Cheap, fake, China:
The effectiveness of counter-stereotypical advertising strategies on consumer behavior and the mediating role of implicit racial bias
You-Rim Kim (11846054)
Supervisor: Dr. Saar Mollen Word count: 7436
Master’s Thesis Persuasive Communication Graduate School of Communication
Table of contents
Introduction ... 2
Theoretical Framework ... 6
Stereotypes, prejudices and consumer racism ... 6
Reducing racial bias through advertising ... 8
Method ... 12
Design ... 12
Participants ... 13
Stimuli design and pre-test ... 14
Procedure ... 18 Measures ... 20 Analysis plan ... 21 Results ... 22 Randomization checks ... 22 Manipulation checks ... 23 Main effects ... 24 Mediation analysis ... 25 Additional analyses ... 27
Discussion and conclusion ... 28
Limitations and future research ... 31
References ... 32
Abstract
Stereotypes simplify our understanding of this world. Though, stereotypes can be harmful to human interaction and behavior. Racial biases can taint decision-making processes and can disadvantage ethnic minorities when it comes to consumer decisions. It is, therefore,
necessary to counteract these harmful images and to aid consumers in order to lower levels of discrimination.
This study investigated how counter-stereotypical advertising strategies influence brand attitudes and purchase intentions and how this effect is mediated by implicit racial bias. In a three-condition experiment (British neutral, Chinese neutral, Chinese counter-stereotypical, N = 204), participants were presented with an advertorial and were asked to evaluate the shown brand. Moreover, implicit racial bias towards Asians was tested as a mediator through the affect misattribution procedure. In contrast with previous findings, the results of an ANOVA found no significant effects of counter-stereotypical advertising strategies compared to neutral ad strategies. Further, no mediation effect could be examined.
Keywords: advertising strategy, implicit racial bias, stereotypes, brand evaluation, consumer behavior.
Introduction
When in December 2019 the Coronavirus (COVID-19) broke out in Wuhan, the massive consequences could not have been foreseen. While China tried to contain the spreading of the virus, it already increased exponentially in multiple countries. In March 2020, WHO (2020) officially declared the Coronavirus as a pandemic outbreak. With today’s instant speed in media coverage, news about this new virus has spread as fast as the infection itself.
Headlines in renowned newspapers and magazines have often referred to COVID-19 as “a threat from China”. Germany’s Der Spiegel published their February print edition named “Made in China” in yellow letters, suggesting the virus was produced by the Chinese government (Der Spiegel, 2020). The Wall Street Journal published a column with the title “China Is The Real Sick Man of Asia” (Hjemlgaard, 2020).
Using language with strong emotions in news outlets, media exposure can foster certain beliefs and attitudes in people’s minds (Dixon, 2008). Frames used in the media can reinforce already existing harmful stereotypes such as yellow peril and model minority (Kawai, 2005). The yellow peril depicts Asians as the “Yellow Threat”, which will overtake the Western world and dominate the “White race”. On the other hand, the model minority ascribes seemingly positive traits to Asians by describing them as well assimilated compared to other ethnicities. Although positive, this bias still has a negative impact. By ascribing the “worth” of an ethnicity by its contribution to society, stereotypes classify ethnic groups into a system, in which Caucasians are always the superior race (Kawai, 2005).
After the Coronavirus spread internationally, racist encounters towards Asian people increased worldwide and even led to violent crimes (Campbell, 2020). Various media outlets have reported about discrimination and hate crimes against Asians. Wen, Aston, Liu, and Ying (2020) summarize in their literature review about racism during the Coronavirus
outbreak, that racial discrimination has been expressed towards Chinese people especially due to racially framed media coverage, for instance and has had a negative impact on Chinese owned businesses (Wen et al., 2020).
Especially Chinese owned businesses were the first to suffer negative economic consequences (Wen et al., 2020). According to news outlets, rumors that the Coronavirus can be spread through Chinese restaurants and shops in Europe, North America and Australia led to boycotts of these businesses and consequently to insolvency (Jiang, Nixdorf & Wang, 2020; Yeung, 2020). Chinese products were being avoided and stigmatized (Hlatshaneni, 2020). In line with this literature, this shows that prejudices towards foreign products and services also taint decision-making processes (Kaynak & Kara, 2002), product judgment and the willingness to buy (Erdogan & Uzkurt, 2010). Further, they demonstrate that negative evaluation of foreign products and services have been linked with unconscious racial biases towards minority groups (Altintas & Tokol, 2007).
Racial stereotypes are mental schemata about ethnic groups, which help to sort and process information (Tajfel, 1974; Tajfel & Turner, 1981). By ascribing information to preexisting schemata, the information can be easier accessed, recalled, memorized and reidentified (Tajfel, 1974). These stereotypes can be activated by small cues such as media coverage and framing (Wen and colleagues, 2020). By associating these mental models with negative information, stereotypes can lead to negative attitudes towards ethnic minorities and overt disapproval of them (Allport, 1979). Prior research shows that the majority of people do not express those negative attitudes overtly due to social desirability (Knoll, 2018). Even though not expressed explicitly, racial beliefs can still exist in individuals. These implicit biases rather disclose themselves as fear, mistrust and judgment of ethnic minorities and can influence decisions (Devine, 1989).
While racism against certain ethnic group such as Blacks is thoroughly documented, research on racist attitudes against Asians is scarce in academic literature. One reason could be the stereotype bias which apply to Asian people. Stereotypes about Asians are seemingly positive, reporting being hardworking, polite and diligent people (Lee, 1999; Hamamoto, 1994; Tang, 1997). But Asians also have also been perceived as sly and threatening (Katz & Braly, 1933; Kawai, 2005). Regardless of the direction, according to Kay, Day, Zanna, and Nussbaum (2013) racial stereotypes lead to the belief that differences between ethnicities are biologically originated. Ascribing presumed characteristics to ethnic groups therefore have harmful effects. It is imperative that more research is conducted into racial stereotypes about Asians, how this impacts consumer behavior and how these stereotypes may be reduced.
