THE PARADOX OF STRESS: THE USE OF
SEXUAL CUES AND STRESS TO MAXIMIZE
ADVERTISING EFFECTIVENESS
by
ARJAN KLAASSEN University of Groningen Faculty of Economics and Business
MSc Marketing Management
2
THE PARADOX OF STRESS: THE USE OF
SEXUAL CUES AND STRESS TO MAXIMIZE
ADVERTISING EFFECTIVENESS
by
ARJAN KLAASSEN University of Groningen Faculty of Economics and Business
MSc Marketing Management
Master Thesis Word count: 6404
June 14, 2017
3
ABSTRACT
What happens to the effectiveness of sexual advertising when consumers perceive stress? Previous research proposed that consumers engage in less rational decision making when they are stressed and their buying behavior and decisions are affected by sexual cues.
By means of an experiment it is tested whether the presence of a certain level of stress
increases the effectiveness of sexual advertising. The respondents in this study were randomly selected participants of an internet based experiment. Data is collected through an online survey from 115 participants. An ANOVA and ANCOVA analyses was performed.
There was no significant interaction effect found between stress and sexual advertising on the willingness to pay, but the results moved towards the notion that higher levels of stress increases the effectiveness of sexual advertising. Nevertheless, there were significant direct main effects found. People who perceive high levels of stress are more likely to be willing to pay more and people who are exposed to a sexual advertisement instead of a neutral
advertisement are like to be willing to pay more.
Hence, marketers should focus on the inducement of stress in a shopper environment in order to maximize the effectiveness of the marketing expenditures. Furthermore, consumers should be aware of their change in decision-making when they are stressed.
4
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Ch 1 Introduction 5
Ch 2 Theoretical framework 7
2.1 Sexual cues in marketing 7
2.2 Stress and the effectiveness of sexual cues in advertising 8
2.3 Conceptual model 11
Ch 3 Methodology 12
3.1 Participants and design 12
3.2 Procedure 12
3.3 Independent variables 13
3.3.1 Stress 13
3.3.2 Sexual cues in advertising 14
5 CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION
The objective measurement of the effectiveness of marketing efforts is still one of the most fundamental challenges in marketing science (MSI, 2016), especially since advertising is the most important and visible marketing tool (Tellis and Weis, 1995). The accountability of marketing, and especially advertising, has been criticized by a lot of researchers and articles (e.g. Verhoef and Leeflang, 2009 and Eisend and Tarrahi, 2016) and the returns on marketing expenditures become more salient due to the tough economic environment. The degree to which marketing techniques influence consumers, to what kind of reactions these efforts lead (e.g., comply or neglect to the offer), and how those relate to each other are well studied in the existing literature (Hanssens and Pauwels, 2016).
Nowadays, people perceive high levels of stress and uncertainty (Lee et al., 2001). Employers and our society are demanding mechanisms and let people feel pressure. These feelings of stress lead to a feeling of uncertainty among people (Moschis, 2007). Therefore, their decision-making is affected and they are likely to consume and spent their money in a different way (Durante and Laran, 2016). Another research suggests that stress depletes our self-control in a consumer environment and, therefore, people are more likely to comply to a temptation (Baumeister, 2002).
Cialdini (1984) described, and did research on, some well-known influence
techniques; e.g. the social proof principle, scarcity principle, and reciprocity principle. One popular and widely used technique to capture the attention of a consumer is the use of sexual cues in advertising. Imagine the start of a Formula One race where lots of beautiful women stand next to the drivers just to attract the attention of the visitors of the race. Such beautiful women are used in advertising a lot. While an argument for the relationship between scent and beauty can be made, Reichen and Lambiase (2003) show that there are also cases where the sexual cue has not clear link with the message. This indicates that the old cliche “sex sells’ is still standing strong in the world of marketing. A brief look at some advertisements reveals that the old cliché ‘sex sells’ in the world of marketing is still standing strong. This suggests that the use of sexual cues in advertising leads to a higher willingness to pay for a product. This notion makes it interesting to study in relation with additional factors which appear in a consumer environment.
