5

Journal of Services Marketing
Emerald Article: A strategic response to the financial crisis: an

empirical analysis of financial services advertising before and during the
financial crisis
Taejun (David) Lee, Wonjun Chung, Ronald E. Taylor
Article information:
To cite this document: Taejun (David) Lee, Wonjun Chung, Ronald E. Taylor, (2011),"A strategic response to the financial crisis:
an empirical analysis of financial services advertising before and during the financial crisis", Journal of Services Marketing,
Vol. 25 Iss: 3 pp. 150 - 164
Permanent link to this document:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/08876041111129146
Downloaded on: 27-03-2012
References: This document contains references to 76 other documents
To copy this document: permissions@emeraldinsight.com
Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by University of Pretoria
For Authors:
If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service.
Information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Additional help
for authors is available for Emerald subscribers. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information.
About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.com
With over forty years' experience, Emerald Group Publishing is a leading independent publisher of global research with impact in
business, society, public policy and education. In total, Emerald publishes over 275 journals and more than 130 book series, as
well as an extensive range of online products and services. Emerald is both COUNTER 3 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is
a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive
preservation.
*Related content and download information correct at time of download.
A strategic response to the financial crisis:

an empirical analysis of financial services
advertising before and during the financial crisis
Taejun (David) Lee
School of Advertising and Public Relations, University of Tennessee Knoxville, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
Wonjun Chung
Department of Communication, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Lafayette, Louisiana, USA, and
Ronald E. Taylor
School of Advertising and Public Relations, University of Tennessee Knoxville, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
Abstract
Purpose This paper aims to investigate how the US financial services organizations (FSOs) provided marketing information and the way they
strategically used various appeals through their advertising before and during the current financial crisis.
Design/methodology/approach This takes the form of a content analysis examining a total of 2,480 financial services ads (FSA) in print magazines
within two periods the two years before the crisis (2005 to 2006) and the two years during the crisis (2007 to 2008).
Findings This study showed three significant findings: because of the economic struggle, there was a significant decline across the two periods in the
total number of yearly FSA; the economic crisis led to a significant increase in the use of informational message strategies across all FSOs; and financial
value and atmospherics appeals were predominant after the crisis. However, each FSO used appeals in a different way.
Research limitations/implications This study focused on only print media. A future research project aimed at other traditional media such as
television and new media such as the internet or weblogs could provide additional analysis of financial advertising strategies.
Practical implications The findings of this study suggest that FSOs may rely much more heavily on informational than on transformational
approaches during an economic crisis. The findings may provide further valuable implications for non-profit institutions and international marketers.
Originality/value This study contributes in several ways to understanding of the strategic communicative reactions of FSOs during the crisis.
Keywords Financial services, Advertising, Marketing strategy
Paper type Research paper
slowly, reaching from subprime borrowers and home builders

even to middle-class homeowners and the stores they
frequent, like Home Depot. According to the Mortgage
Bankers Association (MBA) quarterly report, the percentage
of mortgage borrowers behind on their payments 6.35
percent was the highest since the MBA began tracking the
number in 1979 (Mortgage Asset Research Institute, 2008).
As a result, a variety of financial services organizations
extricated themselves from the home-equity-line-of-credit
business. In addition, the decline in home prices was followed
by a subprime mortgage crisis, which also removed an
important source of support for consumer spending.
Americans who grew accustomed to borrowing against
rising home equity to finance car purchases or vacations
found themselves bereft. American consumers were both
tapped out financially and burned out psychologically.
Economists seem to think that a change in housing prices
has a 3.75 to 7 percent effect on consumer spending in either
direction and the consumer-driven economy may not bounce
back as rapidly as it did in the fraught months after 9/11
(Gross, 2008).
An executive summary for managers and executive

readers can be found at the end of this article.
The US economy currently faces one of the most tumultuous
periods since the decline of 2001. However, this downturn
will last longer than the eight-month-long recession of 2001
(Kiviat, 2008). The headwinds facing the US economy
include the housing downturn, capital market turmoil, credit
crunch, and rising energy/food prices. Especially, the selfinflicted wounds of extensions and abuse of credit in the
housing and financial sectors are deeply related to the current
US economy malaise, which was not evident in 2001 (Gross,
2008; New York Times, 2008).
In the USA, the economic problems started with excesses
and defaults in the subprime lending and housing markets. As
the bubble burst, foreclosures mounted and housing activities
were ground to a halt. Throughout 2007, the carnage spread
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0887-6045.htm

