Note: Since idiosyncrasies exist between the different brands and products, and would thus entail divergent methodologies, the following is not a prescription for how you should carry out your project. It should be treated as just a guide.

Project
Many of you have asked me for more details on how to execute the steps in the project guidelines. Referring to both the original and revised guidelines, you will see that it is necessary to do a situation analysis before you even begin your consumer/market research. Such an order exists because of very pragmatic concerns, i.e., you need to know what to ask your respondents before you begin any data collection. On a side note, target audience may be identified by either corresponding directly with the brand if they are willing to speak to you, or sampling a small population across different age groups to see the interest or intention to buy the product within these groups. The age group that gives the most favorable response can then become a justifiable segmentation demographic. You might want to further do a psychographic breakdown of this group by generalizing on their lifestyle habits etc. Insights into this behavioral set of components can probably be garnered by looking at generic surveys that may have been conducted by magazines and newspapers, or through your survey instrument itself.

Any survey that you will eventually carry out can be used to elicit 2 sets of information, (i) what the target audience thinks of the present product and ad campaign, and (ii) what kind of creative draft they may respond better to. Let's consider an example using the choice of source since this is still fresh in our minds, and use the case of Jack Neo's endorsement of Mitsubishi air-conditioners. Assuming that you do not know the target age segment, you might want to first run a small survey across age groups asking, for example, whether they have purchased an air-conditioner or have an intention to do so. Once you identify this group, you can then move on to further acquire (a) psychographic data for this group, as well as (b) their impressions of the present ad campaign. For (a), you might want to ask the respondents what they consider to be important in such a purchase (e.g., design, price, energy efficiency, sound levels during operation etc.) Note here that this is also why you need to understand your product well in order to seek consumer opinions on these attributes, which you may later choose to emphasize or down in your creative draft. For (b), you may want to ask your respondents whether they think Jack Neo is a good fit and why, or who they think would be more suitable. You can even test they're recall of a competitor's ad. If you are running an open-ended focus group, you may even get responses such as how a trustworthy source is important in such a purchase, or how they may find that using a celebrity source might be a distraction from more relevant technical specifications of the product.

Whatever the case, all the information that you gather will become useful when you have to design your own advertisement. And since you probably only have one chance to gather your data, it will be extremely important to ask all the pertinent questions in your survey instrument, which can only be done once you have done a proper situation analysis. Alright, I hope that this will help clear some of the doubts you may have concerning the project.

Factors Influencing Source Effectivenes
My gut feeling is that some of you may still be confused as to the relationship between source credibility and its mediating factors. What I can do on my end is to give you guys some readings as a follow-up. I have placed all of these on my Web site so that you don't need to waste time going through the digital library for them. Note that these are not mandatory, so only do them if you think it will be helpful. Alternatively, you may just want to read the introduction and discussion sections if you are short on time; understanding the statistics is not important. Information on involvement aside, I hope that you will also be able to realize that journal articles can be an excellent way with which to justify the creative direction that your advertisement takes. For example, you could argue that you have decided to use a particular source for a print advertisement because past research has shown that such a combination invokes an attitude change in users, so on and so forth. Anyway, without further ado...

Readings indicated in your textbook:
Eagly, Alice H. and Shelly Chaiken (1975), "An Attribution Analysis of the Effect of Communicator Characteristics on Opinion Change: The Case of Communicator Attractiveness," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 32 (1), 136-144.
Abstract: This study tested the attribution hypothesis that message persuasiveness decreases to the extent that the position the communicator advocates is expected on the basis of a characteristic he possesses. Some subjects read a message by an attractive or unattractive communicator who espoused a desirable or undesirable position on one of two topics, while others, without reading the message, estimated the likelihood that the communicator would advocate each position. On expectancies, undesirable positions were judged more likely than desirable ones, and a Source Attractiveness X Position Desirability interaction showed attractive-desirable and unattractive-undesirable communicator-position pairings judged likelier than attractive-undesirable and unattractive-desirable pairings. On opinions, main effects showed attractive communicators more persuasive than unattractive communicators and desirable positions more persuasive than undesirable positions. However, a Source Attractiveness X Position Desirability interaction indicated that attractive communicators were more persuasive than unattractive ones given undesirable positions but only equally persuasive given desirable positions. The attractiveness main effect on
opinions was interpreted in terms of communicator likability, while the parallelism between expectancies and opinions (and other responses) with regard to the other effects supported the attribution interpretation. Choice or no choice about receiving a message had only a marginal effect on opinion change.