In general, people perceive a certain level of stress on a daily basis. Therefore, stress could be an effective mechanism in the consumer environment. Stress could have an
6 an influence on the extent to which those cues are effective in reaching their goals (i.e.
increase sales/willingness to pay). Sexual cues in advertising are aimed at emotional feelings instead of informing consumers and, therefore, these feelings are processed fast and often even beyond people’s consciousness. Fennis and Stroebe (2016) suggest that when people perceive lower levels of self-control, they are more susceptible to influence techniques (i.e. sexual cues). Therefore, this research aims to find out to what extent stress reinforces the relationship between sexual cues and the willingness to pay. The purpose of the research is to answer the following question:
“To what extent does the level of perceived stress influences the effect of sexual cues on the willingness to pay for advertised products?’’
This research is the first research that elaborates on the link between stress and the effectiveness of sexual cues in advertising in combination with the existing mechanism that explains the depletion of self-control due to the exposure to marketing principles. The addition of stress in the existing research to the effectiveness of marketing principles fills a gap in the existing literature. The results of this research could lead to a better understanding of stress in advertising. In certain circumstances, stress is able to play a role in the
7 CHAPTER 2 – THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Previous research has mainly been focused on the role of self-control on the
compliance of consumers to marketing techniques. This article aims to find out to what extent stress has an influence on the effect of sexual cues in advertising on the willingness to pay. The concept of stress is an important topic in the field of psychologic science, but is still underexposed in the field of marketing research.
2.1 - Sexual cues in advertising
The use of sexual cues in advertising is one of the most used marketing techniques from the book and present for over 100 years. The use of sex has even become more popular in recent decades. Reichert, Heckler, and Jackson (2001) defined sex in advertising as: “The mediated messages that contain sexual imagery with the persuasive purpose of selling branded goods”. The goal of this type of advertising is to increase the likelihood that consumers who are exposed to the advertisement will purchase the product or service
(Bushman, 2007). This goal has various outcome variables such as attention, attitude towards the brand, towards the advertisement, and purchase intention (Chan et al., 2010; Moore et al., 2005; Pieters and Wedel, 2004; Pieters et al., 2007). The common assumption in advertising marketing is that sex attracts consumers’ attention and that this increase of attention leads to more exposures to the advertised brand (Reichert and Lambiase, 1999). The sexual cues also arouse emotions, which may, in turn, shape consumers’ behavioral responses towards the brand and its advertised products (Hyllegard, Yan, Ogle and Attmann, 2012).
8 On the other hand, researchers also show that sexual cues distracts people from processing the message content (Severn, Belch and Belch, 1990). Here it is stated that the presence of a sexual cue impaired the recall of the arguments contained in the advertisement. This suggests that people are more likely to process the emotional cues in advertising instead of the true merits when they are exposed to an advertisement with a sexual cue. This directs people’s processing towards the peripheral route of the elaboration likelihood model of Petty and Cacioppo (1986).
At this point, literature suggests that sexual cues attract attention and influence the way in which people process the advertisements. In doing so, people evaluate the advertisement and the brand more positively and are willing to pay more for the products. Herefore,
H1: Sexual cues in advertisements positively affects the willingness to pay
2.2 – Stress and the effectiveness of sexual cues in advertising
Feelings of stress can occur when a demand challenges a person’s ability to cope with it (Lazarus, 1996) or when people perceive the situation as beyond their control (Benight, et. al, 1999). When feeling stressed, people make decisions based on habits, instinct, or emotions (Pham, 2007), especially when the pressure on people becomes overwhelming or relentless (Wolford, 2001). Benight et al. (1999) suggest that stress leads to reduced capabilities. This goes hand in hand with the assumption that sexual cues distract people from processing the content of the message. Since stress leads to a change in decision making, it can be
assumed that stress has an impact on the effectiveness of the use of sexual cues in advertising. A lot of research has been done on the effects of stress. Stress can cause a passive response of people to stay away from further damage (De Boer et al., 1990) or, more interesting, it makes people engage more in non-rational decision-making and active consumption (Duhachek, 2005). This active behavior increases their spending behavior and points their decision
9 In addition to that, Durante and Laran (2016) describe that people use their resources different when they perceive stress. People tend to show saving behavior on the one hand, and, more important, on the other hand the spending behavior on necessities increases to restore their sense of control. They state that stress could lead to beneficial or impulsive consumer behaviors, which results in people consuming to restore a sense of self-control. People think that they need a product more than they actually do and they will be triggered by the sexual cues to buy the product. Thereby, the price people want to pay for a certain product increases. More interesting for the effect of stress on the effectiveness of sexual cues are the findings of Starcke and Brand (2016). They did research on the decision-making process of people when they are stressed. They found out that stress leads to hurried and unsystematic decision making without taking all options and arguments in consideration. This makes people base their decision on easy available and emotional cues (Wood, 2000). Stressed people are not fully able to process the arguments in an advertisement and therefore persuasive marketing techniques are more effective on those people (Fennis and Stroebe, 2016). People are likely to have a preference to process the easy available information from the advertisement (Chaiken, 1980). Stress has an influence on the notion that sexual cues distract people from the message content and therefore stress reinforces the effect of sexual cues on the way in which people process sexual advertising (Severn et al., 1990). This suggests the notion that people who are stressed are more vulnerable to sexual cues.