As found by Pollay (1986), advertising has the capability to influence society’s beliefs about minorities. Advertising often uses these stereotypical images in order to be easily understandable, memorable and beneficial for the brand. Pollay (1986) argues that advertising mirrors society’s beliefs about an ethnic group. On the other hand, those images can influence consumers and encourage them to internalize them. Thus, shown stereotypes can reinforce already existing beliefs about ethnic minorities and therefore possibly normalize harmful attitudes (Frith & Mueller, 2010).
Counter-stereotypical advertising has been used as intervention strategies for decades. Jussim and colleagues (1987) propose with their expectancy-violation theory that if an expectation of a stereotype is defied, the appraisal should become more intense. Counter-arguing existing stereotypes can therefore help to portray certain minority groups accordingly. Prevailing stereotypes describe Chinese products as cheap, low in quality and low in value (Schniederjans, Cao, Olson, 2004; Tomar, 2017). Hence, depicting Chinese goods
incongruent to their stereotypes, for instance high in quality and using premium materials, could be an important way to lower prevalent stereotypes when applied accordingly.
The goal of the current study is to investigate, how counter-stereotypical advertising strategies influence the judgment of Chinese brands and buying intentions. It will also look into how subsequent implicit racial beliefs may explain the relationship between advertising and brand evaluations and purchase intention. From a scientific perspective, obtaining more insights about how to change and may even eradicate stereotypes will be a valuable goal. Racial stereotypical biases are difficult to access, since they are processed unconsciously (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995). Prior research aimed to change primarily resistant stereotypical beliefs towards black people, who are predominantly ascribed with negative stereotypes (Kwate, 2014). Asians on the other hand are often described as hardworking and polite, but also as a threatening new economic and social force (Lee, 1994; Hamamoto, 1994; Tang, 1997), making stereotypical perceptions of Asians more ambiguous. Investigating how ambiguous stereotypes may be reduced by counter-stereotypical messages adds to our understanding of influential message effectiveness. Focusing on ambiguous stereotypes of Asians can lead to insights on how to find new ways to challenge harmful underlying beliefs.
It is important to depict ethnicities and their qualities as accurate as possible. This study aims to reduce prevalent negative stereotypes to find new ways to outbalance
discrimination. While entirely negative stereotypes may be difficult to change, challenging ambiguous stereotypes may be easier. Further, by using advertising as an intervention method, it can shine light on which attributes advertising should consider when addressing brands with an ethnic minority background.
Today, cultural appropriation and false depiction of ethnicities does not only reflect outdated beliefs but can be disastrous for a company’s image. Marketers now have the chance to use their power for the right cause by addressing important issues such as racism and racial bias. Simultaneously, when applied correctly, they can use the opportunity to be pioneers in a culturally diverse new generation.
Accordingly, the following research question will be examined:
RQ: What is the influence of using counter-stereotypical (vs. neutral) advertising strategy on brand evaluations and purchase intention of Chinese products, compared to Western products? And is this effect of counter-stereotypical (vs. neutral)
advertising on brand outcomes mediated by implicit racial bias?
Theoretical Framework
Stereotypes, prejudices and consumer racism
Racial stereotypes and prejudices are parts of racism, that is, the denial of an ethnic group based on its appearance, cultural values, behavior and attitudes (Dennis, 2004). Racism incorporates the belief of the superiority of one race over another in status and power and discriminates people based on their class, appearance or category to which they are perceived to belong (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). In the following, the three terms will be explained in more detail.
Stereotypes are defined as generalizing beliefs about a specific group or class of people (Cardwell, 1996). According to Allport (1954), stereotypes work as a social categorization in order to simplify knowledge. This classification of information helps to comprehend information faster, since unclassified information is cognitively harder to digest and therefore needs more resources (McGarty, Yzerbyt, & Spears, 2002). On the other hand, stereotypes generalize whole groups and ignore individualistic differences (Tajfel, 1970). Stereotypes work often with exclusion strategies. Mostly, positive attributes are assigned to the ingroup, whereas negative attributes are allocated to outgroups. While stereotypes are the
cognitive representation of a belief, prejudices have an affective character. Usually ascribed with negative feelings, they portray a pre-judgmental evaluation of people or objects and also categorize information in order to simplify cognitive processes (Allport, 1979).
As mentioned earlier, both people, as well as objects, can be stereotyped and targeted with prejudice (Bloom, 2014). In line with this, products from China are met with different stereotypes, as well as prejudices. Various studies found that Chinese products are perceived as cheap and lower in quality than goods from other countries (Schniederjans et al., 2004; Schniederjans, Cao, Schniederjans, Gu, 2011). Concerns about sanitary standards,
counterfeits, inhuman working conditions, inferior quality, safety in food products, poor quality materials and the inclusion of dangerous ingredients are high as well (Wang et al., 2007; Liu et al., 2014; Eckhardt, Belk, & Devinney, 2010; Zhang & Byron, 2007; Beamish & Bapuji, 2008). Hence, Chinese products are mostly perceived negatively and associated with unfavorable feelings.
Former research linked xenophobia with preference of domestic versus foreign products and consumer racism. People who have negative attitudes towards an ethnic
minority based on their phenotype, possibly also express similar levels of antipathy and even rejection to buy products and services of that specific group (Ouellet, 2005). The country of origin of a product has an influence on product and service evaluations, since consumers assess goods based on the available information cues, which may also be pre-existing
stereotypes and prejudices towards the heritage of the product and its ethnic group (Kaynak & Kara, 2002). Consumer racism can therefore be defined as the aversion towards a particular ethnic group’s products and/or services as a form of discrimination against that group (Ouellet, 2007).
