It is as easy to imagine that celebrities featured in anti-drug commercials uniformly encourage all viewers to abstain from drugs, as it is to imagine that the more closely viewers watch these commercials, the more effective the messages will be. The current research reconsiders both assumptions. Highly anti-marijuana (state of balance) and highly pro-marijuana (state of imbalance) viewers were selected, and their processing style (central vs. peripheral) was manipulated as they watched commercials (with anti-marijuana messages from celebrities for whom all viewers previously reported high appeal). The dependent measures were SOA (Strength of Association conveys the likelihood that attitudes will automatically activate to guide behavior related to marijuana), change in celebrity appeal (pre- to post-commercial), and level of counter argument after the messages. The findings confirm past research (Wagner and Sundar, 2003) suggesting that a peripheral processing style is more effective than central processing, in terms of SOA. They also suggest the usefulness of balance theory (Heider, 1946; Osgood and Tannenbaum, 1966) in studying media effects. In particular, they help understand how the presence of a celebrity, instead of leading to a decrease in the appeal of drugs for its viewers, may have unintended effects of a decrease in the appeal of the celebrity bearing the anti-drug message, and of greater counter-argument after the message. Ironically, these unintended effects were characteristic mostly of pro marijuana viewers who employed a central message processing style; this suggests that advertisers need to reconsider the effectiveness of this genre of messages, and underscores the relevance of social psychology to mass communication. / text

<p>In this age of ubiquitous advertisement, people are getting more and more burdened withadvertising clutter. Digital Signage (DS) has evolved to be a new medium that can cut throughthis clutter and reach a large number of consumers. Though Digital Signage was introduced asan in-store advertising medium, soon it started to replace traditional static billboards with thebenefit of technological advancement.</p><p>While advertising effectiveness is a much discussed subject, effectiveness of an advertisingmedia is still a less explored area. Our research explored the effectiveness of Digital Signageas an advertising media in terms of its placement inside of a store and outside of a store. Atthe beginning we developed a model to measure the effectiveness of Digital Signage on thebasis of an existing model, termed as Advertising Response Model (ARM). Based onprofound study and analysis of previous literature on advertising and media effectiveness,consumer psychology, outdoor advertising and intermediate measurement variables weconstructed the modified version of ARM that deemed to be the best fit with our purpose. Wefurther developed four hypotheses on the basis of the four major variables of our model.</p><p>The result of our study indicated that placement of Digital Signage inside and outside of thestore environment impacts the variables of Attention, Recall and Media Liking of theaudience differently. However, no significant difference in consumers’ Buying Interest issupported. Placing Digital Signage inside of the store as well outside of the store both hasdifferent degrees of impact on consumers in terms of Attention, Recall and Media Liking. Thecorrelations among the variables were also explored and thus we presented some strategicinsights about the placement of Digital Signage and practical implications for managers in thescope of our study.</p><p>Our research area has received comparatively less academic attention than other advertisingmedia. However, considering the growing importance of Digital Signage as a groundbreakingadvertising medium and scope of future research work, we believe Digital Signage will be asubject of interest for the academics, the advertisers as well as for the companies.</p>

In this age of ubiquitous advertisement, people are getting more and more burdened withadvertising clutter. Digital Signage (DS) has evolved to be a new medium that can cut throughthis clutter and reach a large number of consumers. Though Digital Signage was introduced asan in-store advertising medium, soon it started to replace traditional static billboards with thebenefit of technological advancement. While advertising effectiveness is a much discussed subject, effectiveness of an advertisingmedia is still a less explored area. Our research explored the effectiveness of Digital Signageas an advertising media in terms of its placement inside of a store and outside of a store. Atthe beginning we developed a model to measure the effectiveness of Digital Signage on thebasis of an existing model, termed as Advertising Response Model (ARM). Based onprofound study and analysis of previous literature on advertising and media effectiveness,consumer psychology, outdoor advertising and intermediate measurement variables weconstructed the modified version of ARM that deemed to be the best fit with our purpose. Wefurther developed four hypotheses on the basis of the four major variables of our model. The result of our study indicated that placement of Digital Signage inside and outside of thestore environment impacts the variables of Attention, Recall and Media Liking of theaudience differently. However, no significant difference in consumers’ Buying Interest issupported. Placing Digital Signage inside of the store as well outside of the store both hasdifferent degrees of impact on consumers in terms of Attention, Recall and Media Liking. Thecorrelations among the variables were also explored and thus we presented some strategicinsights about the placement of Digital Signage and practical implications for managers in thescope of our study. Our research area has received comparatively less academic attention than other advertisingmedia. However, considering the growing importance of Digital Signage as a groundbreakingadvertising medium and scope of future research work, we believe Digital Signage will be asubject of interest for the academics, the advertisers as well as for the companies.