Altogether, stress moderates the effectiveness of sexual cues in advertising and activates the spending behavior of people. Stress will strengthen the relation between sexual cues and the willingness to pay. Stress will be especially influential since sexual cues distracts people from processing the information from the advertisement and leads people towards peripheral processing. The use of sexual cues becomes more attractive when people are stressed. Thus,
H2: Higher levels of stress will lead to a higher willingness to pay
10 2.2.2 the effect of sexual cues on men versus women
People differ in their reaction to sexual appeals due to their individual interest and preferences (Aldan and Crowley, 1995). Jingjing and Gal (2016) suggest in their research that, under normal conditions, men perceive sexual advertisements relatively positive and women negative. Literature portrays men as having positive attitudes towards recreational sex, whereas women value emotional intimacy (Baumeister et al., 2002). In addition to that, some researchers state that the perception of sexual cues appear to vary for demographic factors (e.g. Venkatesh, 1980; Leigh et al., 1987). These different orientation lead to a
different response on sexual advertising between men and women. Meanwhile, stress is not exclusively gender driven, but mainly individual driven and based on
life history (Sneath, Lacey, and Kennett-Hensel, 2008). Therefore, it is possible to abstract the effect of gender on the effectiveness of sexual cues. Thus,
H4: The effect of sexual cues in advertising on the willingness to pay is stronger for men than for women
2.2.3 The effect of age on willingness to pay
Many researchers have contended that human organism process information less efficiently when they become older (e.g. Rabbitt, 1990; Salthouse, 1985). The ability to take in, deal with and respond to information decreases due to deficits in the central system.
Therefore, older people tend to engage more in peripheral route processing and focus more on emotional cues than younger people do (Darley and Smith, 1995). This leads to a higher focus on the sexual cues instead of the arguments in the advertisement. More important, there is a tendency that young people might have more liberal attitudes towards sexual cues than elderly people, so the sexual cues could backfire in the case of elderly people. Younger people react more positively to sexual cues due to their more liberal attitudes (Fennis and Stroebe, 2016). Besides that, they are more able and motivated to process a whole advertisement and evaluate arguments (Keshari and Jain, 2016), so they are able to process the emotional cues and the arguments if they are motivated. Altogether, literature suggests that younger people are more affected by the exposure to a sexual advertisement. Thus,
11 2.3 Conceptual model
Although all the mentioned studies provide insights in the effects of stress and sexual cues in marketing, the relation between these constructs is still unclear. This article investigates the influence of stress on compliance and the moderating role of sexual cues.
This provides the following conceptual model (figure 1).
12 CHAPTER 3 - METHODOLOGY
3.1 Participants and design
A total of 115 English speaking participants (57 female, 58 male; Mage = 33.05 years, SD = 13.25) were recruited online and via direct social networks to participate in the
experiment. This group consists of 110 Dutch people and 4 people from a different country, namely Italy, China, Belgium, and Germany. The participants were randomly selected without any condition taken into account. They participated voluntarily in a 2 (low stress vs. high stress) x 2 (sex advertising vs. non-sex advertising) between-subjects factorial design.
3.2 Procedure
The participants were approached via students community groups (i.e. Marketing community, Business administration community, and general student community) on different types of social media (i.e. Facebook), local communities, and direct personal channels and they were asked to participate in an anonymous experiment. This aimed at getting a good reflection of the community, but it can be assumed that people who speak English in the Netherlands are students or well-educated. The experiment was run online for 3 days until every condition met the condition of at least 25 participants.
First, the participants were randomly assigned to one condition by the research software without any constraint taken into account. Therefore, the experiment comprised the manipulation of stress at the start. Half of the participants were exposed to stress by filling in 15 calculation questions with a time limit, and the other half of them had no time limit to remain their neutral state. After this first manipulation participants were asked to evaluate an advertisement, where half of the participants were exposed to sex cues in the advertisement and the other half was exposed to a neutral advertisement.
