THE ELDERLY IN ADVERTISING: A CONTENT ANALYSIS OF PRIME-TIME TELEVISION COMMERCIALS (pp. 1-11, 1995)
Thomas E. Robinson, Rick Duet, and Tommy V. Smith

With their strong economic base and growth potential, it would seem advertisers would be making a conscious effort to attract the business of the elderly audience. Targeting the elderly is important, especially if marketers consider that "69% of elderly individuals say that commercials are often or always helpful to them in making their purchase decisions and 63% feel that commercials provide them with useful information" (Schreiber and Boyd 1980, 63-64). However, in reality the elderly today receive very little attention from advertisers and product manufacturers. With this in mind, this exploratory content analysis of network television commercials is presented.

This research analyzes inclusion, portrayal and integration of minorities in mainstream magazine advertising. Nine mass circulation magazines for 1987 and 1992 constituted the sample frame: four issues of each magazine for each year for a total of 36 issues, yielding 1,969 "populated" advertisements. Each ad was examined for minority presence, gender, age, occupation and product category. When minorities and Whites appeared together in the same ad, the relationship depicted was also coded. Overall, when compared with earlier studies, the number of Black models used in magazine advertising has increased. The use of Hispanic and Asian models was extremely small. There were few differences in portrayal by gender or age. Blacks were more likely to appear as athletes or musicians and to be featured in public service or government-sponsored ads. In mixed-ethnic ads, Whites typically outnumbered minorities and the relationships depicted were set in formal or work settings with very little face-to-face interaction.

This study examines grocery buying consumers' usage of and attitudes toward an interactive, databased targeted advertising and promotion delivery system and frequent shopper program called The Vision Value Network. The system, marketed by Advanced Promotion Technologies, Inc., combines a database of shoppers with a variety of satellite-driven electronic marketing components. A study was conducted in 1990 when the Vision Value system was introduced on a test-market basis in West Des Moines, IA, Dahl's Grocery Store. The findings were published by the Academy of Marketing Science in the "World Marketing Congress, International Conference Series, Volume 5," August, 1991. The 1994 study provides a follow-up to the 1990 study. It also provides information about the customers' perceptions of Vision Value's usefulness and desirability.

Current practices in advertising, ranging from creative strategy to research methods, will be challenged by the technological capabilities of computer intelligence and interactivity. In the active media configuration, advertisers need to address the question: "What constitutes an audience?" The computer is an intelligent part of the audience, reading and interpreting descriptive bits in order to manipulate and render content bits. While users' ability to customize the rendering of content bits may signify a loss of control for advertisers, the technology can also be used to expand the boundaries of advertising space. In conclusion, it is necessary for advertisers selling commodities and/or ideas to open their minds to alternative methods that address a digital, interactive and intelligent communication environment.

While creation of a more restrictive information gathering policy may lessen the threat to individual privacy, stronger regulations can also jeopardize useful marketing activities from which the consumer stands to benefit. Interactive media, by facilitating instantaneous information to marketers, can aid in the improvement of products and services, reduce costs, and help to meet consumers' needs better. If consumers and marketers are not pitted as adversaries but viewed as partners in a mutually beneficial relationship, the advantages offered by interactive media are tremendous. To achieve this cooperation, marketers have to educate consumers on uses of consumer data, and share control on the use of this data with consumers.

The continuing debate within international advertising focuses on whether standardized or localized strategies are most appropriate. No consensus has been reached on this issue, and as a result, research has turned to investigating specific elements of the advertising mix and how they vary across countries. This abstract summarizes a study that accounts for product contingencies affecting advertising in a cross-cultural context and tests propositions that have been presented in the literature.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the value that emic descriptors provided by advertising creative professionals in a native culture have for explaining the advertising in that culture. A content analysis of 68 French television commercials explores the presence and distribution of four French descriptors--la seduction, le spectacle, l'amour and 1'humour. The study finds that certain approaches are linked with particular product categories, and that overall la seduction and le spectacle are dominant approaches for French television advertisers.

The increased importance advertisers have given to consumers' affective responses to advertising has led to an accompanying need for improved measurement tools. The Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM), a parsimonious and nonverbal representation of the pleasure, arousal, and dominance dimensions of affective responses, has shown promise in gauging response to a wide range of marketing stimuli.