25/3 (2011) 150 164
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited [ISSN 0887-6045]
[DOI 10.1108/08876041111129146]
Received September 2009

Revised February 2010
Accepted March 2010
150
A strategic response to the financial crisis
Taejun (David) Lee, Wonjun Chung and Ronald E. Taylor
Volume 25 Number 3 2011 150 164
In a very uncertain and complex environment where

economic conditions are going to remain difficult and the
principal problem is going to be unresolved, advertising
activity of the US financial services organizations are likely to
undergo a very challenging period of adjustment. For
instance, recent significant drop in financial services
advertising spending reflects the macro movements in the
overall economy. According to a Nielson (2008) report,
advertising by credit card services companies including
Capital One, Discover, Synovus, Washington Mutual, and
Visa dipped significantly in the first three weeks of
September 2008 as the ongoing economic turmoil in the US
reached a boiling point. Advertising spending by other sectors
of the financial services industry has also declined steadily. In
July and August, advertising spending by mortgage service
companies was down by almost 54 percent, compared with
the same period in 2007. Advertising spending by loan
companies was dropped by almost 37 percent between JulyAugust, 2007 and July-August, 2008.
Then, how do advertising managers of financial services
organizations react proactively yet sensitively to the
noxious mix of fiscal aggravation, damaged normal
operations, jeopardized image, and organizational culpability
during an economic crisis? It seems that they are forced to
agonize over the best way to communicate to handle their
vulnerability and potential consequences of the crisis. Despite
how solid their advertising strategy may have been up until
that point, they may need to reinvestigate their underlying
strategies that are central to their advertising activity.
This study examines how financial services organizations
used print advertising before and during the financial crisis of
2007-2008, which has been referred to as the most serious
financial crisis since the Great Depression by leading
economists and finance scholars (Bernanke, 2009).
Specifically, based on an institutional aspect, this study
attempts to provide insights into the message and appeal
strategies used by the organizations through their financial
services advertising during the financial crisis by analyzing the
bulk of financial services ads in national print business and
finance magazines over two eras the two years prior to
the financial crisis (2005 to 2006) and in two years during the
financial crisis (2007 to 2008) (Reuters, 2009).
perspective, advertising brings buyer and seller together on

the basis of this informing function. Carey (1960) also
suggested that advertising acts as an agency providing social
norms of behavior appropriate to current economic
conditions and that the character of advertising is
dependent upon the character of the market structure and
the values and beliefs that support the structure.
Advertising has also been considerably recognized as a
cultural institution (Rotzoll, 1976; Schudson, 1984). In this
regard, several studies have emphasized that advertisings
greater significance lies in its aggregate impact, providing an
omnipresent rhetorical environment which espouses a way of
thinking of the cultural values and standards of society
surrounding people of all ages, classes, and interests (e.g.
Chamberlain, 1977; Norris, 1966). However, unlike many
institutions that carry out the transmission of cultural values
and norms such as the family, church, and schools,
advertising is a unique institution that plays a major role in
mass media, thereby giving it a far more universal and
dynamic influence (Pollay, 1983, 1985). While most
institutions tend to play an inherently conservative role,
preserving and protecting long-established received values,
advertising is more likely to act as a cultural institution to
change, fix, and develop a different facet of thoughts,
emotions and presumably behavior among consumers
(Pollay, 1983, 1986).
Given the notion of the institutional role of advertising, the
variability of the number of financial services ads may be an
indicator of the institutional role of FSA in the marketplace.
Based on the above reasoning, we raise the question of
whether FSOs increase or decrease the dissemination of
financial information/messages and persuasion via FSA before
and during a financial crisis:
RQ1.
Has there been an overall change in the number of

FSA placed in the business and finance-oriented
magazines before and during the financial crisis?
Advertising strategies of financial services