This created four condition in which participants participated in the experiment. The advertisement is directly shown after the manipulation of stress, so that the effect of stress is still present in its best form.
13 The last task for the participants in the experiment was to fill in their demographics (i.e. age, gender)
The participants were told on forehand that they participate in an experiment which consists of two unrelated parts conducted by different researchers, so that they will not be affected by any suspicions about the manipulation of stress. After this information, the participants were told that the study will remain confidential and there will be no attempts to link their responses and identity. The participants were thanked for their participation at the end of the experiment. They were debriefed by asking them what they think the experiment was about and the possibility to leave their contact details to be informed about the purpose and result of the study.
3.3 Independent variables 3.3.1 Stress
The level of stress a participant perceives were manipulated to elaborate on the effects of stress on the effectiveness of sexual advertisements. A certain level of stress was induced using a mathematical time pressure task developed by Maier, Makwana, and Hare (2015). One half of the participants were asked to fulfill 15 calculation tasks with a time limit of 10 seconds, where a backward counting clock was shown. The questions closed when the 10 seconds passed and the participants were exposed to the evaluation of their answer (correct/incorrect).The other half of the participants fulfilled the same task without a time limit and without the evaluation of their answer (See: Appendix). So, only one half of the group had to cope with stress during and after the task.
These two different conditions of stress will lead to different responses to the marketing stimuli (e.g. Durante and Laran, 2016). The manipulation of stress is intensively checked on their effectiveness by different scales after the participants were exposed to the advertisement. This task took the participant around 10 minutes. The questionnaires started with two example questions and continued with 15 actual questions which were measured.
14 3.3.2 Sexual cues in advertising
The experiment involves two different types of advertising of the sunscreen brand Doc Martin’s, which is not actually sold in The Netherlands. Most of the sexual advertisements is used for health care products (38 per cent) (Reichert et al., 2012), so sexual cues have a high level of relevance in the sunscreen advertisement. The Doc Martin’s sunscreen is advertised as a high quality product. Half of the participants will be exposed to an advertisement of sunscreen with a man and a woman in swimwear, while the other half of the participants will be exposed to the same advertisement without the man and the woman (See: Appendix). The two advertisements are shown in exactly the same size. Men and women are influenced by sexual cues in a different manner. Men are more likely to be influenced by women and vice versa. Therefore, a man and a woman are used in the sexual advertisement to exclude these different effects. The other cues in the advertisement were exactly the same in both types of advertisement, so no other factors could have an influence on the results.
3.4 Dependent variable 3.4.1 Willingness to pay
After being primed with or without stress, participants were exposed to the
advertisements of Doc Martin’s sun cream. The influence of the brand name is minimized, since Doc Martin is a quite unknown brand in the Netherlands. Participants were asked to thoroughly examine the advertisement and answer the open question: ‘How many euros do you want to pay for this tube sunscreen?’. The willingness to pay (WTP) is the highest price a buyer is willing to accept for a product or service (Wertenbrock and Skiera, 2002).
15 3.5 Control variables
There could be some underlying factors which affect the result in the experiment. Different scales were used to exclude as much as possible factors and to distill the main and moderation effects as thoroughly as possible.
3.5.1 Manipulation check
To check whether the manipulation of stress was effective or not, the
manipulation check of Maier et al. (2015) was used. Participants had to rate the mental game on different dimension (i.e. stressful, difficult, easy, demanding, enjoyable, and fun). The mean score of the negative loaded dimensions and reverse coded positive loaded (easy, enjoyable, and fun) dimensions reflects the manipulation. A 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) was used to calculate a mean score of the level of perceived stress.
3.5.2 Mood
The dispositional attitude measure scale (Hepler and Albarracin, 2013) measures the general tendency of people to feel an affection of disaffection to things. The means of this scale can examine the impact of attitudes a participant has upfront the experiment. This scale used 16 heterogeneous items (See: Appendix) measured on a 7-points Likers scale, ranging from 1 (extremely unfavorable) to 7 (extremely favorable). One item (Cold showers) was left out due to a typo which made the question unclear and interpretable.