Consumer racism can be found throughout research. Studies have found that Western products are generally rated highest with respect to product assessment, brand attitudes and
purchase intentions (Ouellet, 2007; Batra, Ramaswamy, Alden, Steenkamp, & Ramachander, 2000; Laforet & Chen, 2012). Simultaneously, Chinese goods are rated generally lower than commodities from other countries (Erdogan & Uzkurt, 2010). Citizens from Western
countries were found to express high skepticism towards Chinese products (Kabayadi & Lerman, 2011). It can therefore be expected that ads about Western products will be assessed more positively than ads about products from China.
But these evaluations can be influenced. Studies found that counter-stereotypical advertising proved to lower stereotypes and improve attitudes towards the brand or provider (Levy, Pilver, Chung, & Slade, 2014; Matta & Folkes, 2005; Ramasubramanian, 2007). Matta and Folkes argue that by showing an untypical representation of an object or person, people are less likely to associate that image with prior knowledge, which also applies to stereotypes. According to the theory of stereotype formation, this new information can challenge old concepts and reframe previous ideas (Tajfel, 1974). The reframing of the stereotype usually leads to a new evaluation of the shown brand or provider. Therefore, it is expected that counter-stereotypical advertising improves brand evaluations.
In accordance with the theory and evidence regarding stereotyping and prejudice and consumer perceptions and behaviors, the following first hypothesis can be formulated:
H1: Neutral Chinese ads result in lower scores in brand attitudes and purchase
intentions than Western (British) advertisements and Chinese counter-stereotypical advertisements.
Despite regulations, advertising often uses stereotypes in order to be memorable (De Meulenaer, Dens, De Pelsmacker, & Eisend, 2018). Still, most practitioners share the belief that reducing stereotypes are the most appropriate form to use them (Windels, 2016). Cohen-Eliya and Hammer (2004) suggest that the advertising form can have major impact on
consumer evaluation regarding stereotypes. Since advertising is a representation of reality and has the power to shape it significantly (Hovland & Wolburg, 2010), it is important how certain issues are depicted. Coltrane and Messineo (2000) found that black, indigenous and people of color are either highly underrepresented in commercials and media or stereotyped compared to Caucasians. This adds to the development of stereotypes and prejudice (Allport, 1979). In order to change current stereotypical beliefs, they have to be addressed explicitly, for example via transformative advertising. Transformative ads have the aim to change the recipient’s value system and to reduce existing stereotypes and simultaneously reframe them into a new context (Cohen-Eliya & Hammer, 2004).
In view of Chinese products, this would mean to emphasize the value of the advertised product and to present it in a favorable way in order to reduce stereotypes. By presenting contrary characteristics (e.g. high in quality), the mental model of the particular stereotype can be challenged. If a Chinese product turns out to be better as it is assumed to be, the appraisal for this good can be even higher, according to the expectancy-violation theory (Jussim, Coleman, & Lerch, 1987). The expectancy-violation theory states that if an individual behaves contrary to its stereotype-based assumptions, assessment of this action should be more potent in the direction of the violated expectation. That means, if a person has more positive traits than expected, this person should be appraised more favorable than others with similar traits and vice versa.
This strategy was tested in former literature by counteracting prevalent stereotypes. Ramasubramanian and Oliver (2007) examined feelings towards minorities and their relation
to stereotypical and counter-stereotypical news stories. They hypothesized that participants in the counter-stereotypical condition will express less prejudicial feelings towards the specific minority group than participants in the stereotypical and control condition. After letting the participants read a news story about an ethnic minority, they were asked to rate feelings and favorability towards the specific minority group. As expected, they found that prejudice levels were lower in the counter-stereotypical condition towards certain ethnic groups
(Asian-Indians) compared to the stereotypical condition. Similar findings were confirmed in a similar study by using counter-stereotypical media exemplars (Ramasubramanian, 2011).
Anti-discriminating information in textual form proved to be successful in lowering stereotypical beliefs and in improving outcome measures (Valentino, Hutchings, & White, 2002). By pairing already stereotyped images with counter-stereotypical texts, stereotypes can be counterargued verbally to a significant level. Therefore, by counter-emphasizing
predominant stereotypes of Chinese products in advertisements, negative stereotypes can be influenced and at best lowered. Reading a counter-stereotypical advertisement about a
Chinese product should therefore lead to more positive evaluations of Asians and lower racial biases.
Accordingly, the second hypothesis will be stated:
H2: Advertising strategy has an impact on implicit racial bias: Neutral Chinese ads
result in higher scores of implicit racial biases than the neutral British and the counter-stereotypical Chinese ad.
Other studies go even a step further and find that advertising strategies are not only linked with implicit biases but also with related outcome measures such as attitudes. Implicit racial bias can impact decision making processes significantly and is closely linked to consumer
racism (Ouellet, 2005). If consumers already have negative racial biases, they tend to have more unfavorable feelings towards ethnic minorities (here Asians) and are more likely to express less favorable evaluations of their brands and products (Ouellet, 2005, 2007; Hill & Paphitis, 2010).
These attitudes can be targeted with counter-stereotypical advertising strategies as well. Matta and Folkes (2005) compared effects of stereotypical and counter-stereotypical gender roles of a service provider of employees. In their study, they created stories about employees who work in fields contrary to their gender stereotype. Also, in accordance to the expectancy-violation theory, they found that the employee who behaved contrary to the expected way were perceived as more positive than employees in the stereotypical condition. If the counter-stereotypical information was surprising or at least non-conventional, the employee was appraised as more competent. Further, the service provider was perceived as more unique compared to competitors when using counter-stereotypes. Another approach to test the effectiveness of counter-stereotypical advertising used femvertising (feminist
advertising). Effects were tested in an experiment (neutral, stereotypical and stereotypical) on self-esteem and gender bias (Varghese & Kumar, 2020). The counter-stereotypical condition counteracted prevalent gender stereotypes by highlighting positive female traits, challenging gender norms and delivering positive messages about women. Results showed, that the counter-stereotypical condition had more positive effects on self-esteem, increased gender sensitization and lowered gender biases. These examples show that countering prevalent stereotypes cannot only improve harmful stereotypes about people but can also be beneficial in regards of changing attitudes.
