Dr. Hye Jin Yoon’s Journal of Advertising Article makes “Top Downloaded Article Collection” List

Dr. Hye Jin Yoon’s “Humorous Threat Persuasion in Advertising: The Effects of Humor, Threat Intensity, and Issue Involvement” has made the “top downloaded article collection” list of the Journal of Advertising. The article can be accessed for free until December 31st, 2015 on the journal’s website.

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Her research was born out of the necessity to understand how using humor to communicate threatening information (e.g., deforestation can lead to animal extinctions and climate change) in advertising could have an impact on the effectiveness of the advertisements and for whom it may be most effective. The studies predicted and found that responses to humor use in threat persuasion would depend on how much the individual was involved with the particular issue. Overall, low-involvement individuals found humor ads to be more effective than non-humor ads, while high-involvement individuals preferred non-humor ads. When threat intensities were varied in the ads, low involvement individuals needed humor when there was high threat intensity, while high involvement individuals preferred non-humor ads under high threat intensity. The findings gave practical implications for design and targeting for campaign planners looking to utilize humor to communicate threatening information.

The Journal of Advertising is the premier academic publication covering significant intellectual development pertaining to advertising theories and their relationship with practice. The journal has an acceptance rate of 9% and all papers published in the journal go through a rigorous, double-blind, peer-review process.

 

Dr. Nicolas Sternsdorff-Cisterna Presents “Is this safe to eat? Food Safety after Fukushima”

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Photo Credit: www.telegraph.co.uk

Dr. Nicolas Sternsdorff-Cisterna, Assistant Professor, Anthropology, presented his work “Is this safe to eat? Food safety and risk after Fukushima” on Friday at the TAI Research Brown Bag. The participants were taken through the tragedy that struck Japan after a devastating earthquake, nuclear explosion and tsunami put people, food, soil and water at risk of radiation. Professor Sternsdorff-Cisterna discussed  consumers’ reactions to food purchases and eating habits along with government messaging working to alleviate consumer and citizen concerns.

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Bags of Soil / Photo Credit: Toru Hanai/Reuters

The intent of the brown bag luncheon is to bring together faculty members to present work they are doing in an effort to engage collaboration as well as offer ideas in moving the research area forward.

japan_earthquake_map_Sendai_Fukushima_nuclear_power_plantAttendees included Visiting Professor Yuting Li, Head of the Advertising Department, Guangdong University of Finance & Economics, China as well as colleagues from across campus. Often the work is related to research, but can also involved creative works and industry endeavors.  Our next brown bag will be in December. Keep your eye out for highlights from December’s presenter!

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TAI Professor is Keynote Speaker: 2015 Breakfast for the Bridge

The Bridge’s purpose is to end adult long-term homelessness in Dallas and the surrounding region by developing, coordinating, and/or delivering: Outreach/intake services, Jail diversion/reentry services, Emergency shelter/transitional shelter services, Primary health care/behavioral health care services, Recreational/educational services, Employment income/supported employment income/disability income services, and Affordable housing/supportive housing services.

By doing so, The Bridge benefits the broader community by: Increasing public safety, Increasing public health, Increasing public quality of life.

SMU’s own Willie Baronet will provide the keynote on November 20, 2015 at Breakfast for the Bridge fundraiser.

Willie_BridgeWillie is a noted artist, author, TedXSMU talker and creative soul. He is the Stan Richards Professor in Creative Advertising at the Temerlin Advertising Institute at SMU. Since 1993, Willie has been buying and collecting signs from the homeless for the purpose of using them in art exhibits and documentaries. These signs and this practice have become a catalyst for conversations about the nature of home, homelessness, compassion and how we see and treat each other as humans.

 

If you are an adult experiencing homelessness in Dallas, please contact 214.670.1101 for help.

