The effects of advertising ethnic cues on brand love, brand attachment and attitude toward the brand

Purpose In this paper, two studies examine the effects of Hispanic-targeted ads on three consumer-brand relationships (i.e. brand love, brand attachment and attitude toward the brand) and their behavioral outcomes. Additionally, this paper aims to examine how product involvement moderates these effects. Design/methodology/approach Study 1 demonstrates the linkages between three consumer–brand relationships (i.e. brand love, brand attachment and attitude toward the brand) and their antecedents. In Study 2, by testing the nomological network of the antecedents and consequences of brand love, the authors extend the results of the previous study. Findings Study 1 provides evidence that ethnic advertising has the strongest effect on brand love in comparison with other alternative consumer-brand relationship constructs. In Study 2, results show that only for low-involvement products, the perceived similarity of customers with Hispanic models in ads could lead to a higher positive attitude toward the ad. However, in the high-involvement condition, perceived similarity did not mediate the relationship between those constructs, which is in line with Elaboration Likelihood Model. Practical implications From the practical and managerial perspective, this paper proposes that managers should concentrate on ads with ethnic cues, especially for low involvement products. Hence, it would be worthwhile for companies to consider ads with ethnic cues to effectively develop deep consumer–brand relationships. Originality/value This paper investigates the effects of targeted ads on deeper relationships (e.g. brand love) and its behavioral consequences. Therefore, the authors show how Hispanic targeted ads could lead to deep consumer–brand relationships which encompass both the mind and heart of customers.

Discrimination and the Returns to Cultural Assimilation in the Age of Mass Migration

We document that, in the early twentieth century, children of immigrants who were given more-foreign first names completed fewer years of schooling, earned less, and married less assimilated spouses. However, we find few differences in the adult outcomes of brothers with more/less foreign-sounding first names. This pattern suggests that the negative association between ethnic names and adult outcomes in this era does not stem from discrimination on the basis of first names but instead reflects household differences associated with cultural assimilation. We cannot rule out discrimination on the basis of other ethnic cues.

“Native” Advertising: An Evaluation of Nike's N7 Social Media Campaign

Although representations of Native Americans have frequently been used in advertising, historically Natives themselves have been ignored as a consumer market. This paper evaluates the Nike N7 Twitter campaign, which uses Native athletes and imagery to market to Natives, in the context of theory on marketing to ethnic minorities. Specifically, it explores whether the campaign is successfully reaching Native consumers, a historically difficult market to reach, whether advertisements must be granularly targeted to specific tribal cultures, and whether embedded ethnic cues within promotional images on the N7 account affect Twitter users' engagement with the post.

Group Empathy in Response to Nonverbal Racial/Ethnic Cues

In this study, we argue that nonverbal racial/ethnic cues can activate one’s empathy toward disadvantaged out-groups, particularly when such cues resonate with one’s own in-group cultural experiences with discrimination. To explain this phenomenon, we propose Group Empathy Theory and test our expectations via a national survey experiment on undocumented immigration. We find trait-level group empathy is strongly linked with empathic reactions to vignettes depicting immigrant detainees in distress, which in turn affect immigration policy attitudes. We also find African Americans and Latinos are considerably more likely than Anglos to exhibit empathy for disadvantaged groups other than their own and oppose deportation policies aimed at undocumented immigrants.

Ethnic discrimination during résumé screening: Interactive effects of applicants’ ethnic salience with job context

Systematic research considering job context as affecting ethnic discrimination in hiring is limited. Building on contemporary literature on social categorization and cognitive matching, the interactive effect of context characteristics (client contact; industry status) and person characteristics (i.e. ethnic cues: Maghreb/Arab vs Flemish-sounding name; dark vs light skin tone) were investigated using an experimental field study among 424 white majority HR professionals. Findings showed that equally qualified applicants with a dark skin tone received lower job suitability ratings than applicants with a light skin tone, particularly when they were screened for high client contact/low industry status positions and low client contact/high industry status positions. It is concluded that some ethnic cues (such as skin tone) may be more salient compared with other cues and that job context may influence the salience of ethnic cues and steer hiring discrimination in subtle ways. Implications of these findings for hiring discrimination research and organizations are discussed.

Do African Voters Favor Coethnics? Evidence from a Survey Experiment in Benin

Can African politicians play the ethnic card? Ethnicity matters for a host of outcomes in Africa, but debate remains about the extent to which it motivates the African voter. In experimental settings, we know that ethnicity shapes political support for hypothetical candidates. This paper offers an experimental test of the extent to which ethnicity shapes political support for actual, real-world politicians. Relying on Benin’s mixed-ethnicity President, this paper proposes a survey experiment that measures the independent effect of coethnic cues in boosting support across both coethnic groups. The results reveal that coethnic cues work: the same political actor can draw support from two different ethnic groups based solely on subtle ethnic cues.

Information and Ethnic Politics in Africa

Political scientists’ explanations for ethnic voting differ. Some have argued that the utility of ethnicity lies partly in the information that demographic cues provide about candidates, particularly in information-poor societies. However, extant research has not tested this proposition directly. This article proposes that, if part of ethnicity's utility is informational, we should expect that voters’ reliance on ethnic cues will decline when certain types of higher-quality information are available. To test this, a survey experiment was conducted in Uganda, with subjects evaluating candidates under varying informational environments. While support for co-ethnics was high when ethnicity was the only distinguishing fact about candidates, it declined when information was presented that portrayed co-ethnics negatively vis-à-vis non co-ethnics. These results suggest that informational environments can impact ethnic voting.