This paper investigates some theoretical predictions about how program and commercial involvement affect commercial memory. With some variations, the Intensity-Affect Model (Schumann and Thorson, 1989) is applied to examine the competitive relationship between programs and commercials. Viewers' involvement with portions of (local) and whole programs (global) and with commercials is tested. The ratio of commercial-to global-program-involvement and the ratio of commercial-to local-program-involvement each were positively related to memory for commercials. Memory for commercials was stronger when commercial involvement was higher than program involvement. In contrast, memory was weaker when program involvement was higher than commercial involvement.

Overall, the results suggest that explicitly personalized direct response ads may be more effective than non or implicitly personalized ads when it comes to inducing positive cognitive, attitudinal, and intention responses. Further, the finding that the effects did not vary across the two product categories tested lends some support to magazine publishers' contention that personalization strategies are applicable to a number of products or services. Some caution must be exercised, however, as the significant ad content-related interaction involving product involvement does suggest the inclusion of individual names in direct response ads is looked upon more favorably by individuals with high rather than low prior interest in the product category. In addition, the results obtained here suggested that personalization facilitated peripheral rather than central processing, even among consumers who have high product category involvement. Thus, for advertisers attempting to draw attention to specific brand benefits or product claims, individual-name personalization is not likely to be a useful strategy.

The use of sex appeals in advertising increased in recent years, as societal values concerning sexuality became less inhibited (e.g., Bretl and Cantor 1988). As this liberating trend continued more explicit exhibitions of sexuality also increased in frequency (e.g., Soley and Reid 1988). Yet few studies have analyzed television commercials for sex appeals or investigated portrayals of male models in television.

There has been growing interest in the role advertising may play in the development of eating disorders and body image distortion among women. While it is believed that this may come about when people engage in social comparisons with the models in the ads, little work has directly examined this behavior. The present study attempts to develop a scale to assess social comparisons with advertising models and to determine the underlying factors comprising this concept.

Based on the results of this analysis, it appears that "sex sells" sometimes, and to certain audiences, but it is not an assurance of high ratings, nor is it a necessary element in mass audience delivery. Lowry and Shidler concluded that "the networks are clearly using sex as bait in promos to attempt to increase their ratings," however, there is no supporting evidence in this analysis that indicates that sex in promos increases ratings. Indications are that advertisers, and their agencies, may need to take a closer look at how programs are promoted as well as the actual content of the programs.

This study examined how need for cognition (i.e., the tendency to engage and enjoy thinking), threatening messages, and behavioral recommendations influence attitudes toward the ad, and attitudes and intentions toward safe sex practices. Although results suggest that threat and recommendations have little effect, three-way interactions between need for cognition, threat, and recommendations were significant for behavioral intentions. These findings suggest that need for cognition moderates the effects of' threatening messages and recommendations.

A cross-sectional sample of 1,100 cigarette ads was drawn from eight consumer magazines (1) to establish the prevalence of different types of verbal claims in comparative and noncomparative cigarette ads and (2) to explore variation in the presences of those claims by smoking and health "event era" (i.e., 1954-1965; 1966-1970; 1971-1983; and 1984-1986), magazine audiences gender orientation, and visual/verbal ad balance.

Efforts aimed at reducing the spread of HIV and AIDS in the U.S. frequently focus on inducing sexually active individuals to practice "safe sex" behaviors. In practice, this often means encouraging the use of latex condoms during sex. The present experiment was designed to examine the effectiveness of a PSA in inducing attitude and intention change toward condom use among subjects from a group potentially at risk for contracting AIDS -- college-aged students. Radio was chosen since it enjoys high reach with young men and women and because it is an effective medium for campaigns with limited production budgets and high frequency objectives.

Providing students with practical "hands-on" experience working in a real media environment has long been an accepted goal and practice in journalism education. While a media-based system works well for news-editorial students, it does not work so well for advertising students. The missing ingredient at most universities is a student advertising agency. Following a review of available literature, this paper proposes four basic models which can be adapted for establishing a student agency and designing an agency course for the curriculum. It also provides "Decisions Matrix" listing the key issues and available options which must be considered in creating a student agency and course.

This paper represents an attempt to apply to the study of media spending the conceptual framework and methodological tools from the economic study of market shares and market concentration. No reports on similar research efforts have been found from the existing advertising literature.