3.5 .3 LHT and SES
17 CHAPTER 4 – RESULTS
4.1 - Stress manipulation
The extraversion of a subscale for the manipulation check consisted of the six items of the measured scale (α = 0,767). Performing an ANOVA on the means of the manipulation check questions, where the positive loaded questions are reverse coded, showed that the mean score of participants in the low stress condition (M = 3,246, SD = 0,994) are significantly lower, F(1,114) = 45,447, p = 0,00, than those in the high stress condition (M =4,428, SD = 0,884, Δ=1,182 ). Therefore the manipulation is confirmed.
4.2 - Willingness to pay
A 2 (low stress vs. high stress) x 2 (sex advertisement vs. no sex) full factorial ANOVA on our measures of the willingness to pay to test the first three hypotheses which suggests that a higher level of stress moderates the relation of sex cues in advertising and the increase in willingness to pay and their main effects.
A two-way ANOVA was conducted that examined the effect of stress and sexual cues on the willingness to pay for a tube of sunscreen. The interaction between the effects of stress and the use of sexual cues on the willingness to pay failed to reach significance (F (1,111) = 0,060, p = .806). However, inspection of the mean scores suggest main effects which predict hypotheses 1 and 2 (Table 1).
Stress
condition Sex cue
Mean SD Low Stress Absent 4,553 2,597 Present 6,293 4,568 High Stress Absent 8,167 4,839 Present 10,320 5,473 Table 1
Furthermore, main effects analysis showed that participants in the high stress condition are willing to pay more for the tube of sunscreen, since this effect was positively significant with F (1,111) = 20,640, p = 0,00. The main effect of the sexual cues in advertising is positively significant as well with F (1,111) = 5,360, p = 0,022. The mean scores show the difference in effect. Participants in the low stress condition showed to be less willing to pay for the
18 SD = 5,188, Δ=3,657). The mean scores of the willingness to pay for the sunscreen without sexual cues (M = 6,508, SD = 4,338) are, as expected, lower than with sexual cues (M = 8,157, SD = 5,357, Δ = 1,65). Inspection of the means showed that a high stress condition and the involvement of a sexual cue leads to a higher willingness to pay, where the increase is higher for the stress manipulation instead of the advertisement manipulation (Table 2).
Stress
condition Mean SD Sex cue Mean SD
Low
stress 5,438 3,802 Absent 6,508 4,338
High
stress 9,095 5,188 Present 8,157 5,357
Table 2
This confirms findings of previous research that people who are stressed stress are willing to pay more for products and the use of sex in advertising is effective. The main effect of stress has a slightly bigger impact on the willingness to pay than the main effect of sexual cues.
4.3 - Covariates
Three covariates were defined which were not controllable in this research but may have an impact on the results. Therefore, a mean score for the dispositional attitude, the Life History Theory and the Socio Economics Scale can be included as covariates in the analysis. A Cronbach’s Alpha analysis showed that it is possible to include the means of the covariates. The extraversion of a subscale for the 19 items of the LHT scale (α = 0,730), the 15 items of the dispositional negativity scale (α = 0,680), and the 6 relevant items, since the control question is not applicable, of the SES scale (α = 0,779) are included.
A full factorial ANCOVA was conducted to determine a statistically significant difference between the levels of stress and the presence of sexual cues on the willingness to pay controlling for the life history, dispositional negativity, and the socio economics of participants.
The analysis showed that the effect of covariates of the Dispositional Negativity Scale (F (1, 108) = 0,122, p = 0,727) and the SES scale (F (1, 108) = 0,041, p = 0,839) did not
significantly predict the results. However, the LHT scale (F (1, 108) = 9,067, p = 0,003) predicts the results significantly.
19 According to the means, the main effects showed a change after controlling for the covariates (Table 3). The mean willingness to pay in the low stress condition became 5,502 and in the high stress condition 9,192 (Δ = 3,69). The mean willingness to pay in the no sex condition became 6,316 and with sex 8,378 (Δ = 2,062). The change in means for the simple main effect of stress was 3,657 and for sex cues 1,65 due to the effect of the covariates. These changes increases the statistical significance of the interaction (Table 4), but it is still not significant (p = 0,589). WTP without covariates WTP with covariates Stress condition Mean Std. Error Stress condition Mean Std. Error Low 5,423 0,594 Low 5,502 0,581 High 9,243 0,595 High 9,192 0,581
Sexual cue Sexual cue
Absent 6,360 0,576 Absent 6,316 0,563 Present 8,307 0,612 Present 8,378 0,598 Table 3
WTP with covariates
and interaction Mean Std. error
No seks Low stress 4,697 0,832
High stress 7,935 0,766
Sex Low stress 6,306 0,824
High stress 10,45 0,877
Table 4
These results are in line with the expectations and provide evidence for the first two hypotheses. However, hypothesis three is neglected since there is no interaction effect.