organizations (FSOs)
Zeithaml et al.s (1985) review of the services literature
suggests that services advertising can be characterized by four
important distinctions: intangibility, inseparability of
production
and
consumption,
perishability,
and
heterogeneity, which will pose four challenging problems in
financial services marketing and advertising (Vargo and
Lusch, 2004). First, due to the intangible nature of financial
services, FSOs would attempt to incorporate into ads tangible
artifacts and concrete evidence in order to address the
problem of lack of physical form (Iacobucci, 1992; Stafford,
1996). Second, because financial services can only be
provided if there is a customer willing to purchase and
experience it, FSOs would typically emphasize involvement of
the customer to a greater degree than would be the case with
physical goods (Hedesstrom et al., 2007) and present the
interaction between the production and the customers
consumption of financial services in ads (Lovelock, 1991,
2001; Zeithaml and Bitner, 2000). Third, financial services
cannot be inventoried. Owing to the nature of perishability,
consumers have considerable difficulties with respect to prepurchase evaluation and they tend to draw on the experience
of others and the perception of third-parties when evaluating
services (Gummesson, 1993). Hence, FSOs would employ
Literature review
Institutional aspects of financial services advertising
(FSA)
Advertising has been considered as an institution embracing
the economic and cultural activities in a free market system
(Rotzoll, 1976; Schudson, 1984). Many scholars have
recognized this aspect of advertising. Characterizing
advertising as the institution of abundance, Potter (1954)
argued that society wants advertising to perform broad social
and economic functions. Sandage (1972) stressed that to
advertising has been assigned the function of informing
consumers how products and services meet their needs and
wants.
Society holds financial services organizations (FSOs)
responsible to inform and persuade members of financial
marketplace in respect to products, services and ideas. In
particular, Carey (1960) argued almost a half-century ago
that the institutional role for advertising is to be found in its
supplying of market information. According to his
151
Volume 25 Number 3 2011 150 164
word-of-mouth of the organization and its people in order

that there will be a halo effect from organization to their
financial product (Mangold et al., 1999). Lastly, the
production of financial services is heterogeneous, which
gives rise to variability in quality. Indeed, financial services
cannot be standardized the financial service experienced
may vary from consumer to consumer, or may vary from time
to time for a particular consumer (Lovelock, 2001). Rather,
FSOs would offer and underscore the customization of
performance records, effects, or characteristics of the financial
service in order to meet the heterogeneous standards of
consumers (Pine, 1993).
Given these four challenging characteristics of financial
services, FSOs are likely to rely on informational, cognitive, or
rational advertising strategy to guide the where to save and
invest wisdom concerning a consumers financial
management practices and direct financial decision making
among target audiences of the messages during a financial
crisis (Bone, 2008). For example, as research and policy
actions point to emerging support for financial information
disclosure to reduce the consumers decision-making burden
in the financial marketplace, financial firms make efforts to
increase financial literacy by providing a consistent context for
tailoring financial information (Kozup and Hogarth, 2008).
According to Puto and Wells (1984), informational
advertising provides the audiences with factual information
about the product and relevant brand data in a clear and
logical manner such that they have greater confidence in their
ability to assess the merits of buying the brand after having
seen the advertisement. According to Kotler and Armstrong
(1994), such approaches are designed to change the message
receivers beliefs about the advertised brand and rely on their
persuasive power of arguments or reasons about brand
attributes. Such message strategies tend to relate to the target
audiences self-interest by showing product benefits. Prior
literature suggests that a variety of professional services
advertisers such as financial firms, medical services, and
lawyers use informational advertising strategy to infuse an
objective reality into the intangibility of the services
(Pennington, 1993). Prior service research found that more
factual claims and verifiable information can help alleviate
some of the problems associated with intangibility and
enhance the attitudes and purchase intentions toward the
services (Grove et al., 1995; LaBand et al., 1992; Stafford and
Day, 1995). Hence, FSOs are likely to rely on informational
advertising strategy by providing more factual description and
concrete information to improve consumers rational financial
decision making. FSA performs the vital function of
informing and persuading the consumers in respect to
financial products economic benefits and utilitarian features
related to consumers needs or wants.
In contrast, FSOs are likely to involve transformational,
image, or emotional advertising strategy during the financial
crisis (Everett, 1988). Previous research has indicated that
transformational approaches are used more for services than
for physical goods (Culter and Javalgi, 1993; Zinkhan et al.,
1992). Abernethy and Butler (1992) concluded that services
actually use fewer informational cues in their advertisements.
A meta-analysis of nearly 60 content analyses also confirmed
that services tend to have lower amount of information than
product advertisements (Abernethy and Franke, 1996).
According to Puto and Wells (1984), transformational
advertising involves the association of the experience of using/
consuming the advertised brand with a unique set of