To support the Bridge please click here.
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TAI Graduate Student Spotlight: Snow Wang

Snow%20in%20Graphic%20Design%20positionIn mid-October, one of TAI’s second year MA in Advertising students, Snow Wang, began working in the Office of Student Transitions & Orientation. Here she is charged with graphic design projects for Recruitment Materials, Mustang Corral Graphics, Mustang Corral Compass as well as AARO Schedules and Student Transitions & Orientation Magazine.

Dr. Carrie La Ferle, Professor of Advertising as a Cultural Force and International Advertising, commented “How great it is when students are able to earn money working in positions that are also related to their field while also benefiting their university! It is just a win-win-win all around.” For more information on the MA in Advertising program, click here.

Justa vs. Whata: The Importance of Enterprise in Advertising

By: Alice Kendrick

KendrickAlice When I first moved to Texas, a friend introduced me to the iconic institution Whataburger. First, I learned I had to make a basic choice: theJustaburger or the Whataburger. 

Really? “Justa”?????? I thought why settle for Justa when you could have WHATA???

The Justa mentality won’t get you very far in the field of advertising. The notion of merely finishing a task or producing acceptable work is at odds with the ‘always on,’ iterative and optimization-seeking nature of the business. Advertising’s ever-changing, highly competitive and creative environment rewards the Whata’s — the enterprising — those who don’t consider completion of assignments as the end goal but rather strive to make the work better and best by repeatedly (iteratively) going above and beyond the proverbial call of duty.

My favorite definition of enterprising comes from the Oxford Dictionary:

“Having or showing initiative and resourcefulness”. Whata combination, right?

The example they give is “Some enterprising teachers have started their own recycling programs.” So, the teachers were not asked to initiate recycling programs; they did it on their own.

Initiative and resourcefulness – going above and beyond (and often in the face of shrinking budgets) – are traits that are highly valued in advertising, for it is the new, great, integrated, efficient, clever, impactful idea or way of doing something better that wins the day, the account, the prize. If you are satisfied with simply doing something per instructions, being a professional marketing communicator might not be the place for you. I was an ‘A’ student in college, but my first internship employer gave me a wake-up call about initiative when in his evaluation he wrote that although my work was of high quality, I was not enterprising. I actually had to look it up in the dictionary, as I thought the word involved making money. It means a lot more than that. That’s all I needed to hear, and I am forever grateful that he offered that candid assessment. I have never looked back.

empphoto_40815_1334870481I draw an enormous amount of inspiration as a teacher and researcher from our fantastic TAI alumni, many of whom are incredibly enterprising. A recent example is the award-winning advertising campaign for the movie The Book Thief, masterminded by our own
alumna Julie Rieger (’91), EVP-Media of 20th Century Fox in Los Angeles. Never one to be satisfied with a Justa-campaign, Julie flexed her enterprise as a student when she led SMU’s 1991 AAF National Student Advertising Competition team to its first national ranking. poster-large

In an effort to optimize the media budget for The Book Thief, Julie made history by negotiating the purchase of two consecutive blank pages in the New York Times, the second of which simply offered the movie’s URL www.wordsarelife.com. Arresting. Innovative. Shareworthy. On strategy given the movie’s message. Resourceful. Enterprising. You can learn more about how this Whata-promotion and our Whata-alum here.

So, how can students be more enterprising? Before class, not only read the chapter but also find your own examples of what’s being discussed. And share. If you really want to shock your prof, send an unsolicited (enterprising) email with a link to an article you think she might find interesting. This semester, two of my 57 students did that. Yes, I noticed. Don’t just fulfill the expectations for an assignment. Blow. It. Out. Of. The. Water. We will notice. So will your internship supervisors when you use your down time to create an annotated bibliography of current research and thinking on a subject related to an agency account. Knock their proverbial socks off. They will notice. And they will later write you a Whata-recommendation.

Just by writing this I’m getting my enterprise on. We may need to start a movement here. #upforwhata? #beyondwhata? #bethewhata? #taiwhata?

Dr. Alice Kendrick is a professor in the Temerlin Advertising Institute, SMU. The best way to reach her is akendric@smu.edu.