Michelle R. Nelson

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | UIUC · Department of Advertising

The metaverse is an emerging phenomenon that lacks a widely accepted academic definition. Previous attempts have primarily focused on a technological perspective, ignoring the user perspective that is central in advertising research. However, the metaverse provides fast-changing updates and dynamic interactions, allowing users to actively engage in...

This brief report assesses parent–adolescent relationships, screen behaviors, and tridimensional acculturation as risk and promotive or protective factors for health among Black U.S. immigrant or refugee adolescents during the dual COVID-19 and racism or Whiteness pandemics. Eighty-nine immigrant- or refugee-origin adolescents completed online surv...

This research explored how a virtual reality (VR) public service announcement (PSA) in a first-person perspective (vs non-VR PSA scripts: first-person perspective-taking, non-perspective-taking) impacted attitudes toward the PSA and attitudes toward people experiencing homelessness. Participants first reported their attitudes toward people experien...

Purpose: Unhealthy eating is a major modifiable risk factor for noncommunicable diseases and obesity, and remote acculturation to U.S. culture is a recently identified cultural determinant of unhealthy eating among adolescents and families in low/middle-income countries. This small-scale randomized controlled trial evaluated the efficacy of the "J...

Despite the importance of persuasion knowledge (PK) for understanding how individuals cope with persuasion, there is little research addressing how PK can be developed and sustained. We explore dispositional PK (consumers’ confidence in their knowledge about marketer agents’ persuasion tactics) and coping skills (i.e., critical thinking about media...

We investigate whether media literacy and media use can moderate the association between U.S. media enjoyment and unhealthy eating among remotely acculturating “Americanized” adolescents and their mothers in Jamaica (n = 164 individuals/82 dyads; M adolescent.age = 12.83, SD = 0.48, 48% female; M mother_age = 39.25, SD = 5.71). Socioeconomically di...

Media use has been linked to unhealthy eating, but there is evidence that parent discussion about media and media literacy can inoculate against negative media effects. Therefore, we examined the relationships between mothers' food-focused media literacy and their discussions about media and their adolescents' food-focused media literacy in a surve...

Globalization has led to changes in diets and advertising linked to audience preferences. This study examines local and global brand food and beverage advertising in Jamaican newspapers. Content analysis of 440 advertisements revealed the predominance of global fast-food brands, often including soda. Healthier foods were found in one in 10 ads. Inf...

Our analysis of print advertising in the early twentieth century reveals that in an era of scientific discovery and therapeutic ethos, fruits and vegetables were advertised as medical tonics, with "prescriptions" that included recommended daily doses, to ward off or cure real or imagined medical ailments (flu, listlessness, acidosis). During this t...

Consumers are inundated with messages about food and beverages in their daily lives. Research has shown that television advertising contains frequent low‐nutrient food and beverage messages which are thought to influence consumers' food consumption. Yet, consumption decisions are often made out of the home. We systematically capture and describe fo...

While virtual reality (VR) has been shown to increase a sense of being there (i.e., telepresence) and enhance audience perceptions of the content, few studies have examined the impact of the varying degrees of ‘system immersion’ on persuasion outcomes under different VR viewing conditions. To fill this gap, our research investigates consumer percep...

Two studies were conducted to examine user perceptions of content effects and behavior on social media. Study 1 employed interviews with Millennials and Baby-Boomers (N = 17) and found that some behaviors on Facebook were seen as undesirable (e.g., excessively posting photos of food). Users held third-person perceptions (TPP) such that they believe...

New forms of advertising to children (such as “unboxing videos” and “vlogs”) necessitate new studies and examinations of ethics, advertising literacy, and regulations. At the same time, it is useful to reexamine and question assumptions about traditional media and persuasion tactics. This special issue on children and advertising offers seven artic...