psychological
characteristics.
A
transformational
advertisement would therefore make the experience of using
the brand richer and more enjoyable by connecting the
experience of the ad with that of using the brand in such an
intimate fashion that consumers cannot remember the brand
without recalling the experience generated by the
advertisement (Puto and Wells, 1984, p. 638). Overall,
transformational strategies are grounded in the emotional,
hedonic, and experiential side of consumption.
Transformational strategies seek to make consumers feel
good about the product, by creating a likeable or friendly
brand: they heavily rely on feelings for effectiveness. For
example, Young (1981) contends that services have a different
hierarchy of effects than goods (feel ! do ! learn, rather
than learn ! feel ! do), which would make the
transformational approach more effective for services
advertising such as retailing, financial services, and travel
agencies. Indeed it is believed that when service advertisers
design promotional messages, they are expected to use
symbols that are recognizable and meaningful to a given
marketplace, because transformational approaches can help
alleviate the difficulty in understanding intangible aspects of
services and instill the abstract nature of service offerings into
concreteness and vividness (Firestone, 1983; Legg and Baker,
1987; Stern, 1988). In that regard, FSOs tend to promote a
way of feeling about the meaning and value of financial
services and recalibrate customer satisfaction, customer
retention, customer loyalty, corporate identify, corporate
image, corporate personality, and perceptions of service
quality through transformational advertising strategy,
including empathetic messages, non-verbal cues, and
emotional approaches (Coleman and Wu, 2006; Coombs
and Holladay, 2006).
Overall, although the results of previous studies regarding
services advertising strategies to be contradictory, given the
institutional role of advertising, FSOs are likely to adjust its
fundamental advertising strategies depending upon economic,
social, and cultural conditions due to the growing economic
turmoil. Thus, the following research question is posed:
RQ2.
Has there been a change in the use of FSA strategies

(informational and transformational) before and
during the financial crisis?
Beyond the aggregate analysis of the use of FSA strategies, it

is logical to further examine the extent to which each FSO
differently relies on certain strategies to attract its target
consumers:
RQ3.
Has there been a change in the use of FSA strategies

by each FSO before and during the financial crisis?
Advertising appeals
Pollay (1983) created a list of 42 advertising appeals that he
considered to be an exhaustive categorization of all appeals
used in advertising in terms of the institutional character of
advertising. Based on his methodology for measuring the
values in advertising, he suggested that advertising is not only
a particularly persuasive proponent of a specific value in an
economic market system but it is also capable of describing
the cultural character of commercialism (Pollay, 1983).
Hence, based on his theoretical framework, investigating the
volume and character of appeals manifest in financial services
152
Volume 25 Number 3 2011 150 164
ads offers us opportunities to understand the extent to which

FSA portrays and encourages the economic and cultural
institutional role during the financial crisis.
Importantly, realizing that not all of Pollays (1983)
advertising appeals were meaningful in service contexts,
Albers-Miller and Stafford (1999) attempted to use a subset
of Pollays (1983) appeals in their evaluation of services
advertisements. They first categorized the 42 appeals of Pollay
(1983) into informational (rational) or transformational
(emotional) strategies and then compared financial services
advertisements to travel services advertisements in eleven
countries based on their coding scheme. Their research
findings showed that financial services advertisements tend to
rely more on informational that transformational appeals
(Albers-Miller and Stafford, 1999).
Subsequently, through a review of the literature related to
services advertising especially focused on financial industry,
Albers-Miller and Straughan (2000) developed the financial
services subset (13 appeals) from Pollays (1983) list of
advertising appeals (42 appeals). In an attempt to investigate a
subset of advertising appeals that is appropriate to the context
of financial services advertising, the 13 appeal attributes of
interest were utilized to examine financial services print
advertisements in nine countries (Albers-Miller and
Straughan, 2000). In this study, the 13 appeal attributes of
interest were also subjected to a factor analysis, which clearly
yielded five factors:
1 Services quality, including wisdom, safety, productivity,
and effective appeal.
2 Atmospheric, including relaxation, popular, and
ornamental appeal.
3 Innovativeness, including modern, technological, and neat
appeal.
4 Financial value, including cheap and convenience appeal.
5 Family appeal.
chosen for this study: Businessweek, The Economist, Fortune,