H1: Sexual cues in advertisements positively affects the willingness to pay
H2: Higher levels of stress will lead to a higher willingness to pay
20 4.4 - Gender effect
Performing an ANOVA on the means of the willingness to pay for male and female separately showed that gender has no significant effect on the willingness to pay (F (1,111) = 0,430, p = 0,513). The interaction effect between gender and sexual cues on the willingness to pay is not significant as well (F (1,111) = 0,774, p = 0,381. However, the increase in the mean willingness to pay for advertisements with and without sexual cues point towards hypothesis three. The difference in how many euros male are willing to pay for the advertisement with (M = 5,82, SD = 3,92) and without sex (M = 8,26, SD = 4,79) increases with 2,44 euro. The difference in how many euros female are willing to pay for the advertisement with (M = 7,22, SD = 4,69) and without (M = 8,06, SD = 5,96) sex increases with 0,84 euro (see figure 2).
Figure 2
Different effects on willingness to pay for male/female
This plot points towards the acceptance of hypothesis four. However, the effect of gender on the increase in willingness to pay of sexual advertisement versus non sexual advertisements is not significant (p = 0,513). Therefore, hypothesis four is not supported.
21 4.5 - Age effect
The participants are afterwards divided in two groups, namely young (≤ 26 years old) and old (> 26 years old) based on a median split. Performing an ANOVA on the means of the level of stress on the willingness to pay for young and old participants separately showed that age has no significant effect on the willingness to pay (F (1,111) = 3,060, p = 0,083). The interaction effect between age and stress on the willingness to pay is not significant as well (F (1,111) = 0,573, p = 0,451). Nevertheless, the difference in how many euros young
participants are willing to pay for the advertisement when they perceive high stress (M = 7,712, SD = 0,955) and without stress (M = 5,037, SD = 0,845) increases with 2,67 euro. The difference in how many euros old participants are willing to pay for the advertisement when they perceive high stress (M = 9,906, SD = 0,775) and low stress (M = 5,943, SD = 0,830) increases with 3,96 euro (see figure 3).
Figure 3
Different effects of stress on willingness to pay for young vs. old participants
22 advertisements without sexual cues is (M = 6,160, SD = 4,420) and with sexual cues (M = 9,172, SD = 5,333) increases with 3,07 euro (see figure 4).
Figure 4
Different effects of stress on willingness to pay for young vs. old participants
These plots shows little evidence for an overall effect of age on the willingness to pay. Older participants tend to be more vulnerable for stress and are more sensitive to sexual cues when exposed to an advertisement, but there is too little evidence to propose this. Therefore, hypothesis five is neglected.
23 CHAPTER 5 – DISCUSSION
The aim of this research was to answer the question if there is an interaction effect of the level of perceived stress with the relation between sexual cues in advertisements and the willingness to pay. It was assumed that higher levels of stress lead to a higher level of vulnerability to marketing techniques. The effect of sexual cues in advertising should be higher when people are stressed and this effect differs for different genders and different ages. These assumptions are tested by means of an experiment in which the level of stress and the presence of sexual cues were manipulated. The results indicate that people are willing to pay higher prices when they perceive stress, but the effect of sexual cues in advertising are not per se bigger when people perceive stress at the same time. Therefore, the research question “To what extent does the level of perceived stress influences the effect of sexual cues on the willingness to pay for advertised products?’’ can be answered as following: stress and sexual cues have a direct positive effect on the willingness to pay, but stress has no significant interaction effect on the relation between sexual cues and the willingness to pay.
5.1 - Theoretical implications
The theoretical implications of this research links the effects of stress to the
effectiveness of sexual cues as a marketing stimuli. The results partially disconfirm the notion of Duhachek (2005) that individuals process information mainly by peripheral cues and non-rational when they are stressed or are in a low self-control state in the context of advertising with sexual cues. The extent to which individuals engage in non-rational decision-making, which increases the willingness to pay for a product which is advertised with sexual cues, depends not only on the level of stress, but also on other factors.
24 5.2 - Managerial implications
The results of this research can highlight the opportunities for the use of stress as a marketing technique. Existing research is mainly focused on the negative aspects of stress (e.g. Thoits, 2010), but this research recommends marketing or store environment managers to use stress. In addition to the findings of Durante and Laran (2016), stress could be used as a successful tool to create a shopper experience where stress is being induced unnoticed. This positively effects the willingness people want to pay. So the widely accepted motto ‘sex sells’ can be extended with ‘stress sells’.
