IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbrese/v65y2012i6p855-860.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Print advertising: White space

Author

Listed:
  • Olsen, G. Douglas
  • Pracejus, John W.
  • O'Guinn, Thomas C.

Abstract

A survey of North American ad agency creative directors (n=31) reveals that they use the “white space” executional format in print ads mainly to advertise new brands of products rather than services. Their not necessarily mutually exclusive reasons for designing a predominantly white-space ad are (1) artistic – the ad “looks good,” (2) to increase attention to the ad overall, (3) to focus attention on the product and the brand name, and (4) to convey brand prestige. None of the creative directors reported that their clients follow Ambler and Hollier's (2004) theory of deliberately using white-space ads to signal an extravagant budget and therefore a superior quality product. To the contrary, almost half of the clients were reportedly concerned about “paying for wasted space” in agreeing to run a white-space ad.

Suggested Citation

  • Olsen, G. Douglas & Pracejus, John W. & O'Guinn, Thomas C., 2012. "Print advertising: White space," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 65(6), pages 855-860.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:65:y:2012:i:6:p:855-860
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2011.01.007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296311000087
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbusres.2011.01.007?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kirmani, Amna, 1990. "The Effect of Perceived Advertising Costs on Brand Perceptions," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 17(2), pages 160-171, September.
    2. John W. Pracejus & G. Douglas Olsen & Thomas C. O'Guinn, 2006. "How Nothing Became Something: White Space, Rhetoric, History, and Meaning," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 33(1), pages 82-90, June.
    3. Edell, Julie E & Staelin, Richard, 1983. "The Information Processing of Pictures in Print Advertisements," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 10(1), pages 45-61, June.
    4. Ambler, Tim & Hollier, E. Ann, 2004. "The Waste in Advertising Is the Part That Works," Journal of Advertising Research, Cambridge University Press, vol. 44(4), pages 375-389, December.
    5. Kover, Arthur J, 1995. "Copywriters' Implicit Theories of Communication: An Exploration," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 21(4), pages 596-611, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chu, Kyounghee & Lee, Do-Hee & Kim, Ji Yoon, 2019. "The effect of verbal brand personification on consumer evaluation in advertising: Internal and external personification," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 472-480.
    2. Bogomolova, Svetlana & Oppewal, Harmen & Cohen, Justin & Yao, Jun, 2020. "How the layout of a unit price label affects eye-movements and product choice: An eye-tracking investigation," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 102-116.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pracejus, John W. & O'Guinn, Thomas C. & Olsen, G. Douglas, 2013. "When white space is more than “burning money”: Economic signaling meets visual commercial rhetoric," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 211-218.
    2. Zhen, Xueping & (George) Cai, Gangshu & Song, Reo & Jang, Sungha, 2019. "The effects of herding and word of mouth in a two-period advertising signaling model," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 275(1), pages 361-373.
    3. Claudia Townsend & Darren DahlEditor & Page MoreauAssociate Editor, 2017. "The Price of Beauty: Differential Effects of Design Elements with and without Cost Implications in Nonprofit Donor Solicitations," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 44(4), pages 794-815.
    4. Nenycz-Thiel, Magda & Romaniuk, Jenni, 2011. "The nature and incidence of private label rejection," Australasian marketing journal, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 93-99.
    5. Ingo Balderjahn & Dennis Appenfeller, 2023. "A Social Marketing Approach to Voluntary Simplicity: Communicating to Consume Less," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-17, January.
    6. Nitin Walia & Mark Srite & Wendy Huddleston, 2016. "Eyeing the web interface: the influence of price, product, and personal involvement," Electronic Commerce Research, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 297-333, September.
    7. Laurent Cavenaile & Pau Roldan-Blanco, 2021. "Advertising, Innovation, and Economic Growth," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(3), pages 251-303, July.
    8. Ella Ward & Song Yang & Jenni Romaniuk & Virginia Beal, 2020. "Building a unique brand identity: measuring the relative ownership potential of brand identity element types," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 27(4), pages 393-407, July.
    9. Malik, Faiza & Ishaq, Muhammad Ishtiaq, 2023. "Impact of minimalist practices on consumer happiness and financial well-being," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    10. Rosbergen, Edward & Wedel, Michel & Pieters, Rik, 1997. "Analyzing visual attention tot repeated print advertising using scanpath theory," Research Report 97B32, University of Groningen, Research Institute SOM (Systems, Organisations and Management).
    11. Khaled Obaid & Kuntara Pukthuanthong, 2021. "Informativeness of mutual fund advertisements: Does advertising communicate fund quality to investors?," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 50(1), pages 203-236, March.
    12. Czerwiński Bogumił & Domański Jarosław, 2023. "Contemporary Consumer Trends," Foundations of Management, Sciendo, vol. 15(1), pages 51-62, January.
    13. Bennett, Roger, 2007. "Advertising message strategies for encouraging young White working class males to consider entering British universities," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 60(9), pages 932-941, September.
    14. Söderlund, Magnus & Sagfossen, Sofie, 2017. "The consumer experience: The impact of supplier effort and consumer effort on customer satisfaction," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 219-229.
    15. Cambier, Fanny & Poncin, Ingrid, 2020. "Inferring brand integrity from marketing communications: The effects of brand transparency signals in a consumer empowerment context," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 260-270.
    16. Yu, Yining & Zhou, Xinyue & Wang, Lei & Wang, Qiuzhen, 2022. "Uppercase Premium Effect: The Role of Brand Letter Case in Brand Premiumness," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 98(2), pages 335-355.
    17. Emrich, Oliver & Paul, Michael & Rudolph, Thomas, 2015. "Shopping Benefits of Multichannel Assortment Integration and the Moderating Role of Retailer Type," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 326-342.
    18. Zhuang, Mengzhou & Cui, Geng & Peng, Ling, 2018. "Manufactured opinions: The effect of manipulating online product reviews," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 24-35.
    19. Tagashira, Takumi, 2022. "Information effects of warehouse automation on sales in omnichannel retailing," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    20. Chen, Chiang-Ming & Lin, Lin & Chiu, Hsien-Hung, 2016. "Advertising medium effect on tourist satisfaction," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 268-272.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:65:y:2012:i:6:p:855-860. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbusres .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.