Forbes, and Money.
Using definitions promulgated by the Federal Deposit
Insurance Corporation (FDIC) (n.d.) and the US Securities
and Exchange Commission (SEC), all full-page ads placed by
banks, credit card providers, insurance providers, and
investment firms (e.g. mutual funds, pension investments,
etc.) were collected and analyzed during the defined periods.
Only these four types of companies were categorized as FSOs
in this study, because they have been influenced by the
current financial crisis (Mediamark Research, 2008). When
duplicate ads within the same issue of a magazine were
identified, the second ad was not counted.
No particular day or event signals the start of the crisis.
Some researchers associate it with the events of 9/11 and the
subsequent drop in interest rates that made mortgages more
accessible to many Americans. Because of the lag in financial
data it is impossible to know the beginning of a recession until
sometime after it has started. We suggest that the recession
began sometime before 2007 and worsened during 2007 and
2008. According to Kantar Media (formerly TNS Media),
total advertising expenditures in the US rose 3.4 percent in
2006 but fell 1 percent in 2007 and fell another 4 percent
during 2008 (TNS Ad$spender, 2009). Similarly, magazine
advertising for financial services advertising rose 10.7 percent
in 2006, continued to grow in 2007, but declined by 3.2
percent in 2008 (TNS Ad$spender, 2009). Among market
leaders the cuts in advertising expenditures were much
deeper. In fact, in 2008, according to Advertising Age (2009),
the top ten banks and credit-card companies cut measured
advertising spending 11 percent, with a 25 percent reduction
in the fourth quarter and a 39 percent reduction in the month
of December alone compared to the same periods in 2007.
Financial services advertising in all measured media in 2008
fared better than some other industries. As examples, real
estate advertising dropped 29 percent, hardware and home
building supplies dropped 16 percent, and automotive
industry advertising dropped 15 percent in 2008. Thus, the
separation of the data into two time period (2005 and 2006 vs
2007 and 2008) is based in part on advertising indicators.
Overall advertising expenditures dropped in 2007, a strong
signal that a downturn had begun. The data categories serve a
very practical purpose as well. They allow us to compare two
periods of equal length and provide sufficient data to capture
changes in message strategies. Overall, for this study, a total of
2,480 financial ads shown during the four years were collected
and analyzed.
Finally, three factors such as services quality, innovativeness

and financial value were included in informational strategy
and atmospheric and family in transformational strategy.
Based on the previous theoretical framework, we put forth
two additional research questions:
RQ4.
Has there been a change in the use of FSA appeals

before and during the financial crisis?
Like RQ3, this study further examines how each FSO

differently uses certain appeals through its FSA to attract its
target customers:
RQ5.
Has there been a change in the use of FSA appeals by

each FSO before and during the financial crisis?
Coding categorization development

The key to any successful content analysis is the selection of
the categorization scheme: content analysis is no better than
its categories, since they reflect the formulated thinking, the
hypotheses, and the purpose of the study (Riffe et al., 1998).
The categorization schemes selected were Puto and Wellss
(1984) advertising strategy and Albers-Miller and Straughans
(1999, 2000) financial services subset (13 appeals) derived
from Pollays (1983) list of 42 advertising appeals. AlbersMiller and Straughan (2000) successfully used this
categorization scheme to examine financial services print
advertisements, which reported Perrault and Leighs (1989)
intercoder index of reliabilities ranging from 0.81 to 0.98.
Table I lists the operational definitions of the strategies and
appeals used for this study.
Methods
Samples
Data for this study were collected by analyzing the content of
national business and finance magazine ads from 2005
through 2008. Business and finance magazines are important
sources for consumers in the financial marketplace. Although
more marketing expenditure might be spent on television
advertising and the internet, more financial firms use
magazines than any other media form (Belch and Belch,
1994). Considering the profiles of magazine content, target
audience, readership and circulation (Mediamark Research,
2008), the following five business and finance magazines were
153
Volume 25 Number 3 2011 150 164
Table I Operational definitions of FSA strategies and appeals

Operational definitions
Overall strategy
Informational
Transformational
Appeal
Informational
Services quality
Innovativeness
Financial value
Transformational
Atmospherics
Family
Providing factual financial service/product information about a brand or company