In sum, it is estimated that people with a negative implicit racial bias are more likely to express negative brand evaluations and people with a positive implicit racial bias are more likely to express positive brand evaluations. In line with the theory, counteracting prevalent
negative stereotypes about Chinese products should improve implicit racial biases and lead to more positive outcomes on the assessment of Chinese products.
Accordingly, the third hypothesis will be stated:
H3: Counter-stereotypical advertisements about Chinese products result in lower levels
of implicit racial bias which results in higher brand attitudes and purchases intentions compared to neutral advertisements about Chinese products.
Figure 1 depicts the conceptual model of this research, including all stated hypotheses.
Figure 1: Conceptual model with mediator: Effect of advertising type on brand attitude and
purchase intention through implicit racial bias
Method
Design
Implicit racial bias
Advertising strategy British neutral Chinese neutral Chinese counter-stereotypical H2, H3 H3 Brand attitude Purchase intention H1
In order to test the hypotheses and answer the research question, an online experimental study was conducted. This experiment used a between-subject design with three conditions
(advertising strategy: British neutral, Chinese neutral, Chinese counter-stereotypical). The mediator implicit racial bias and dependent variables brand attitude and purchase intention were measured. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the three experimental groups (n = 65 in British neutral, n = 72 in Chinese neutral, n = 67 in Chinese counter-stereotypical).
Participants
Participants were recruited online through social media and survey sharing platforms (i.e., Facebook, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Instagram, SurveyShare and SurveyCircle). Through a convenience and snowball sampling strategy, participants received the link to the experiment. The data has been cleaned according to the exclusion criteria determined before the analysis of the data. Three hundred eighty-one participants agreed to take part in the study. Out of these 381, 177 had to be excluded due to missing values or invalid data on relevant items (see Appendix 2 for the whole exclusion strategy). The final sample concluded N = 204
participants.
The average age of the participants was M = 25.52 (SD = 4.71) and was relatively well divided between female and male participants (female 57.8%). More than two thirds of the participants identified themselves as Caucasian (68.6%), a fifth as Asian (21.1%), 4.4% as Hispanic, 1.0% as Black and 4.9% as with multiple ethnicities or other. Furthermore, participants originated from 39 different countries. The four largest groups regarding
nationality were German (39.2%), Dutch (17.6%), British (7.4%) and US-American (5.4%). Lastly, the majority of the participants had a higher education level, completing a Bachelor’s degree (44.6%) or a Master’s degree (39.2%).
Stimuli design and pre-test
The independent variable advertising strategy had three conditions, namely British neutral, Chinese neutral and Chinese counter-stereotypical. In each condition an advertorial promoting a fake branded product was shown. The advertorials were produced especially for this study (Appendix 1) and based on pre-test results. For the specific product, towels were chosen. Product evaluation and stereotyping also depends on product category (Kaynak & Cavusgil, 1983). In their study, they compared four categories: electronic items, food products, fashion merchandise and household goods. Fischler (1988) proposes similar categories: Food, household items and electronics. Since food is perceived socioculturally, it can be difficult to find a comparable level of usage and value across ethnic groups, which was needed for this study (Fischler, 1988). Further, food items and fashion clothes from China already caused scandals in the past (Beamish & Bapuji, 2008). Since electronic goods symbolize a modern and international lifestyle, they also can taint the neutral foundation (Fischler, 1988). Hence, the household item category, which falls in the middle between food and electronics regarding usage and value (Fischler, 1988), was chosen.
The towel included the brand name and origin of production. In order to secure country recognition, brand names which were identified as Chinese and British were chosen (Ouellet, 2005). In accordance to Ouellet (2005), Xiang was chosen for the Chinese and Campbell for the British condition. Several studies found that the origin of a product influences its evaluations (Kaynak & Cavusgil, 1983; Scott, 1965; Nagashima, 1977).
Therefore, a “Made in China/the UK” note was included below the brand name to emphasize the heritage.
The advertisement was an advertorial about how to make bathrooms more attractive, in which the towels featured a central role. The neutral versions described the towels and method to redecorate a bathroom in a neutral way (i.e. complementing the consumer’s interior by well decorating one’s bathroom), while the counter-stereotypical version counteracted the three stereotypes that were found to be relevant for Chinese products in a pre-test.