This paper replicates and extends earlier work on advertising expenditures of dentists. Over the past four years, the proportion of dentists who use advertising and their average level of expenditure has modestly increased. Disaggregated data show that younger dentists and those located in the suburbs are most likely to use advertising. While use of advertising appears unrelated to practice income, the level of advertising expenditure is significantly related to practice income. The decision to use advertising, we hypothesize, is based on both noneconomic and economic forces, while the level of advertising expenditure is determined through a percentage-of-sales decision rule.

The research in this study shows that people will watch certain commercials on videotape. Participants in this study watched commercials that were visually complex and "exciting." Placement of the commercials, the data suggests, is also important. Commercials appearing after opening credits, it was found, may prime viewers and encourage or discourage zipping behaviors. For example, viewers watched the exciting commercials longer when they appeared earlier versus later in the program.

This paper reports findings from an experiment that investigates the role of brand advertising on the accessibility and perceived appropriateness of the brand attributes in consumers' impression of a brand extension. The effect is examined either for a comparable extension or for a moderately noncomparable extension. Findings suggest that exposure to brand advertising significantly increases both the accessibility and the perceived appropriateness of the brand attributes over a no-ad exposure condition. However, the effect occurs in different patterns for comparable and noncomparable extensions. For a comparable extension, the increase is greater when the salient concepts of the ad are congruent with those of the extension category. For a moderately noncomparable extension, the ad congruity does not show a consistent effect. An additional analysis indicates that the ad congruity also shows a significant effect on consumers' overall attitude toward a comparable extension, but not for a moderately noncomparable extension.

Despite the growth in the area of social marketing by organizations, there has been little research to explore the dynamics organizational sponsorship of social messages. The study reported here is based on 72 interviews with consumers of diverse ages and education levels and addressed the central research questions, "How do consumers understand organizational sponsorship of social messages?" Through the words of consumers, five dimensions of organizational source credibility are revealed. That is, credible organizations must be recognizable, be a role model, have relevance to the issue, have relevance to the intended audience, and have values congruent with the consumer. Each dimension is documented with respondent's words. But more importantly, the dynamics of each dimension as explained by the consumers interviewed is presented to show how the dimensions are meaningful to the consumer.

Tradition has dictated that analysis of the viability of models which estimate the reach and frequency distribution for advertising schedules be judged in terms of the relationship of these estimates to observed data from SMRB, MRI, Nielsen and other syndicated media data sources. These are Within-Schedule comparisons of the estimated reach/frequency to actual reach/frequency. Such measures as Average Error in Reach (AER) and Average Percentage Error in the Distribution (APE) have commonly been used to find the error inherent over a large number of schedules based upon within-schedule error. Since decision makers use media models to estimate reach and frequency across schedules so that an effective schedule can be found, it seems appropriate to also examine how the model estimations work when used to decide, for example, which of two schedules is better. This called Between-Schedule comparison of media models. This is the first study to conduct an analysis of model performance across media schedules. Results show divergent findings from those discovered using within-schedule comparison.

A common problem in advertising research is that of linking data bases containing target market and media usage data. One of the most elegant solutions is the simulation approach. While the approach has been shown to consistently underestimate the concentration of target market members in the most selective media vehicles, some evidence suggests that the method might be systematically biased, producing a proportionate evaluation of media, even though the actual estimates are incorrect. This study investigates the possibility that the bias might be nonlinear. It develops and tests various non-linear regression models to improve the simulation estimates. The results indicate that nonlinear models are a viable alternative to linear models.

Media planning simulations provide a convenient way of projecting the distribution characteristics of different combinations of advertising media. These simulations typically draw on data from syndicated media research services. However, these data are tedious and potentially expensive to enter into the simulation program. This paper suggests a method for synthesizing a data base that can be incorporated into simulation programs in order to provide simple preliminary estimates of media exposure distributions.

Advertising practitioners and their clients often suspect that an ad's position in a TV pod affects its effectiveness; but they are not sure which positions are better; and TV networks are typically unwilling to let advertisers choose a particular spot (Brown 1988). Some textbook writers (Rossiter and Percy 1987) simply dismiss the notion of position effect. Our objective is to investigate whether position has any impact, what kind of impact it is, and how to measure positions in a natural pod.

This study explores the information processing tendencies of individuals exposed to ads containing fine-print disclaimer footnotes. Results indicate that individuals pay less attention to disclaimer footnotes than to the message points contained in the body of the ad. However, involvement with the ad tends to improve attention/recall of fine-print footnotes. In addition, the study tests a model of attitude formation, finding that the type of' disclaimer (restrictive versus informative) and advertising message involvement interact to affect the means by which brand attitudes are formed. Practical and theoretical implications for the findings are discussed.

