Media: Connective Power and Firm Reactions to CSR-Related Twitter Messages," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 172(2), pages 229-252, August.
    9. Zeynep Bayazit & Elif Guneren Genc, 2019. "An Analysis of Reciprocal Influence between Advertising Expenditures and Gross Domestic Product," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 9(2), pages 41-47.
    10. Erica E. Harris & Daniel G. Neely & Gregory D. Saxton, 2023. "Social media, signaling, and donations: testing the financial returns on nonprofits’ social media investment," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 28(2), pages 658-688, June.
    11. Wallace, Elaine & Buil, Isabel, 2023. "Antecedents and consequences of conspicuous green behavior on social media: Incorporating the virtual self-identity into the theory of planned behavior," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    12. Fridriksson, Kari S. & Zoega, Gylfi, 2012. "Advertising as a predictor of investment," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 116(1), pages 60-66.
    13. Ahmad Hamdani & Idris Gautama So & Amalia E. Maulana & Asnan Furinto, 2023. "How Can Conspicuous Omni-Signaling Fulfil Social Needs and Induce Re-Consumption?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-21, June.
    14. Alsaad, Abdallah & Alam, Md. Moddassir & Lutfi, Abdalwali, 2023. "A sensemaking perspective on the association between social media engagement and pro-environment behavioural intention," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    15. Artem A. Eremin, 2014. "The Effect of Advertising on Economic Growth in the USA from a New Methodological Perspective," Economic Studies journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 4, pages 3-14.
    16. M. Rimscha, 2013. "It’s not the economy, stupid! External effects on the supply and demand of cinema entertainment," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 37(4), pages 433-455, November.
    17. Esteban-Bravo, Mercedes & Vidal-Sanz, Jose M. & Yildirim, Gökhan, 2015. "Historical impact of technological change on the US mass media advertising expenditure," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 306-316.
    18. Jack E. Carson & James W. Westerman, 2023. "The Effectiveness of Organizational Sustainability Messaging to New Hires: An Exploratory Analysis of Signal Cost, Perceived Credibility, and Involvement Intention," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(2), pages 1-16, January.
    19. Demsar, Vlad & Sands, Sean & Rosengren, Sara & Campbell, Colin, 2022. "Ad creativity in a negative context: How a thanking message frame enhances purchase intention in times of crisis," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    20. Muhammad Shafiullah & Usman Khalid & Luke Emeka Okafor, 2023. "Do birds of a feather flock together? Analyzing environmental performance and tourist behavior using a gravity approach," Tourism Economics, , vol. 29(5), pages 1139-1163, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:bushor:v:64:y:2021:i:4:p:415-424. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/bushor .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.