Pre-test In order to choose, which stereotypes are the most prevalent for Chinese
products, a pretest (N = 37, 67.6% female, MAge = 24.51, SDAge = 2.70) was carried out prior to
the experiment. Participants were shown, in a within-subjects study, two pairs of different household items, namely a Chinese branded towel, a British branded towel, a Chinese branded plate and a British branded plate. The products themselves were identical between the different origins, only their brand label indicated a different name and origin. On eleven 7-point semantic scales, participants were asked to evaluate each product by the following attributes: low-priced – high-priced, cheap – expensive, dangerous – safe, fake – original, low
in quality – high in quality, inferior – superior, poor – premium, low-class – high-class, unsafe to use – safe to use, harmful – harmless and bad – good. These attributes were chosen
based on results from prior studies which researched about stereotypes regarding Chinese products (Beamish & Bapuji, 2008; Kabayadi & Lerman, 2011; Schniederjans et al., 2011; Lew & Sulaiman, 2013). Results showed that British products were evaluated more positively than Chinese products, especially for the towels (overall MChinesetowels = 5.16, SDChineseTowels = 1.06
vs. overall MBritishTowels = 5.79, SDBritishTowels = .97, p = .0009, assessed on a 7-point semantic
scale, see Table 1 and 2). Further, out of eleven attributes, people had negative stereotypes about Chinese products in regard to three aspects, that is price (cheap/expensive, low-priced/high-priced), status (low-class/high-class, poor/premium, inferior/superior) and
authenticity (fake/original), which scored highest on individual differences. Therefore, these
Table 1
Pre-test: Paired Samples T-test of the towels
Mean N
Std. Deviation
Std. Error Mean
Pair 1 Chinese complete 5.16 37 1.06 .17
British complete 5.79 37 0.97 .16 Pair 2: cheap/expensive CT1 4.59 37 130 .21 BT1 5.46 37 1.28 .21 Pair 3: low-/high-priced CT2 4.62 37 1.42 .23 BT2 5.70 37 1.20 .20 Pair 4: low-/high-class CT3 4.81 37 1.37 .23 BT3 5.62 37 1.26 .21 Pair 5: poor/premium CT4 4.84 37 1.34 .22 BT4 5.57 37 1.30 .21 Pair 6: low/high in quality CT5 4.81 37 1.31 .22 BT5 5.27 37 1.26 .21 Pair 7: unsafe/safe to use CT6 6.11 37 1.39 .23 BT6 6.35 37 1.16 .19
Pair 8: dangerous/safe CT7 6.19 37 1.08 .18 BT7 6.46 37 1.07 .18 Pair 9: harmful/harmless CT8 5.97 37 1.46 .24 BT8 6.46 37 1.15 .19 Pair 10: inferior/superior CT9 4.54 37 1.07 .18 BT9 5.27 37 1.28 .21 Pair 11: bad/good CT10 5.46 37 1.45 .24 BT10 5.76 37 1.26 .21 Pair 12: fake/original CT11 4.78 37 1.44 .24 BT11 5.81 37 1.27 .21 Table 2
Pre-test: Paired differences of the towels
Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean t df Sig. (2-tailed) Pair 1 Chinese complete British complete -0.64 0.91 .15 -4.25 36 .00 Pair 2 CT1 - BT1 -0.87 1.25 .21 -4.21 36 .00 Pair 3 CT2 - BT2 -1.08 1.16 .19 -5.65 36 .00 Pair 4 CT3 - BT3 -0.81 1.22 .20 -4.04 36 .00 Pair 5 CT4 - BT4 -0.73 1.35 .22 -3.30 36 .00
Pair 6 CT5 - BT5 -0.46 1.30 .21 -2.14 36 .04 Pair 7 CT6 - BT6 -0.24 1.30 .21 -1.14 36 .26 Pair 8 CT7 - BT7 -0.27 .84 .14 -1.96 36 .06 Pair 9 CT8 - BT8 -0.49 1.12 .18 -2.64 36 .01 Pair 10 CT9 - BT9 -0.73 1.22 .20 -3.65 36 .00 Pair 11 CT10 - BT10 -0.30 1.22 .20 -1.48 36 .15 Pair 12 CT1 - BT1 -0.64 0.91 .15 -4.25 36 .00 Procedure
First, participants were presented with a welcome message describing what they could expect when they participated in the study and a consent form, which ensured that
participants’ data would remain anonymous and would be used for research purposes only. After that, participants were requested to fill out demographical data including their gender, age, nationality, ethnicity and educational background. Next, respondents were shown an advertorial which was assigned randomly. After reading the advertorial, participants took part in an affect misattribution procedure task (Payne, Cheng, Govorun, & Stewart 2005). The AMP focuses on affective reactions enabled by a prior priming task. As an implicit measure, respondents are not directly asked about their attitude but rather assessed on their actual behavior. By distracting participants with a simple response task (mostly rating a visual object), respondents will be primed by prior influences (misattribution prime) and show their underlying attitudinal beliefs. The AMP proposes that misattributions take place when the participant is unaware of the affect of their attitudes towards the response task. In the original study 12 positive, 12 negative and 12 neutral primes preceded Chinese pictographs and participants were asked to rate the pictograph on its visual pleasantness as fast as possible. If
respondents felt a pictograph pleasing, they were instructed to press pleasant and if they felt a pictograph unpleasing, they were asked to press unpleasant. This procedure was adapted in the current study to measure implicit racial bias towards Asians.
In this experiment, the prime images consisted of twelve Asian faces, twelve
Caucasian faced and twelve neutral primes (gray rectangles). The human faces were derived from the Chicago Face Database (Ma, Correll, & Wittenbrink 2015), which consists of high-resolution, standardized photographs and includes physical attributes as well as individual ratings. In order to avoid halo effects of attraction between the ethnicities, attraction levels of both Caucasian as well as Asian faces were balanced (MCaucasianComplete = 3.32, MAsianComplete =
3.32). Instead of using Chinese pictographs, this research used geometric forms since pairing them with Asian faces could have been too revealing about the research objective. Since studies have shown that circular shapes are perceived as more positive than triangles (Wang & Zhang, 2016), both forms were balanced in each stimuli group in order to prevent biases. After a person was primed with a stimulus face or neutral prime, the participant was asked to judge the following geometric shape as pleasant or unpleasant. In accordance to Payne and colleagues (2005), the prime was shown for 75ms, followed by a white blank page for 125ms and a geometric form for 100ms. After the series of images were presented, the participant was requested to rate the shape as fast as possible. The order was randomized to prevent order effects.
After the response task, participants were asked to answer statements regarding brand attitude and purchase intention. The penultimate part asked participants to rate the product they saw on the attributes on price, status and authenticity. This was used as a manipulation check. Participants were asked about the brand name they saw in the advertorial as a recall check, about the goal of the study and if they had any other remarks. Lastly, participants were debriefed and informed about the real objective of the study.