What should a manager do when an ad is feared to achieve one attitude objective at the expense of' another? Such an answer is relevant in expansion advertising scenarios when one wishes to encourage a secondary use of a brand (such as drinking Pepsi in the morning) without eroding brand equity. A framework is developed that predicts that independent attribute processing impacts fundamental attitudes (such as attitudes toward a brand), while dependent attribute processing impacts target attitudes (such as attitudes toward using a brand in a particular situation). Package labels are manipulated in a laboratory study to test this framework, and the results generally support the model. A discussion of what types of ads influence independent vs. dependent attribute processing is then discussed.

Recent economic reforms raise compelling questions about the evolution of consumption values in China. This article uses content analysis of consumer advertisements in People's Daily examine utilitarian and hedonistic themes and appeals. The hypothesis that the use of utilitarian values is decreasing in Chinese print advertising is supported. The hypothesis that hedonistic values are increasing is indirectly supported. The results indicate that advertisers are appealing to a wide range of consumer buying motives in recent Chinese advertising.

Unlike other approaches to analysis of Japanese advertising that label advertisements "soft sell" from an intercultural perspective, this study explores soft sell from an intracultural perspective. Through content analysis of advertising that appears in eight narrowly targeted magazines -- four young men's and four young women's -- this study seeks to characterize gender-based differences with a specific focus on how advertising addresses the reader. The results suggest the need for gender-sensitive advertising strategies in an increasingly segmented and specialized market.

This paper reports the results of a cross-cultural pilot study to compare the leadership styles of personnel in advertising agencies in Thailand that are headed by expatriates from Japan, with those headed by expatriates for English-speaking countries. The theoretical purpose was to investigate whether or not cultural variables are related to advertising agency leadership styles. It was found that both English-speaking and Japanese expatriates reported via rating scales that they practiced leadership similarly. But their answers to open-ended questions, and the responses of their employees in focus group sessions, revealed substantial differences in leadership styles.

This study uses data from the Vanderbilt Television News Archive to examine how advertising topics have been covered by network television news. A full census of stories indexed under the heading of "Advertising" from 1970 through 1993 was conducted. Each of the 1,068 Stories was coded on several variables. Major findings include the tone of most items being neutral, but negative tones occurring almost four times as often as positive tones, and an increase over the 24 year period in the number of news stories actually showing an advertisement. Political advertising was the most common type reported on, regulation of advertising was the most common theme, and people from the advertising business were the most often consulted sources.

This study is based on in-depth interviews with a sample of "experienced" creatives, comprised of 6 copywriters and 5 art directors with 2 1/2 to 8 years' professional experience over the span of an average of 3.7 different advertising or communications-related jobs. It seeks to uncover the personality characteristics that appear to contribute to their success in securing advertising jobs and in successfully performing their creative duties. Interviews indicate that these creatives most often display characteristics of: determination, self-discipline, risk-taking, restlessness, curiosity, competitiveness and self-confidence. Implications for advertising educators include: incorporating creativity-enhancing exercises in the curricula; encouraging the development of risk-taking conceptualization skills, independent thinking, and healthy competition; advising students to take classes from a variety of disciplines; incorporating various aspects of popular culture into the classroom; and presenting a realistic portrait of agency life.

The results of the present study are similar to those found by Hoek, Gendall, and Sanders (1992) in their study of sponsorship management, in that both studies found a high degree of reliance upon subjective criteria for decision-making. While the use of intuition by practitioners in this field is not necessarily a weakness, it does point out that placement does not yet use the same language or yardsticks of evaluation as do other advertising and promotional activities. To the extent the present study brings out the implicit assumptions held by practitioners in the field of brand placement, and opens the way for testing those assumptions, then it can contribute to a much better understanding of this growing communication tool.