Providing relevant brand data in a clear and logical manner
Showing competing brands, focusing on claims of uniqueness, or providing nature of brands
Associating the experience of using a brand with a set of psychological characteristics
Focusing on the users of a brand and their life style or focusing on developing a brand image
Wisdom: associating a financial service with wisdom, knowledge, education, awareness, intelligence, comprehension, sagacity,
expertise, experience, and/or judgement
Safety: providing a financial service as safe, secure, carefulness, caution, and/or stability
Productivity: emphasizing achievement, accomplishment, ambition, success, and/or proficient
Effective: showing effective, feasible, workable, useful, pragmatic, appropriate, functional, consistent, efficient, helpful, strength, and/or
having longevity of effect
Modern: showing a financial service as modern, contemporary, new, improved, progressive, and/or advanced
Technological: emphasizing technological, engineered, and/or resulting from science, invention, discovery, or research
Neat: providing a sense of neat, orderly, precise, tidy, clean, spotless, and/or unsoiled
Cheap: showing economical values like cheap, inexpensive, bargain, cut-rate, penny-pinching, discounted, at cost, undervalued, and/or
good value
Convenience: showing convenient, handy, time-saving, quick, easy, suitable, accessible, and/or versatile
Relaxation: providing a sense of relaxation, rest, contentment, being at ease, and/or proficient
Popular: providing a popular, commonplace, customary, well-known, conventional, regular, usual, ordinary, normal, standard, typical,
universal, general, and/or everyday value
Ornamental: showing a beautiful, decorative, ornate, adorned, embellished, and/or detailed scene/thing
Showing family values like nurturance within the family, family privacy, companionship of siblings, and/or kinship
Notes: The operational definitions are from the advertising strategy (Puto and Wells, 1984) and the list of the financial services appeals (Albers-Miller and
Straughan, 2000)
services ad among the list of 13 financial services advertising

appeals operationalized by Albert-Miller and Straughan
(2000). The coding was completed between November
2008 and May 2009.
Coding procedure
After the coding sheet and written coding instructions were
developed, the analysis was performed by two coders trained
in the technique. First, the coders reviewed and discussed the
coding categories, previewed a sample of ads, and practiced
using the coding instructions in the same way. The coders
independently conducted a pilot test of 40 ads. Ads were
coded as a dichotomous decision (yes/no) for each category.
Unclear and disputed items were discussed and clarified, and
changes were made. When disagreements arose, the coders
discussed their interpretations and a final decision was made
by consensus.
After the pilot coding, the two coders independently
analyzed the unique financial services ads placed in every
issue of six business and finance magazines from January 2005
to December 2008 using the same coding book. Specifically,
the issues, years, and magazines were randomly assigned and
systematically rotated. The coders first categorized each ad as
four types of financial services (i.e. bank, credit card,
investment, and insurance) and then as either informational
or transformational strategy. Next, every informational ad was
categorized as one among three dimensions of financial
services advertising appeals such as service quality,
innovativeness, or financial value whereas every
transformational ad was categorized as one among two
dimensions such as atmospherics or family. Afterwards, the
coders decided a specific appeal manifest in a financial
Intercoder reliability
Intercoder reliabilities were computed using percentage of
agreement, which is the ratio of agreements to the total
number of coding decisions. The two coders had a high
percentage of agreement (over 90 percent agreement) on all
categories. To achieve acceptable reliability, another
discussion session was held, after which 95 percent
agreement was achieved. As a reliability check,
approximately 15 percent (n 400) of the total sample were
randomly selected and coded by the coders. The coders
achieved satisfactory percentage of agreement across the ads
(higher than 90 percent). In addition, Perreault and Leighs
(1989) reliability index (Ir) was employed as a more rigorous
reliability test. Table II presents reliability indices by variable.
Estimates based on Ir ranged from 0.95 to 0.98 for the FSA
strategies, and from 0.96 to 0.98 for the list of five FSA
appeals.
Results
RQ1 asks if there has been a change in the number of FSA
placed in the magazines before and during the financial crisis.
154
Volume 25 Number 3 2011 150 164
frequently, followed by insurance (21.6 percent), credit cards