Men and elderly people are likely to react more extreme to sexual advertising in comparison to women. Therefore, gender and age provide means for selecting the right marketing technique for different types of target groups. Marketing managers should be very careful with the use of sexual cues, since attitudes differ for different types of people and groups.
5.3 - Limitations
The research experiment was performed in an online setting. People were asked to fill in a survey at their own place and whenever they want. Hence, the manipulation of stress was limited to the stress manipulation task of Maier et al. (2015), which means only stress due to time pressure was involved. The task was proven, but the online environment still differs from a real consumer environment which has more stress factors. Performing the research in a real shopper environment in order to assess actual buying behavior would increase the external validity of the results.
The analysis about the influence of age is not significant, perhaps because the spread of the age of the participants is not expedient. A bigger sample could give a better representation of different ages, although the median split gives a feeling of the results.
The research is only done with sunscreen as a means to measure the willingness to pay. This could give a biased image of the results, since not all participants are familiar with the price levels of sunscreen. More different product categories in the research provides more or less a trend line and gives better results.
25 5.4 - Further research
As shown in the results, certain covariates improve the level of significance of the moderation analysis. It could be that there are more underlying factors which predict the results while they are uncontrollable. Further research could elaborate on more covariates (e.g. education, working history) to subtract a purer effect.
Since stress sells as discussed above, research should be done towards the creation of stress inside a shopper environment. Since consumers are willing to pay more when they perceive stress, stress is a good marketing tool. This must be done very careful, since stress is a very sensitive construct.
Since stress has an positive influence on the effectiveness of sexual cues, it might be effective on other marketing techniques as well. Research should be done towards the influence on other techniques. This could lead to a more extensive use of stress in the marketing field and therefore a wider support for the use of stress.
The willingness to pay is measured with the use of sunscreen. Sunscreen is a universal and widely used product, which makes it applicable. However, further research with typically masculine products (e.g. motorcycles) or feminine products (e.g. jewelry) should be done to elaborate more on the differential effect that the level of stress has on the effectiveness of sexual cues on men versus women.
5.5 – Conclusion
The expected relation between stress, sexual cues and the willingness to pay is not as simple and general as expected. Stress does not directly reinforce the effect of sexual
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33 APPENDIX: QUESTIONNAIRE
Introduction
Welcome!
This is a short survey (15-20 minutes) which consists of three parts of short unrelated studies which are issued by different researchers.
The survey is being administered as part of a research project in the Department of Marketing at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen.
Your participation in this study will remain confidential and there will be no attempt to link your responses and your identity.
Please read all the instruction carefully.
Your participation in this study is entirely voluntary, and you may withdraw at any time by closing the survey platform.
34 Part 1
The first part of this survey consists of some mathematical tasks. High stress condition
The Mental Game
You will now be presented with a set of quantitative reasoning questions based on arithmetic tasks such as addition (+), substraction (-), multiplication (*), and division (/).
There is one correct answer for each question. The correct answer is a number between 0 and 9.
You will have 10 seconds to answer each question.
We are interested in the response that you can arrive at through mental calculation alone. As such, please complete these without the use of a pencil and paper or a calculator.
For each question, select the option that you think is the correct answer.
At the end of each question, you will be given feedback telling you whether your response was correct or incorrect.
Also at the end of the game, you will be given feedback about how you performed compared to other participants.
Example Q1: 4 - 1 + 2 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Timing clock: 10 seconds Correct/Incorrect
Another Example Q2: 7 + 2 * 1 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Timing clock: 10 seconds Correct/Incorrect
Please continue when you are ready to start the Mental Game.
35 Q4 4 * 10 / 5 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q12 87 - 7 * 2 - 69 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q5 12 * 12 / 8 - 9 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q13 43 - 25 - 9 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q6 28+ 42 / 7 -33 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q14 39 - 26 - 80 / 16 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q7 5 + 32 - 44 + 7 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q15 8 * 9 / 6 - 11 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q8 7 - 34 / 2 + 12 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
36 Low stress condition
The Mental Game
You will now be presented with a set of quantitative reasoning questions based on arithmetic tasks such as addition (+), substraction (-), multiplication (*), and division (/).
