Bonus: A Tale of Two Cities Summary

In the article “A Tale of Two Cities: Distinctiveness Theory and Advertising Effectiveness”, the authors talk about a study that they conducted concerned with advertising and ethnicity. They mention that the overall population of the United States is becoming more and more diverse. They write that “advertisers have not been slow to respond to these cultural trends.” They have realized that “using only majority (white Anglo/European) characters might not be the most effective policy.” They are saying since the overall population is becoming more diverse, it may better to use characters of different ethnicities in commercials to be more effective. The authors wanted to conduct a study to see if distinctiveness theory was true. “Distinctiveness theory implies that the lower proportion of minority group members in the overall population, the more likely that ethically targeted stimuli will be effective (57).” Studies that have been taken earlier tied to marketing and ethnicity includes the Whittler study. In this study, they found that viewers prefer ads using spokespeople of their own racial or ethnic group. Also, they found that “…this preference for the viewer’s own racial/ethnic group appears to be stronger for viewers who more strongly identify with their racial/ethnic group (58).” According to earlier studies, Deshpande and Stayman, hypothesized that consumers who are in a minority in their ethnic situation should be more likely to identify with a spokesperson of their own ethnic group. They also expected that “…perceptions of similarity should lead to increased credibility of the spokesperson.” The two cities referred to in the title were San Antonio and Austin, Texas. These were very good cities to have in the study because they had minority and majority groups of two different ethnicities and were polar opposites of