(15.6 percent), and banks (11 percent). However, compared
with the pre-crisis period (n 882, 68.7 percent), the total
number of investment ads during the crisis period (n 402,
31.3 percent) significantly decreased (x2 1 14:1,
p , 0.01). Accordingly, as mentioned with RQ1, the total
number of ads from banks (pre-crisis: n 162, 59.1 percent,
during the crisis: n 112, 40.9 percent) and credit card
companies (pre-crisis: n 224, 58 percent, during the crisis:
n 162, 42 percent) were also declined after 2007. The only
exception is ads from insurance companies. Compared with
the pre-crisis period (n 210, 39.2 percent), the total
number of insurance ads during the crisis period (n 326,
60.8 percent) significantly increased (x2 1 4:8, p , 0.05).
In terms of the use of FSA strategies used by each FSO,
there was the same pattern of switching from transformational
to informational strategies during the crisis across all FSOs.
For example, in the case of banks, the pattern of using the two
strategies significantly shifted from transformational (n 84,
51.9 percent during the crisis) to informational one (n 74,
66.1 percent during the crisis) (x2 1 6:6, p , 0.01). Credit
cards providers were also found to significantly increase the
use of informational strategies after 2007 (n 110, 67.9
percent) while the transformational approach was more
dominant during 2005-2006 (n 114, 50.9 percent)
(x2 1 7:4, p , 0.01). A significant shift applied to
investment firms. They significantly increased reliance on
informational strategies after 2007 (n 274, 68.2 percent)
although transformational strategies were more used before
the crisis (n 486, 55.1 percent) (x2 1 10:8, p , 0.01).
Finally, in the case of insurance companies, the dominant use
of the transformational approach (n 114, 54.3 percent)
shifted to an informational approach (n 322, 60.1 percent)
during the crisis (x2 1 10:8, p , 0.01).
As illustrated in Figure 1, time-sequential analysis indicates
that as the economic crisis worsened, all FSOs shifted their
overall advertising strategy from transformational to
informational.
RQ4 asks if there has been a change in the use of FSA
appeals before and during the crisis. As shown in Table V,
within the informational strategy approach, service quality
appeal (n 686, 50.3 percent) was prevalently featured in the
last four years, followed by family value (n 516, 37.8
percent) and innovativeness (n 162, 11.9 percent) appeals.
However, there was a significant shift in the use of each appeal
before and during the crisis (x2 2 7:9, p , 0.05). For
example, financial value appeal was far more frequently used
Table II Intercoder reliability indices

Variable
Percentage of
agreement
Perreault and Leigh

(Ir)
Overall strategy
Informational
Transformational
98
95
0.98
0.95
Appeal
Services quality
Innovativeness
Financial value
Atmospheric
Family
96
93.5
97
94.5
97
0.97
0.96
0.98
0.96
0.98
Notes: Ir F=N 2 1=kk=k 2 1:5 for F/N $ 1/k, Ir 0 for F/

N # 1/k; where F is the frequency of observed agreement, N is the total
number of pairwise judgement, and k is the number of categories into which
the responses can be coded
Table III presents that among a total of 2,480 ads during the
past four years, approximately 60 percent (n 1; 478) of the
ads appeared before the crisis (2005-2006) and 40 percent
(n 1; 002) appeared during the crisis (2007-2008). There
was a 32.2 percent decline in the number of yearly financial
ads before and after the time of the financial crisis, falling
from 750 ads in 2005 to 452 ads in 2008. This decline
tendency has been significantly consistent over the two
(before and during) time periods (x2 1 4:0, p , 0.05) (see
Table III).
RQ2 investigates if there has been a change in the use of
FSA strategies before and during the financial crisis. As also
reported in Table III, before the crisis (2005-2006), a majority
of the financial ads relied on transformational (n 798, 54
percent) rather than informational strategies (n 680, 46
percent). However, during the crisis (2007-2008),
informational strategy (n 684, 68.3 percent) has been far
more frequently used than has transformational (n 318,
31.7 percent) by FSOs. This use of strategy showed a
significant difference between the two time periods
(x2 1 9:9, p , 0.01).
RQ3 asks if there has been a change in the number of FSA
by different FSOs (e.g. bank, credit card, investment, and
insurance) and each ones use of advertising strategies before
and during the financial crisis. As shown in Table IV, across
all FSOs, investment ads (51.8 percent) appeared the most
Table III Frequency and percentage of FSA and strategies before and during the financial crisis
2005
Pre-crisis
2006
n
%
Sub-total
n
%
Total *
750
30.2
728
29.4
1,478
Informational * *
Transformational * *
296
454
39.5
60.5
384
344
52.7
47.3
680
798
2007
During the crisis

2008
Sub-total
n
%
n
%
Total
n
%
59.6
550
22.2
452
18.2
1,002
40.4
2,480
46
54
376
174
68.4
31.6
308
144
68.1
31.9
684
318
68.3
31.7
1,364
1,116
x2 (df), p
4.0 (1), p , .05
55
45
9.9 (1), p , .01
Notes: *Percentage figures were calculated based on the total number of FSAs of each year divided by the total number of FSAs in the four years (e.g. 30.2
percent in the 2005 total column was from a total of 750 FSAs of the year divided by the total of 2,480 FSAs in the four years); * *Percentage figures were
calculated based on the total number of each strategy used in each year divided by the total number of FSAs in the year (e.g. 39.5 percent in the 2005
informational strategy column was from a total of 296 informational ads of the year divided by the total of 750 FSAs in the year)
155
Volume 25 Number 3 2011 150 164
Table IV Frequency and percentage of FSA strategies by FSOs before and during the financial crisis
2005
n
%
Pre-crisis
2006
n
%
Sub-total
n
%
2007
n
%
During the crisis