Event sponsorship has become a multi billion dollar industry, yet little theory driven research exists exploring sponsorship effects. Keller (1993) notes that customer-based brand equity is the appropriate goal of all elements of the marketing mix, including promotions such as sponsorship. The effectiveness of these promotions may be observed through what Keller terms direct measures pitting known brands against unknown or fictitious brands. This study uses an experimental design employing attitude toward the ad (Aad) as a direct measure of sponsorship support advertising's impact on attitude toward-the-brand (Ab) and purchase intention (Pi) for official sponsors and ambush marketers in the fast food and credit card product categories of the 1994 Winter Olympic Games. Official sponsors are those brands that have purchased rights to be associated with the Games. These rights may include the ability to use the Olympics Logo, footage from Olympics events, etc., as well as the ability to identify the brand as an official sponsor associated with the event. Ambush marketers are those brands that use advertising to appear as if they are associated with the Games without purchasing official sponsorship rights (Sandler and Shani 1989).

Attitudes towards advertising in general were found to influence the effectiveness of specific ads. Copy test results from 860 magazine readers in geographically dispersed markets around the country showed respondents' general attitudes towards advertising affected measures of advertising intrusiveness and persuasion. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Some critics accuse advertisers for spreading materialistic values in American society and for encouraging overconsumption. Advertising as a facilitator of materialism seems plausible from the perspective of social-comparison theory, which postulates that the "idealized images" portrayed in advertising encourage people to compare their lives with the idealized images. However, there has been no empirical research on the relationship of advertising and materialism. This paper investigated the relationship between advertising and materialism across African-American and Caucasian groups (87 students and 79 community adults) as well as general attitude toward advertising. There was an association between a positive attitude toward advertising and materialism. The African American respondents held more materialistic values than their Caucasian peers and exhibited a more favorable general attitude toward advertising and held more favorable beliefs about advertising.

Despite decades of experiments, econometric studies and surveys, traditional empirical research has failed to demonstrate a significant relationship between alcohol advertising and alcohol consumption. This study takes a different approach and looks at alcohol advertising through the eyes of college students to explain the connections students make between alcohol advertisements and their lives. The two ideas under investigation were 1) confirmation of myths in alcohol advertisements as hypothesized by Postman et al. (1987), Williamson (1978), and Domizal and Kernan (1992) and 2) the existence of life themes within students' experiences of alcohol advertisements, as hypothesized by Mick and Buhl ( 1992).

This paper analyzes three 1993 Supreme Court commercial speech decisions: Cincinnati v. Discovery Network, Edenfield v. Fane, and US v. Edge Broadcasting Co. The three cases were chosen because the decisions have direct bearing on the criteria that the Court will use in deciding the constitutionality of commercial speech restrictions. In Cincinnati and Edenfield, the overall trends were toward increased scrutiny of commercial speech restrictions. On the other hand, the decision in Edge illustrates once again that the level of scrutiny to which commercial speech restriction will be held is left entirely to the judgment of the Court and will be determined of a case by-case basis.

As the Supreme Court continues to define what constitutes a reasonable restriction of commercial speech, the district courts struggle to abide by these constantly evolving criteria. The status of commercial speech is explored here by examining the lower courts' interpretations of Supreme Court decisions. Eight district court cases involving commercial speech restrictions are reviewed. These 1993 and 1994 cases are prophetic in painting the near future for commercial speech and the first amendment.

The main research question addressed by this study is: Do consumers' attitudes toward a specific brand advertised in a catalog have an impact upon their attitudes toward the catalog itself? The results of this study suggest that catalog retailers can probably feature lesser-known brands without detriment to the overall image of the catalog. However, before the findings can be generalized, it is suggested that this study be replicated with a larger sample, and a wider variety of products and brands.

The most important finding of this study is that the factors of interest have different impacts on different dimensions of a buying impulse. Specifically, a buying impulse can be triggered by the viewer's positive product evaluation and materialistic values. When a buying impulse occurs, it is subject to the impact of scarcity messages in terms of the response time and strength of the buying impulse. Scarcity messages themselves do not usually trigger a buying impulse.

Our findings suggest that infomercial makers may have a problem. People have negative beliefs about infomercials, and these beliefs significantly affect attitude and purchase intent related to infomercials. The results are particularly important given the emerging nature of the infomercial industry. The authors recommend that infomercial producers should: (1) provide more product-relevant information and verification claims; (2) include credible benchmarks for comparative pricing; (3) announce the program's commercial intent more frequently to avoid viewer confusion; and (4) continue to improve production quality to improve the medium's credibility.

"Qualitative Research Techniques For The 21st Century"
Shay Sayre
Before the 1980s, primary research methods for advertising included statistical content analysis, experimental description, and surveys. In the past decade, however, advertising researchers have recognized the value of qualitative methods such as ethnography, unstructured interviewing, textual analysis, and historical studies.