Measures
Brand Attitude As dependent variables, brand attitude and purchase intention were
assessed. Both scales were adapted from Spears and Singh (2004). Brand attitude was measured using a five items 7-point semantic scale, which were: I think the brand is …
unappealing - appealing, bad - good, unpleasant - pleasant, unfavorable - favorable, and unlikeable - likeable. An Exploratory factor analysis with Principle axis factoring with direct
Oblim rotation indicated that the scale was unidimensional, explaining 64.11% of the variance and proved reliable as indicated by a Cronbach’s Alpha of .830 (M = 4.82, SD = .01). For further analyses, all five items were calculated into one variable named Brand attitude complete.
Purchase Intention The intention of purchase was measured on five items 7-point
semantic scale as well. The last item was assessed on a 10-point semantic scale. The following items were asked: I would buy the shown towels … never - definitely, I …
definitely not intend to buy - definitely intend to buy, My intention to buy the towel is … very low purchase interest - very high purchase interest, I will … definitely not buy it - definitely buy it and I would buy the towels … probably not - probably buy it. The related Exploratory
factor analysis with Principle axis factoring with direct Oblim rotation showed that the scale was unidimensional, explaining 83.14% of the variance. The 5-item scale proved highly reliable as well as specified by a Cronbach’s Alpha of .933 (M = 3.90, SD = .35). For further analyses, all five items were calculated into one variable named Purchase intention complete.
Affect Misattribution Procedure (AMP) The affect misattribution procedure served as
a mediator and had two values to choose from, pleasant and unpleasant. Payne and
the AMP scale was calculated by subtracting the proportion of pleasant responses for the Asian results from the proportion of pleasant responses for the Caucasian results. The overall difference score was M = .0012 (SD = .17). Since the difference score was respectively under 0, no implicit racial bias was found for the whole sample. For further analyses, the difference score was calculated into one variable named AMP Score.
Manipulation Check Six semantic 7-point-scales measured the level of stereotypes
about the product presented in the advertorial, which functioned as a manipulation check:
cheap - expensive, low-priced - high-priced, low-class - high-class, poor - premium, inferior – superior and fake - original. An Exploratory factor analysis with Principle axis factoring with
direct Oblim rotation showed that the scale was unidimensional, explaining 69.17% of the variance. The 5-item scale proved highly reliable as well as specified by a Cronbach’s Alpha of .901 (M = 7.78, SD = .04). For further analyses, all six items were calculated into one variable named Stereotype check complete.
Analysis plan
Prior to the analyses, a pre-analysis plan was designed, in which all variables and their functions were listed (Appendix 2). The independent variable was advertising strategy with three conditions (British neutral, Chinese neutral, Chinese counter-stereotypical), brand attitude and purchase intention served as outcome measures. The AMP scale functioned as a mediator variable and the scales measuring stereotypes as a manipulation check. Lastly, demographic data served as potential control variables in order to ensure comparability across conditions.
A manipulation check of the counteracted stereotypes served as a preparatory analysis (ANOVA), which were derived from a prior conducted pre-test. To test the hypotheses,
ANOVAs and multiple regression analyses were conducted. To test the mediation effects, participants in the British neutral condition were excluded from the analyses.
To explore whether ethnicity influenced the effects of type of advertisement on brand attitude, purchase intention and implicit racial bias, exploratory analyses were conducted excluding Asian participants.
Before proceeding with the hypotheses testing, assumptions regarding normality, linearity and homoscedasticity were checked. Results derived from residual and scatter plots indicated that the data was distributed evenly. Regarding collinearity, all requirements have been met, VIF < 10, Tolerances > .1, and therefore meeting the standards of multicollinearity.
Results
Randomization checks
In order to examine if the conditions were comparable to each other on main
characteristics, randomization checks were performed. A One-Way ANOVA indicated that participants’ mean age did not significantly differ between conditions, F (2, 201) = .119, p = .888. Further, a Chi-square analysis was performed to investigate if participants’ gender was comparable across the conditions. Results indicated that this did not differ across the conditions either, X2 (6, N = 204) = 4.746, p = .577. Next, a Chi-square analysis for
nationality was conducted to compare participants’ backgrounds. Apart from the four largest groups (Germany, Netherlands, UK and USA), the remaining nationalities were recoded into one joint value to perform a Chi-square analysis. The test indicated that there were no
significant differences between the three conditions, X2 (6, N = 204) = 8.85, p = .182.
conditions, a Chi-square was conducted. The results indicated that there was no significant difference between the conditions, X2 (10, N = 204) = 12.33, p = .264. Lastly, a Chi-square
analysis was performed between Asian versus non-Asian participants. Non-Asian entries were recoded into one joint value. Results indicated that no significant differences across the
conditions were observed, X2 (2, N = 204) = .69, p = .708.
In conclusion, it could be concluded that the randomization was successful, and the conditions were comparable to each other on several main characteristics. It was therefore not necessary to control for any of these variables in the main analyses.
Manipulation checks
To check if the manipulation was successful, a One-Way ANOVA with advertising strategy as the independent variable and the average score on the stereotype scales with a Bonferroni-post hoc test was conducted. Results showed that significant differences could be found between the conditions, F (2, 201) = 5.43, p = .005. A post-hoc test with Bonferroni correction indicated, that only the British neutral (M = 5.04, SD = .89) and Chinese neutral (M = 4.47, SD = 1.05, p = .005) conditions differed significantly. Comparing these two
conditions, the product in the British neutral ad was perceived less negatively than the product in the Chinese neutral ad regarding prevalent product stereotypes (price, status and
authenticity). Although the product in the Chinese neutral condition was assessed more negatively than the product in the Chinese counter-stereotypical (M = 4.86, SD = 1.11, p = .085) condition as expected, this result was only marginally significant.