Sternthal, Brian, Phillips, Lynn W., and Ruby Dholakia (1978), "The Persuasive Effect of Source Credibility: A Situational Analysis," The Public Opinion Quarterly, 42 (3), 285-314.
Abstract: The interactive effects of source credibility and other variables which affect the communication process are reviewed, and the extent to which these data are ordered by cognitive response and attribution theories is examined. On the basis of this review (1) situations where a credible source facilities, inhibits, and has no systematic persuasive effect are identified; (2) the explanatory power of cognitive response and attribution theory is demonstrated; and (3) a common language linking these theoretical formulations is advanced, providing a framework for investigating the persuasive mass communication process.

Sternthal, Brian, Dholakia, Ruby, and Clark Leavitt (1978), "The Persuasive Effect of Source Credibility: Tests of Cognitive Response," Journal of Consumer Research, 4 (4), 252-260.
Abstract: Two experiments are reported identifying the circumstances In which high credibility either facilitates, inhibits, or has no effect on the communicator's persuasiveness in relation to a less credible source. These data provide support for the cognitive response view of information processing and suggest the importance of message recipient's initial opinion as a determinant of persuasion.

Factors of Source Credibility
Whitehead, Jack L. (1968), "Factors of Source Credibility," Quarterly Journal of Speech, 54 (1), 59-63.

Study on the Effectiveness of Source Credibility:
Hovland, Carl I. and Walter Weiss (1951), "The Influence of Source Credibility on Communication Effectiveness," The Public Opinion Quarterly, 15 (4), 635-650.
Abstract: In a new test of the process of forgetting, the authors found that subjects, at the time of exposure, discounted material from "untrustworthy" sources. In time, however, the subjects tended to disassociate the content and the source with the result that the original scepticism faded and the "untrustworthy" ma terial was accepted. Lies, in fact, seemed to be remembered better than truths.

Effects of Endorsement by Experts and Regular Consumers:
Wang, Alex (2005), "The Effects of Expert and Consumer Endorsements on Audience Response," Journal of Advertising Research, 45 (4), 402-412.
Abstract: This study examines the process by which audiences integrate expert and consumer endorsements into their product evaluations and how endorsement consensus affects this process. The results suggest that positive expert and consumer endorsements both enhance audiences' attitudes toward the endorsed product. However, positive consumer endorsements and higher perceived credibility of consumer endorsements, rather than expert endorsements, enhance audiences' behavioral intents when audiences are already interested in the endorsed product.

Endorser Effectiveness by Product Type
Friedman, Hershey H. and Linda Friedman (1979), "Endorser Effectiveness by Product Type," Journal of Advertising Research, 19 (5), 63-71.
Abstract: Celebrities worked best - with exceptions.

Audience Involvement and Source Credibility
Johnson, Homer and John Scileppi (1969), "Effects of Ego-Involvement Conditions on Attitude Change to High and Low Credibility Communications," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 13 (1), 31-36.
Abstract: In a 2 X 2 X 2 design, male high school students received from a high or low credibility source a communication that was either plausible or implausible, and that was given under high- or low-ego-involvement conditions. Results indicated greater attitude change in low-ego-involvement-high-source-credibility conditions than in the other three combinations of source credibility and ego involvement. These latter three combinations did not differ significantly from each other. Results supported the theory that source credibility is a "set" influencing communication acceptance-rejection primarily under low-ego-involvement conditions. Extension of the theory to social conformity experiments is discussed.

Good luck!

First, I would just like to say to everyone that you guys did a very good job in looking at the ends. As you probably have realized, identifying the target population is very important in giving you the clues with which to benchmark an advertising's effectiveness. Once you have identified the target audience, which can sometimes be verified by contacting the PR officer of the company, you can then try to quantify their needs through some simple surveys. This will allow you to conclude more definitively whether the original marketing campaign is effective as per the benchmarks you uncovered. At the same time, you might want to try to identify the semiotics that the targeted group associates with the product, both positive and negative, so that you can either reinforce or rectify them. Then, you can place this information together with the needs of the product itself. Is it a new product? Is it a product where there is little or high differentiation? And, more importantly, is the product high or low involvement, and if so, is it so in an affective or cognitive way. Once you consider an advertisement holistically from all these aspects (and more), you should be able to understand why the advertisement was conceptualized as such. And if you feel that something isn't right, don't just toss that feeling away - quantify it, and either correct, or find a means to justify it.