Using excitation transfer and direct affect transfer as theoretical foundations, emotions and branded product placements were examined. Results from the 2 (low/high arousal) × 2 (positive/negative valence) × 2 (positive/negative brand) between subjects experiment revealed a three-way interaction. When a positive (unfamiliar) brand was placed in a h...

In a laboratory experiment, participants viewed a branded virtual campus tour using one of three commercially available 360-degree video and virtual reality (VR) viewing devices. Participants’ perceived telepresence, free recall of the content, and their reflections of the experience were analyzed. Results show that while viewers in all three condi...

This study examines the shopping preferences of “new poor” consumers who have incongruent capital: lower economic capital and higher noneconomic capital. The new poor exemplify consumers with ambiguous and fragmented identity; thus, they do not fit marketers’ static categorization of consumer segments. In the marketplace, these consumers must compr...

Immersive technologies such as virtual reality (VR) have grown in interest among both professionals and academics, but their full capabilities are still not completely understood. To help move research forward in this field, we conducted 18 semi-structured interviews with a range of participants seeking to: 1. Assess the current level of understand...

Research has shown that men and women respond differently to cause-related marketing (CRM) appeals with fictitious brands; however, few studies examine how CRM works for existing brands or measure long-term effects. To fill these gaps, we explore the influence of sponsor brand use and gender on responses to a CRM campaign at three points in time (p...

The changing media landscape alters media use and advertising exposure, which impacts advertising literacy. We investigate socialization forces (media, family) on advertising persuasion knowledge in preschool children. Findings from in-depth interviews with 29 parent–child dyads revealed prevalent on-demand mobile media use with less live commercia...

Knowledge flows between advertising and other academic disciplines are examined to identify the structure of scientific knowledge, the extent of social exchange and the scientific status of the field. Bibliometric analysis is used to identify who is citing our research and who we cited. Cocitation patterns for the leading advertising journals (Jour...

Values have been shown to explain advertising response and consumer behavior. Expanding the individualism-collectivism cultural framework, this research primarily focuses on the vertical individualism (VI: emphasizing independence and competition) value given its prevalence in the U.S. culture. Results of a survey among a national U.S. sample (a pi...

Online behavioral advertising (OBA) provides Internet users with potential benefit (relevant ads) and harm (privacy infringement) through personalized covert persuasion tactics, making it an interesting case for understanding perceptions of media effects. In study 1 (survey), we found that subjective persuasion knowledge of OBA was positively relat...

As part of a larger project to integrate advertising literacy into school curriculum, this research evaluates the effectiveness of an initial three-hour advertising literacy classroom intervention among eight- and nine-year-olds. The field experiment (a pretest/posttest, control/experimental group design) was implemented in 10 third grade classes i...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the behaviors and social interactions among preschool children and their teachers during food consumption at a daycare facility. Using social cognitive theory, the goal is to identify how role modeling, rules, behaviors and communication shape these young consumers’ health-related food consumption a...

Purpose – This paper aims to examine the perceptions of the visual packaging of snacks and nutrition knowledge among preschool children. Packages serve as persuasive media at the point of purchase. Design/methodology/approach – In this paper 13 interviews with four-year-olds were conducted. Children sorted seven snacks that implied fruit into cate...

This research highlights the influence of globalization in Indian films (including product placement - PPL) and fashion, gauging perceived effects of PPL on self and others among Indian audiences. Although critics assume media effects, little is known about how audiences feel about the changes in the film industry, or the perceived influences of fi...

This study reviews the methods and measurements employed in research using the Persuasion Knowledge Model (Friestad and Wright 1994) across leading journals in advertising and associated fields from 1994-2014. Despite the recommendation from Friestad and Wright to use multiple methods, the dominant methods are experimental and survey, with few qual...

We present findings from a qualitative, multisite, multi-method, longitudinal study of parents and their preschool-aged children that explores the intersections of marketing influences in the home and in the larger outside world of children. Findings indicate that preschoolers represent complicated and nuanced “consumers in training” beyond predict...