It can be concluded that the manipulation was partially successful for the British neutral (control group) and the Chinese neutral condition. Even though the results of the
manipulation condition (Chinese counter-stereotypical) pointed to the expected direction, no significance was found.
Main effects
To test the first hypothesis H1, if neutral Chinese ads result in lower scores in brand
attitudes and purchase intentions than British advertisements and Chinese
counter-stereotypical advertisements, two ANOVAs with Bonferroni correction were performed. The strategy of advertisement served as the independent variable and brand attitude and purchase intention as dependent variables.
Brand Attitude The ANOVA regarding brand evaluation indicated that there was no
significant effect of advertising strategy on the brand attitude, F (2, 201) = 1.667, p = .191. Results showed that people in the Chinese neutral condition (M= 4.74, SD= 1.03) did not evaluate the brand more negatively than people in the Chinese counter-stereotypical condition (M= 4.72, SD= 0.98) or in the British neutral condition (M = 5.02, SD= 1.12). In regard to the first hypothesis, this means that no effect was found of the advertising strategy on brand evaluations. Respectively, no difference was found between the neutral Chinese
advertisement, neutral British advertisement and Chinese counter-stereotypical advertisement on brand attitude.
Purchase Intention Regarding purchase intention, the ANOVA showed no significant
impact of advertising strategy on the willingness to buy either, F (2, 201) = .016, p = .984. Results revealed that the neutral Chinese ad (M = 4.74, SD= 1.03) did not conclude in lower purchase intentions than the counter-stereotypical Chinese ad (M = 4.72, SD= .98) or the neutral British ad (M = 5.02, SD= 1.12). Thus, the first hypothesis was not confirmed.
In order to test the second hypothesis H2, whether advertising strategy has an impact on
implicit racial bias, respectively if neutral Chinese ads result in higher scores of implicit racial bias than neutral British and counter-stereotypical Chinese ads, a One-Way ANOVA with Bonferroni correction was conducted. The advertising strategy functioned as the independent variable and the difference score on the AMP scale served as the outcome variable. Results indicated that the advertising strategy does not have a significant impact on implicit racial bias, F (2, 201) = 1.252, p = .288. Results implied that the neutral Chinese ad (M = -.02, SD = .19) does not result in higher scores of implicit racial bias than the British neutral (M = .01,
SD= .18) or the Chinese counter-stereotypical condition (M = .02, SD= .14). Therefore, H2
could not be supported.
Mediation analysis
Lastly, hypothesis 3, whether counter-stereotypical advertisements about Chinese products result in lower levels of implicit racial bias which results in higher brand attitudes and purchases intentions compared to neutral advertisements about Chinese products, was tested.
H3 refers to a mediation process, which has to be defined for further analyses.
Mediation is well documented in academic literature and can be calculated through many different methods. In Figure 2, the unmediated (Part 1) and mediated model (Part 2) of this study can be observed. Path c in Part 1 is considered as the total effect of a causal relation. One way to pursue the mediation analysis is the four-step method by Baron and Kenny (1986). Firstly, the researchers argue that X has to significantly correlate with Y (path c in Figure 2). This first step indicates if an effect may include a mediation. Secondly, X has to significantly predict variable M (path a). Step three demands that X and M correlate
significantly with Y (path b). Lastly, if a mediation occurs, X on Y controlling for M (path c’) has to be zero. If all four steps are fulfilled, a complete mediation occurs. If steps one to three are significant, a partial mediation is implied.
Figure 2: Path model depicting the total impact (Part 1: c) and mediated effect (Part 2) of X
on Y with c’ as the direct influence and a and b as the indirect effect. If a mediation takes place, the path c’ will turn out smaller than path c (Baron & Kenny, 1986).
Therefore, to test the last hypothesis H3, two bootstrapped multi-linear regressions
were conducted, in which advertising strategy served as the independent variable, the Implicit racial bias
(M) Advertising strategy (X) Chinese neutral Chinese counter-stereotypical Brand attitude Purchase intention (Y) c‘ a b Advertising strategy (X) Chinese neutral Chinese counter-stereotypical Brand attitude Purchase intention (Y) c Part 1 Part 2
difference score on the AMP scale as the mediator and brand attitude and purchase intentions as the dependent variables.
Results between the predictor (X) advertising strategy and the dependent variables (Y) brand attitude (B = -.02, s.e. = .17, p = .923, BCBCI [-.351, .275]) and purchase intention (B = .04, s.e. = .24, p = .854, BCBCI [-.478, .540]) indicated no significant correlation. This means, that there was no direct effect (path c) between advertising strategy on the criterion variables brand attitude and purchase intention. Further, there was no significant effect of advertising strategy (X) on implicit racial bias (M) (path a) (B = .04, s.e. = .03, p = .144, BCBCI [-.012, .101]). Lastly, no significant indirect effect (c’) was found on brand attitude (B = 4.67, s.e. = .43, BCBCI [3.836, 5.516]) and purchase intention (B = 3.66, s.e. = .62, BCBCI [2.473, 4.829]), indicating that there was no mediation effect of implicit racial bias between advertising strategy and brand attitude and purchase intention. This was expected since part 1 of the mediation analysis already was not significant. Hence, H3 could not be confirmed.
Additional analyses
To test if ethnicity influences the effects, the analyses were repeated without
participants with an Asian background (n = 43). Results from an ANOVA on the dependent variables showed that excluding Asian participants did not have a higher significant effect on purchase intention, F (2, 158) = .224, p = .898, but a marginally significant effect on brand attitude, F (2, 158) = 2.805, p = .083. Post-hoc tests with Bonferroni correction indicated that even though no significant differences could be observed between the British neutral ad and the Chinese neutral ad (p = .193), the British neutral condition (M = 5.15, SD = 1.07) scored higher on brand attitudes than the Chinese neutral condition (M = 4.77, SD = 1.03). If
significant, this would be in line with the hypothesis. Contrary to expectations though, the Chinese counter-stereotypical ad scored lowest on brand attitudes (M = 4.73, SD = 1.06).