Ok, the reason why that magazine is in my possession is actually a very boring one. I'm subscribed to a Japanese Studies forum where scholars in the field can post queries and such. One academic asked the question of where Japanese girls got their sex education from, and the reply was that it came from magazines like Seventeen. Actually, the specific title given was Hot Dog, and which I managed to get from Kinokuniya. The relevant pages, however, were all torn out. I won't tell you what was on those pages since some of you might be offended, but I'm sure that you can conclude on your own that it is not only explicit, but graphic. So anyway, when I went to Japan that year, I just grabbed a bunch of these magazines targeted at young females. It was a big miss though, since I did not even get a single magazine with the source material. This issue, for some reason, is the only one I have left from that fact finding mission.

For those of you who want to find out more about Marxist ideas and consumption, I have found the ideas of Guy Debord and Theodor Adorno to be quite fascinating. I have only come into contact with their ideas peripherally, but Debord talks about how capitalists create this thing called the "lack" to enslave consumers to their desires for more and more commodities. Adorno talks about how mass-culture divests the individual of power by destroying individual identity; if you have no identity, no "I," the implication is that you will be forced to rely on the capitalists to derive a self concept. One caveat with all these ideas though: you cannot make the assumption that there is a unified capitalist force that is directing its might to create such an ideological divide. There is usually no conscious road map in these kinds of situation, although the idea is that once identified, will be reinforced by the capitalists of course.

Anyway, this last bit is how a full-blown semiotic analysis of advertisements might be, and is for those of you who are more curious about what this the entity known as consumption might be. In this module, we are of course more concerned with how to sell, Sell, SELL!!! :P

My colleague once remarked that all academics are forever depressed. I must further qualify that this probably only applies to those of us from the humanities though; social science scholars are too busy being a part of mass-culture to care. In contrast, those of us who have finally reached the conclusion that life is inherently meaningless, and that all dichotomies are false, cannot escape being weighed down with an extensive ambivalence towards everything. I wouldn't go so far as to agree with this statement by an Aum Shinrikyo member, but there is meaning when he says, "I strive not to be happy because if I am happy, I will eventually become unhappy, which is the state I wish to avoid." This doesn't even make sense to me from a Buddhist standpoint.

But anyway, another one of my good friends once remarked that I have never been happy...only less unhappy. Ironically, and much to my unmitigated glee, I recently discovered some philosophical grounding for why I should always be depressed. It seems that a scholar called Florentine Marsilio Ficino propounded, in the 1400s, that one needed to enter a state of melancholy to tap into one's innate intellect. This idea was best immortalized in Melencolia I, a painting by German artist Albrecht Dürer:

Of course, I'm not saying that scholars are angelic; the angel here is merely a representation of the ideology from the classical times, when everything was understood to be in relation to a perfect "unknown (read=heavenly)" realm, and which Marsilio Ficino declared could be tapped into by entering the melancholic and thereby intellectual state. Thus, in order to see the light and enter the spiritual realm, you need to search for it in the island of melancholy, which is where I'm currently camped out at the moment. Do come and visit, hehe. :P

For those of you who attended the lectures, this post is probably superfluous I guess, but I thought it important enough to also put it in writing here.

(i) Reading List
The readings seem to be appearing correctly in the Lesson Plan now, so all should be fine in this regard. I'm not sure why nothing comes out under week 2 in the student view though. Under the staff view in IVLE, the plan actually displays the information that I had posted in the last entry. Whatever the case, if there is any discrepancy from now on, I will keep everyone informed.

(ii) Project Timeline
As you should be aware, Project Guidelines are now in the IVLE Workbin. So, do refer to this document whenever you need to know tings about submission dates and project requirements etc. I would also like to draw your attention to the fact that there are 3 new brands for you to choose from: YaKun Kaya Toast, Bengawan Solo, and U.R.S. In addition, I should also point out that Pretty Fit and Bee Cheng Hiang have been ruled out as possibilities. If there are any other local brands that you think you may want to work with, do let me know.