Papers by Liselot Hudders
Computers in Human Behavior
Sustainability
Recently, awareness has been raised concerning the importance of sustainable energy use. Neverthe... more Recently, awareness has been raised concerning the importance of sustainable energy use. Nevertheless, many obstacles must be overcome to change individuals’ energy consumption habits. This study examines how a message should be framed to convince individuals to purchase a smart energy device that provides feedback on household energy use. As such, this device can assist households in adjusting their energy-wasting habits. Through two experimental studies, this paper examines how a descriptive normative message, indicating that the majority of US households have already purchased a smart energy device, can increase individuals’ intention to purchase the device. Both studies consider the moderating influence of the self-construal, which refers to individuals’ consideration of themselves as either part of a group (interdependent self-construal) or independent from others (independent self-construal). The first study (n = 231) reveals that a descriptive norm (versus no norm) leads to a...
Frontiers in Psychology
Children nowadays spend many hours online watching YouTube videos in which their favorite vlogger... more Children nowadays spend many hours online watching YouTube videos in which their favorite vloggers are playing games, unboxing toys, reviewing products, making jokes or just going about their daily activities. These vloggers regularly post attractive and entertaining content in the hope of building a large follower base. Although many of these vloggers are adults, the number of child vloggers is flourishing. The famous child vlogger Ryan of Ryan's World, for instance, has more than 19 million viewers and he is (at age seven) a social media influencer. The popularity of these vloggers incited advertisers to include them as a new marketing communication tool, also referred to as influencer marketing, in their marketing strategy. Accordingly, many influential vloggers now receive free products from brands in return for a mention in one of their videos and their other social media (e.g., TikTok or Instagram) and some are even paid to create a sponsored post or video and distribute it to their followers. This sponsored content appears to be highly influential and may affect young children's brand preferences. Given the limited advertising literacy skills (i.e., knowledge of advertising and skills to critically reflect on this advertising) of children under age 12, they are a vulnerable target group when it comes to persuasion. Therefore, caution is needed when implementing this marketing tactic to target them. However, research on how influencer marketing affects young children (under 12) is scarce and it is unclear how these young children can be empowered to critically cope with this fairly new form of persuasion. This paper therefore aims to shed light on why and how social media influencers have persuasive power over their young followers. The paper starts with providing insights into how and why social media influencers became a new source in advertising. We then discuss the few studies that have been conducted on influencer marketing among young children (under 12), based on a systematic literature review, and take these findings to formulate societal and policy implications and develop a future research agenda.
Journal of Business Research
Global Fashion Management Conference
Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace
As adolescents’ advertising literacy is not yet fully developed with regard to non-traditional ad... more As adolescents’ advertising literacy is not yet fully developed with regard to non-traditional advertising, they should be made more resilient to this contemporary advertising. Therefore, the current study conducted a three-level, between-subjects experiment (advertising literacy intervention: control condition versus informational booklet versus serious mini-game platform) to examine the effectiveness of advertising literacy interventions among adolescents (aged ten to sixteen). The results showed that an advertising literacy intervention (compared to no intervention) increased Belgian adolescents’ (N = 211, Mage = 13.22) perceived dispositional advertising literacy, and subsequently, their motivation to critically reflect on advertising. In addition, the advertising literacy serious mini-game platform (compared to the informational booklet) increased the experience of flow among the adolescents, which in turn positively affected enjoyment, and perceived learning. Perceived learnin...
International Journal of Advertising
Journal of Consumer Behaviour
Journal of Environmental Psychology
Young Consumers
Purpose This study aims to examine adolescents’ (between 12 and 18 years) perceptions of their kn... more Purpose This study aims to examine adolescents’ (between 12 and 18 years) perceptions of their knowledge and skills related to advertising (i.e. dispositional advertising literacy). More specifically, adolescents’ beliefs about their recognition and understanding of advertising (cognitive facet), their emotional reaction to advertising (affective facet) and their moral evaluation of advertising (moral facet) were investigated together with their beliefs about the way they resist advertising. Design/methodology/approach A large-scale survey was conducted, taking information from 2,602 adolescents between the ages of 12 and 18 years. Findings The findings show that adolescents believe they can recognize advertising reasonably well and have a moderate understanding of it. They tend to be negative toward advertising, perceive it as an unfair practice and claim to resist it strongly. In addition, adolescents’ self-reported moral and affective advertising literacy positively affect advert...
International Journal of Advertising
New Media & Society
Despite that contemporary advertising is decreasingly about persuading children through persuasiv... more Despite that contemporary advertising is decreasingly about persuading children through persuasive messages and increasingly about influencing them through implicit tactics, little attention has been given to how children may cope with advertising by understanding and evaluating the new advertising tactics. Drawing on 12 focus groups entailing 60 children of ages 9–11 years, this article investigates children’s advertising literacy by exploring their knowledge and judgements (and accordingly reasoning strategies) of the new advertising formats. In particular, insight is provided into children’s critical reflection on the tactics of brand integration, interactivity and personalization in the advertising formats brand placement, advergames and retargeted pre-roll video ads on social media. It is shown that while children not spontaneously do so, they appear to have the ability to understand these tactics and form judgements about their (moral) appropriateness, thereby considering a wi...
Journal of Consumer Behaviour
Evolutionary Psychology
Previous research found that men conspicuously consume luxury products to attract a mate and to s... more Previous research found that men conspicuously consume luxury products to attract a mate and to signal their mate value. However, these studies have yet neglected to investigate the function of male conspicuous consumption in same-sex competition. Given that intersexual selection and intrasexual selection are closely related processes, it stands to reason that a further function of male conspicuous consumption could be to impress and deter same-sex rivals. An 2 (intrasexual competition context vs. control) × 2 (conspicuous luxury vs. inconspicuous nonluxury) between-subjects experimental study conducted with an Amazon Mechanical Turk sample ( N = 160) revealed that men reported both higher liking of and an intent to purchase a conspicuous luxury car compared to an inconspicuous nonluxury car due to increased feelings of social status. This effect was stronger in the intrasexual competition than in the control context. An additional perception study using a single-factor between-subj...
International Journal of Advertising
Tijdschrift Voor Communicatie Wetenschap, 2015
Journal of Advertising, 2016
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Papers by Liselot Hudders