In order to examine whether ethnicity impacts implicit racial bias, an ANOVA was performed. Results implied that no significant effect was found, when Asian participants were excluded, F (2, 158) = .009, p = .746, meaning that an Asian background does not influence implicit racial bias.
Lastly, a mediation analysis excluding Asian participants was conducted.
Bootstrapped multi-linear regression analyses revealed that excluding Asians result in a marginally significant higher evaluation of the brand (direct effect advertising strategy X on brand attitude Y, path c) (B = -.207, s.e. = .11, p = .052, BCBCI [-.410, .002]), but does not have an effect on implicit racial bias (direct effect advertising strategy X on implicit racial bias M, path a) (B = -.005, s.e. = .11, p = .02, BCBCI [-.038, .028]). Since not all criteria by Baron and Kenny (1986) were met, no mediation of implicit racial bias between advertising strategy on brand attitude and purchase intention were found.
In conclusion, ethnicity did not have a significant effect on the outcome variables. Excluding Asians did not influence the effects of advertising strategy on brand evaluations and the willingness to buy. Further, no mediation through implicit bias could be measured. Marginal significant results indicate that excluding Asians from the sample could lead to meaningful results, though.
Discussion and conclusion
The objective of this research was to lower country of origin-specific stereotypes for
commercial brands through counter-stereotypical advertising, measured on brand evaluation. Additionally, the role of implicit racial bias as a mediator variable between advertising
strategy, brand attitude and purchase intention were examined. In contrast to expectations that Chinese neutral advertisements lead to lower brand assessment than British neutral ads and Chinese counter-stereotypical ads, no effects of advertising strategy on brand evaluation (i.e. brand attitude, purchase intention) were found. Further, no mediation effect of implicit racial bias could be measured.
Results of the present study indicated that country of origin has no impact on brand evaluations, respectively that neutral Chinese advertisements would not lead to lower brand attitudes and purchase intentions compared to neutral British ads. Contrary to these results, prior research showed extensively that country of origin has a significant effect on brand assessment (Schniederjans et al., 2004; Ouellet, 2005; Laforet & Chen, 2012). A reason for these contrasting results might be the limited capacity for remembering the brand. Between the advertorial and its brand evaluation, participants were asked to proceed with the affective misattribution procedure. Since filling out the AMP scale took up to eight minutes,
participants could have forgotten about the presented brand which could have led to distorted results. When confronted with high cognitive loads of information, people tend to have stronger central tendency bias, which can lead to biased responses (Allred, Crawford, Duffy, & Smith, 2016).
Further, no effect of the counter-stereotypical Chinese ad on brand evaluations could be found, specifically that counter-stereotypical ads improve brand attitudes and purchase intentions. In contrast to the results, research shows that counter-stereotypical ads
significantly improve attitudes (e.g. Varghese & Kumar, 2020). The manipulation check indicated that there was no significant difference regarding the level of stereotypes between the Chinese neutral and Chinese counter-stereotypical condition. Thus, it is reasonable that the Chinese counter-stereotypical ad did not lead in any improvement regarding brand evaluations.
Moreover, results propose the lack of effects of advertising strategy on implicit bias, respectively that neutral Chinese ads do not result in higher scores of implicit bias than neutral British ads and counter-stereotypical Chinese ads. Additionally, no mediation effect between advertising strategy, implicit racial bias and brand evaluation were found. Results revealed that the calculated difference score was already very low, which indicated no existence of a racial bias within the sample. Hence, it is not surprising that no effects on implicit racial bias and that no mediation effect could be measured.
One finding which was confirmed was that Chinese products are highly stereotyped. These findings were supported in the pre-test, which revealed that people associate Chinese brands with more negative attributes than British products. The manipulation test showed similar results. Negative stereotypes were found as one of the factors which lead to lower brand evaluations (Kabayadi & Lerman, 2011).
This research aimed to answer the question, what the influence of
counter-stereotypical (vs. neutral) advertising strategy on brand evaluations and purchase intention of Chinese products, compared to Western products is and if this effect of counter-stereotypical (vs. neutral) advertising on brand outcomes is mediated by implicit racial bias. No significant findings could be drawn from the present study, that means that none of the stated hypotheses could be supported.
Even though no significant results were found, this research represents a first idea to decrease racial stereotypes towards to Asians by counteracting them through advertising. In contrast to Blacks, who are prevalently ascribed with negative stereotypes, Asians are associated with ambiguous attributions. Since changing negative stereotypes is a long and difficult process, gaining more knowledge about how to change ambiguous beliefs might lead to further understanding on how to undertake this issue for other ethnic minorities. Further, since the Coronavirus outbreak led to overt expression of racist beliefs, it is needed to address
these harmful underlying beliefs in order to prevent them in the future. However, further research is needed to explore this field.
Limitations and future research
Several limitations have to be mentioned for this study. Firstly, the AMP was adjusted in order to prevent participants from guessing the real objective of the study. Instead of
pairing the primes with Chinese pictographs, geometric forms were used, respectively circular and triangular shapes. Even though the same number of circles and triangles have been paired with the Asian, Caucasian and neutral group to prevent biases, the geometric forms still could have had an impact on the rating.
Secondly, the AMP scale was calculated differently than in the original study by Payne et al. (2005). Instead of using Cohen’s effect size, a difference score was used for the analyses. This difference could have been one of the factors which led to non-significant results.
Lastly, the method how racial biases were measured should be mentioned. Implicit measures have the advantage to measure attitudes by actual behavior. On the contrary they take more time and effort of the participant to complete, resulting in possible questionnaire fatigue. That would also explain the high abort rate to end the questionnaire. These limitations should be considered in future research.
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Appendices
Appendix 1