"Textual Analysis: Literary Criticism As A Post Modern Research Approach"
Barbara Stern
This discussion presents an overview of textual analysis drawn from literary criticism with applications for advertising research. It discusses the use of the term "text" in post-modern writing, and a summary of the historical development of the broadened term. Two types of analysis are addressed -- New Critical and Deconstructive -- in practical procedural terms.

"Video-Elicitation: A Post Modern Approach To In-Depth Interviewing As A Basis For Empathetic Creative Strategies"
David Horne
Communicating with people who have been through some form of trauma either on a personal or collective basis is not an easy assignment. Many of these individuals may be candidates for a particular commercial or non-commercial message, yet it is an awkward situation that requires special consideration.

"Case Studies: Understanding and Expanding Their Purpose"
Charles H. Patti
One of the most widely used tools to teach advertising and marketing is the case study. The overall purpose of this presentation is to suggest that case study is one of the most underutilized and overlooked tools in advertising education and scholarship.

"Reproducing Reality In A Room: The Strategic Utility Of Qualitative Research"
Christine Wright-Isak
Historically and sociologically qualitative research has been multimethod. Used extensively to study communities and collective interactive social processes, it has included participant observation, in-depth interviewing, and group interviewing.

The purpose of this panel was explained as an effort to seek closer ties between the AAA and advertising trade associations by identifying and discussing problems and opportunities with two industry association executives.

"The Story Behind The Man Behind History's Most Famous Ad--John Caples"
Gordon E. White

"Leo Burnett -- A Profile"
Kensinger Jones

"Charles Brower -- A Profile"
Edd Applegate

"Howard Gossage --- A Profile"
Kim Rotzoll

At almost eight billion dollars in total annual expenditures, radio is the fourth largest advertising medium in the United States. In the last twenty-five years radio has consistently accounted for 6-7% of all advertising media dollars spent. Radio permeates American society with 99% of all American households owning an average of six radios each. In a given week radio will reach 96% of all Americans over twelve years old. It was the goal of this special session to focus on research related to radio in three major areas: Variations in Radio Listening Attention Levels, Contextual Variables in Radio Advertising: A Framework for Music Format Research, and Variations in the Use and Impact of Radio Advertising.

Does advertising influence the use of goods and services during consumer rituals? Alternatively, do consumer rituals shape advertising messages? These important questions have been largely overlooked, despite the growing interest in ritualistic consumption by a number of consumer behavior researchers in recent years. The important iterative relationship between advertising and ritualistic consumption was the focus of this special session.

"Comments On Current FTC Activity"
Ivan L. Preston
It's been a quiet several years at the FTC, busy but not controversial. The goal seems to be to show there can be activity, in terms of a large number of cases, but nothing that would bring down the wrath of Congress.

"The Evolution Of Advertising Self Regulation At The National Advertising Division And National Advertising Review Board"
Eric J. Zanot
Although there have been detractors, it is the consensus of most observers that NAD/NARB is an efficient and effective -- if limited -- regulator of deceptive advertising. How do its operations in the 1990's compare with performance during the 1970's and 80's? It is hard to draw conclusions because the evidence is contradictory.

"Media Standards For Acceptable Advertising"
Herbert J. Rotfeld
Because of the priorities and focus of their owners or senior managers, some media vehicles are more staunchly consumer protection oriented than any government agency, while others skirt the laws as much as they think they are able in order to maximize income. Media standards for acceptable advertising are an advertising control, they do influence advertising content, they are not regulation.

Too few people recognize the extent and the severity of the loss of advertising historical material that has occurred already. Additional materials are disappearing because too few organizations are committed to their preservation. A wide range of advertising materials -- creative product, media plans, research, oral histories and personal papers -- have lasting value for business, scholarly, and educational purposes. Greater awareness of the value of these materials to understanding the American past is an urgent need.

Great strides are being made in the development and use of interactive media and information technology. This session attempted to discuss important issues pertaining to advertising and marketing activities in the interactive medium.

This panel sought to shed light on three understudied relationships between promotional strategies, gender, and the construction of identity: 1) the effect of various promotional tools on children's understanding of gender, 2) the relationship between advertising and consumers' self-evaluations, and 3) how product promotion serves to "exclude" and disempower male consumers on the basis of their gender.