Increasingly, unhealthy food is being advertised through online games known as advergames. The advergame is designed for entertaining fun to promote the brand featured in the game. But what happens if the food advertised is healthy or the source of the game is non-commercial? This study examines how people's entertainment (flow experience) interact...

This research examined how realism and current behavior influence message reception and processing for public service announcements (PSAs) designed to help parents with meal planning. Findings from 19 in-depth interviews revealed that the perceived realism of the message, the similarity, and the wishful identification with informants' lives influen...

When can computers seem “human”? How do users form identity impressions of computers? In an examination of the ways in which users form impressions of their tablet computers, this study offers a new perspective by allowing users to verbalize their impressions of their products. Findings from in-depth interviews revealed two basic constructs that in...

Publicity may be considered “covert marketing” when the audience believes the message was created by an independent source (journalist) rather than the product marketer. We focus on one form of publicity—video news releases (VNRs)—which are packaged video segments created and provided for free by a third party to the news organization. VNRs are usu...

Cause-related marketing (CRM) can enhance corporate image and increase sales, but effects may vary depending on the audience. Findings from a national survey, Study 1, reveal that Generation Y women are more likely than Generation Y men to support CRM. Our research further demonstrates unique findings with respect to message processing and response...

Childhood obesity is a major public health problem in the USA, with youth at all stages of development at increasing risk (Health, 2008). Between 1976 and 2004, increases in overweight prevalence ranged from 5.0 % to 12.4 % for 2-to-5-year olds, 6.5 % to 17 % for 6-to-11-year olds, and 5.0 % to 17.6 % for 12- to– 19-year olds (Ogden, Carroll, &, Fl...

Across two studies, the authors investigate the extent to which children’s persuasion knowledge of an advertising tactic (advergame and TV commercial) and their level of engagement with the medium (presence) influence their identification of commercial content and persuasion outcomes. In line with theoretical predictions of the persuasion knowledge...

Well-liked advergames foster favorable brand attitudes. Research has been conducted on games where the content offers positive associations (e.g., racing: speed) that may transfer to the brand. Yet games may offer negative associations (e.g., combat: violence). Using the affect transfer and associative-propositional evaluation models, we test the i...

Despite the growth of embedded brands in entertainment media, few theory-based studies have assessed consumer processing of brand placements in games. This study contrasted the influence of media context (play, watch) and psychological response (telepresence) on consumer recall, game liking, and perceived persuasion for real and fictitious brands i...

It has been 50 years since Vance Packard wrote about psychoanalytical techniques employed by the advertising industry in The Hidden Persuaders. This book, published in the post-World War II consumer boom, exposed a mass audience to motivational research at a time when advertisers used new techniques and a new medium. Yet The Hidden Persuaders was h...

Within the context of globalization, we explore the country-of-origin of brand or product placements in Bollywood films. Content analysis of films since economic liberalization (1991, 1996, 2001, 2006, 2010) reveals a substantial increase in brands, with foreign brands outnumbering domestic brands and placed in prominent ways. Results of surveys re...

Despite calls for research on the use of utilitarian versus identity appeals more than a decade ago, few advertising studies have examined which appeal may be more persuasive for whom. Guided by the functional matching effects thesis, our two experiments test the separate and interactive roles of product function (social identity-SI, utilitarian-UT...

We investigate the extent to which the challenge of playing an advergame impacts children's brand attitudes. Results show that brand attitudes are highest for those optimally challenged (i.e. ‘in the flow’) and lowest for those who are underchallenged. However, such effects are qualified by the children's persuasion knowledge (PK) of the advergame;...

One utility of advertising conforms to the direct relationship between a receiver viewing an advertising message and buying the brand (Thorson & Rogers, Chapter 1). The receiver of a message is often referred to as the target, and the messages are designed and placed by advertising executive agents to “hit” the target. Such metaphorical language im...

