Do ethnic cues improve advertising effectiveness for ethnic consumers?

This research investigates how the presence of ethnic cues in advertisements may influence ethnic consumers. Although past research has established the advertising effectiveness of ethnic cues particularly using the race of models as a cue, none have discussed the effectiveness across different types of ethnic cues. Yet, consumers may process visual and textual cues differently. Drawing on the elaboration likelihood model, we argue that the use of ethnic visual and textual cues in advertising may engender different outcomes. The results show that the presence of ethnic cues increases the likeability of advertisements and brand likeability for ethnic consumers. Visual cues are more effective than textual cues in enhancing advertisement likeability, but both cue types are just as effective for increasing brand likeability. The type of products (generic versus ethnic) makes no significant difference to advertising effectiveness for ethnic consumers. Academic and managerial implications are identified and discussed.

Chinese abstract本研究调查了广告中的少数族裔元素对少数族裔消费者有何种影响。尽管过往研究已建立，尤其在使用人种模型时的少数族裔元素广告的有效度，然而，这些研究均未讨论不同种类族裔元素的有效度。另外，消费者或会对少数族裔的视觉元素和文字元素有不同的解读。借鉴详尽可能性模型，我们认为在广告中使用少数族裔视觉元素和文字元素可能会造成不同的结果。研究结果显示，使用少数族裔元素会增进少数族裔对广告及品牌的喜爱度。在增进广告喜爱度方面，视觉元素较文字元素更有效，但在增进品牌喜爱度方面二者有效度相同。产品种类（大众型或族裔型）对少数族裔消费者的广告有效度差别不大。研究对学术及管理方面的启示进行了确认和讨论。