There is one correct answer for each question. The correct answer is a number between 0 and 9.
We are interested in the response that you can arrive at through mental calculation alone. As such, please complete these without the use of a pencil and paper or a calculator.
For each question, select the option that you think is the correct answer. Example Q1: 4 - 1 + 2 = ?
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Another Example Q2: 7 + 2 * 1 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Please continue when you are ready to start the Mental Game.
Q1 2 + 9 - 7 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q9 8 * 6 / 3 - 11 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q2 57 - 59 + 6 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q10 19 - 37 + 9 + 14 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q3 3 * 12 - 29 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q11 44 - 22 / 2 - 20 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q4 4 * 10 / 5 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q12 87 - 7 * 2 - 69 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q5 12 * 12 / 8 - 9 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q13 43 - 25 - 9 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q6 28+ 42 / 7 -33 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q14 39 - 26 - 80 / 16 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q7 5 + 32 - 44 + 7 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q15 8 * 9 / 6 - 11 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q8 7 - 34 / 2 + 12 = ? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
37 Sexual cue condition
Below you can find an advertisement for a sunscreen of the brand Doc Martin's. Please have a look at the advertisement.
How many euros do you want to pay for this tube of sunscreen? How often do you buy sunscreen?
o Rarely
o 1-2 Times per year o 3-4 Times per year
38 No sexual cue condition
Below you can find an advertisement for a sunscreen of the brand Doc Martin's. Please have a look at the advertisement.
How many euros do you want to pay for this tube of sunscreen? How often do you buy sunscreen?
o Rarely
o 1-2 Times per year o 3-4 Times per year
39 I found the task….
40 Part 2
The second part of this survey consists about some questions about your characteristics. Please indicate the extent of agreement with the following statements, ranging from 1-7, whereas 1 means "strongly disagree" and 9 means "strongly agree".
Strongly disagree 1 Somewhat disagree 2 Slightly disagree 3 Don't know/not applicable 4 Slightly agree 5 Somewhat agree 6 Strongly agree 7
I can often tell how things will turn out
o o o o o o o
I try to understand how i got into a situation to figure out how to handle it
o o o o o o o
I often find the bright side to a bad situation
o o o o o o o
I don’t give up until I solve my problems
o o o o o o o
I often make plans in advance
o o o o o o o
I avoid taking risks o o o o o o o
While growing up, I had a close and warm relationship with my biological mother
o o o o o o o
While growing up, I had a close and warm relationship with my biological father
o o o o o o o
I have close and warm relationship with my own children
o o o o o o o
I have a close and warm romantic relationship with my sexual partner
o o o o o o o
I would rather have one than several sexual relationships at a time
o o o o o o o
I have to be closely attached to someone before I am comfortable having sex with them
41
I am often in social contact with my blood relatives
o o o o o o o
I often get emotional support and practical help from my blood relatives
o o o o o o o
I am often in social contact with my friends
o o o o o o o
I often get emotional support and practical help from my friends
o o o o o o o
I often give emotional support and practical help to my friends o o o o o o o I am closely connected to and involved in my community o o o o o o o I am closely connected to and involved in my religion o o o o o o o
Please indicate the extent of agreement with the following statements, ranging from 1-7, whereas 1 means "extremely unfavorable" and 7 means "extremely favorable".
42 Soccer o o o o o o o Statistics o o o o o o o Japan o o o o o o o Taxes o o o o o o o Taxidermy (preserve animal bodies) o o o o o o o
Please indicate the extent of agreement with the following statements, ranging from 1-9, whereas 1 means "totally disagree" and 9 means "totally agree".
Totally disagree 1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Totally
agree 9
My family usually had enough money for things when I was growing up
o o o o o o o o o
I grew up in a relatively wealthy neighborhood
o o o o o o o o o
I felt relatively wealthy compared to the other kids in my school
o o o o o o o o o
I have enough money to buy things I want
o o o o o o o o o
I don’t need to worry too much about paying my bills
o o o o o o o o o
I speak fluently Czechoslovak language
o o o o o o o o o
I don’t think I’ll have to worry about money too much in the future
43 Part 3
Please answer some final question about your demographics.
What is your age? .. years old What is your gender?
o Male o Female o Neutral
What is your nationality? o Dutch
o Other, please specify
This is the end of the survey.
Thank you very much for your participation!
You can leave your email adress here if you are curious about the results of this study. Your contact details will only be used for this purpose and will be treated confidentially.
o No thanks