This study examined the roles of cultural (Hofstede’s Masculinity value dimension—i.e., Gender of Nations), country-level (Gender-related Development Index), and execution-level (product type or gender of the typical user) factors in understanding gender-role portrayals in television advertising. Using content analysis methodology, we compared the...

Video news releases (VNRs) have been criticized when they are used within a newscast without source disclosure because they violate ethical codes related to transparency and consumers' “right to be informed” by whom they are being persuaded. In an experiment, we show how increased persuasion knowledge about VNRs is positively related to beliefs in...

Using U.S. national survey data, we identify consumer characteristics (altruism, opinion leadership, attitudes toward big business and brand values, beliefs in advertising ethics) that relate to buycotting and boycotting as two forms of socially responsible consumer behavior (SRCB). In a follow-up experiment, we show that some of these characterist...

Individualism is a fundamental value to U.S. culture and democracy. We differentiate the horizontal from vertical dimension of individualism to predict voting in the 2004 presidential election. Horizontal individualism (HI) values equality and uniqueness, whereas vertical individualism (VI) values competition and achievement. In line with the value...

Social utility theory suggests that labeling video news release (VNR) source material is the ethical decision (Wulfemeyer & Frazier, 199251. Wulfemeyer , K. T. and Frazier , L. 1992 . The ethics of video news releases: A qualitative analysis . Journal of Mass Media Ethics , 7 : 151 – 168 . [Taylor & Francis Online]View all references), yet the pers...

Individualism/Collectivism is the most widely used cultural dimension in the marketing literature; yet researchers suggest that distinctions within cultures, such as the horizontal and vertical dimensions of Individualism and Collectivism (Singelis et al., 1995; Shavitt et al., 2006), may provide better insights into consumption behavior and respon...

This study partially replicates and extends previous research on nudity by examining TV advertising across multiple countries (and the United States) and by incorporating multiple factors (cultural values, advertising regulation and product type). Results show that female (but not male) nudity differed substantially across countries, and females we...

This Study investigated how mass media exposure and Cultural values influence Korean immigrants' responses to models in print advertising. In a between-subject design, participants viewed advertisements featuring either Caucasian or Asian models. The results of structural equation modelling show that there are significant relationships between mass...

This study examines to what extent degrees of nudity presented in advertising differ across five countries (Brazil, China, South Korea, Thailand, and the U.S.). Content is examined by media type (TV vs. magazine) and product category (congruent vs. others). Results show that Thai and U.S. ads employ the highest degrees of nudity, whereas Chinese ad...

Critics suggest that contemporary consumer culture creates overworked and overshopped consumers who no longer engage in civic life. The authors challenge this conventional criticism against consumption within an individualistic lifestyle and argue instead that consumers who are “downshifting” do engage in civic life. In particular, this research ex...

As consumer culture pervades the social life of citizens in America and Europe, it becomes increasingly important to clarify the relationship between consumption and citizenship. With this in mind, faculty and students at the University of Wisconsin organized a conference titled “The Politics of Consumption/The Consumption of Politics.” Held in Oct...

Purpose This research examines global advertising strategies and tactics in a global media brand for a shared audience across seven countries (Brazil, China, France, India, South Korea, Thailand, and USA). Design/methodology/approach A content analysis of advertisements in local editions of Cosmopolitan magazine compares the extent of standardizat...

Two studies investigated the effects of charity advertising on perceptions of moral obligation to help others and gauged ad evaluation. This was done in cultures that were similar in individualism but differed in either masculinity (United States and Canada) or femininity (Denmark and Norway). Participants read appeals that solicited donations to c...

The globalization of media allows brand placements subtle ways to reach local and international consumers. This study examines Indians' responses to brand placements in a Bollywood film. Psychological processing of embedded brands was assessed by gauging the effects of film involvement and brand consciousness on recall. Film involvement showed an a...

This study examines gender representation of news professionals within broadcast news. Using a gender model, the development of female news professionals is examined by looking at their relative representation across local and national news according to story length and type. Results show that the proportion of females is higher in local news segme...

News stories rely on sources to convey information. Official sources are often titled and typically male. This study outlines how such source cues can trigger gender stereotypes to varying degrees in two experimental studies. When the unofficial source cue offered ambiguous gender information, individual differences in propensity to stereotype were...

Product placements in entertainment media are increasing, particularly in content targeted to adolescents. This marketing communication tactic is examined in the context of media socialization and individual differences in brand consciousness. The relative influence of commercial media (TV, radio, movies, online) and perceived peer and parent brand...

Critics worldwide denounce objectification in advertising and blame media imperialism for disseminating overt, Westernized sexuality. Yet, advertising practitioners believe that sex sells and images can overcome cultural barriers. Few researchers have explored sexuality in advertising across multiple countries or the factors that may contribute to...

Online Consumer Psychology addresses many of the issues created by the Internet and goes beyond the topic of advertising and the Web to include topics such as customization, site design, word of mouth processes, and the study of consumer decision making while online. The theories and research methods help provide greater insight into the processes...

This paper identifies the construct of cross-cultural ambivalence and examines how it influences brides-to-be while they plan cross-cultural weddings. Through ethnographic analysis of postings across electronic message boards (“netnography”), we discuss the roles of the virtual community in wedding planning. We also identify the coping strategies b...

While marketers look for creative ways to promote products on television, critics suggest the integrity of television news is being compromised by commercial content. This exploratory study investigates local and national news programming on ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, PBS, and CNN for evidence of two commercial practices: unpaid brand/company content and...

Scholars in various fields have speculated that the commercialization of mass media has contributed to the decline of civic culture. They contend that the personal needs emphasized by product-saturated mass media diminish civic-mindedness by creating an individualistic consumption-oriented culture. Despite this critique, some scholars argue that ma...

This article demonstrates how presentation order, gender, and value relevance can influence advertising processing under different viewing situations. One study found that message order and gender influenced message persuasion: under situational low involvement, females (males) exhibited primacy (recency) effects when viewing two advertisements dif...

The horizontal and vertical distinction within individualism and collectivism was used as a theoretical framework to predict differences in achievement values across two national cultures: Denmark and the United States. As expected, across multiple methods and informant groups, the United States was found to be more vertically oriented than Denmark...

Product placements have become popular across media, including computer and video games, as a way to increase brand awareness. This paper explores effectiveness of placing brands in a racing game across two preliminary studies by asking respondents which brands they recalled directly after game-play and at a five-month delay. Game players were read...

Citizens and Politics: Perspectives from Political Psychology brings together some of the research on citizen decision making. It addresses the questions of citizen political competence from different political psychology perspectives. Some of the authors in this volume look to affect and emotions to determine how people reach political judgements,...

Previous research on charitable giving has devoted little attention to the fundamental question of how consumers actually respond to charitable donation requests via direct mail. Specifically, researchers have relied on the untested assumption that consumers engage in fairly extensive evaluations of requests. The present research challenges this as...

This research investigates gendered responses to self-oriented (help-self) and altruistic (help-others) charitable ad appeals. Results from two studies conducted with U.S. undergraduates show that sex is a determinant of message evaluations, and that variations in moral world-views explain these gendered differences. Study One establishes sex diffe...

Synesthetic, or cross-sensory, associations equate sense A to sense B and are prevalent in persuasive language in mass communication. Consider, for example, “Bright Crunch” (for Sun Crunchers cereal) and “the Loudest Taste on Earth” (for Doritos), which are examples of synesthetic advertising claims. Based on theory of synesthesia and of metaphor,...

Synesthetic metaphors are prevalent historically in popular culture, including advertising. Such metaphors equate sense A to sense B, such as hearing to sight, as demonstrated in the advertising headline, “Can't You Just Hear This Color?” In clinical terms, synesthesia is a rare condition in which stimulation of one sense produces an involuntary pe...

Typescript. Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1991. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 76-81).