2008
Sub-total
n
%
n
%
Bank *
Informational * *
78
26
52
28.5
33.3
66.6
84
52
32
30.7
61.9
38.1
162
78
84
59.1
48.1
51.9
62
40
22
22.6
64.5
35.5
50
34
16
18.2
68
32
112
74
38
40.9
66.1
33.9
274
152
122
55.5
44.5
Credit Card *
Informational * *
138
66
72
35.8
47.8
52.2
86
44
42
22.3
51.2
48.8
224
110
114
58
49.1
50.9
88
60
28
22.8
68.2
31.8
74
50
24
19.2
67.6
32.4
162
110
52
42
67.9
32.1
386
220
166
57
43
Investment *
Informational * *
420
160
260
32.7
38.1
61.9
462
236
226
36
51.1
48.9
882
396
486
68.7
44.9
55.1
220
152
68
17.1
69.1
30.9
182
122
60
14.2
67
33
402
274
128
31.3
68.2
31.8
1,284
670
614
52.2
47.8
Insurance *
Informational * *
114
44
70
21.3
38.6
61.4
96
52
44
17.9
54.2
45.8
210
96
114
39.2
45.7
54.3
180
124
56
33.6
68.9
31.1
146
102
44
27.2
69.9
30.1
326
226
100
60.8
69.3
30.7
536
322
214
60.1
39.9
Total *
Informational * *
750
296
454
30.2
39.5
60.5
728
384
344
29.4
52.7
47.3
1,478
680
798
59.6
46
54
550
376
174
22.2
68.4
31.6
452
308
144
18.2
68.1
31.9
1,002
684
318
40.4
68.3
31.7
2,480
1,364
1,116
Total
n
55
45
x2 (df), p
3.2 (1), n.s.
6.6 (1), p , 0.01
2.54 (1), n.s.

7.4 (1), p , 0.01
14.4 (1), p , 0.01

10.8 (1), p , 0.01
4.8 (1), p , 0.05

10.8(1), p , 0.01
4.0 (1), p , 0.05

9.9 (1), p , 0.01
Notes: Bank category includes companies such as Citi, Bank of America, First Tennessee, Regions, etc. Credit Card category comprises Visa, Master, American
Express, Discover, Citi, Discover, Chase, etc. Investment Category consists of Franklin Templeton, T. Rowe Price, UBS, Fidelity, Ameriprise, Charles Schwab,
ETRADE, Vanguard, Pinnacle Development, Mass Mutual, Principal, Ameritrade, etc. Insurance includes Geico, Met Life, AIG, Allstate, Allianz, New York Life,
Farm Bureau Insurance, State Farm Insurance, etc.; *Percentage figures were calculated based on the total number of FSAs used for each FSO in each year
divided by its total number of the FSAs in the four years (e.g. 28.5 percent in the 2005 bank column was from a total of 78 total bank ads in the year divided by a
total of 274 bank ads of the four years); * *Percentage figures were calculated based on the total number of each strategy used by each FSO in each year divided
by the total number of FSAs in the year (e.g. 33.3 percent in the 2005 banks informational strategy column was from a total of 26 bank informational ads of the
year divided by the total of 78 bank ads in the year)
atmospheric appeal (during the crisis: 76.3 percent, n 29;

pre-crisis: 53.1 percent, n 17) over family one (during the
crisis: 23.7 percent, n 9; pre-crisis: 53.6 percent, n 45)
after 2007 (x2 1 19:9, p , 0.01).
Before the crisis, credit card providers more emphasized
service quality appeal (60.9 percent, n 67) than
innovativeness (14.6 percent, n 16) and financial value
appeals (24.5 percent, n 27). However, like banks, financial
value appeal (45.5 percent, n 50) was most frequently used
by these corporations beyond service quality (42.7 percent,
n 42) and innovativeness (11.8 percent, n 18) during the
crisis. This strategic use of different appeals before and during
the crisis showed a significant difference (x2 2 9:8,
p , 0.01). And, in the use of transformational strategies, the
companies continued to far more use atmospheric appeal
(during the crisis: 84.6 percent, n 44; pre-crisis: 87.7
percent, n 100) over family one (during the crisis: 15.4
percent, n 8; pre-crisis: 12.3 percent, n 14) before and
during the crisis (x2 1 0:4, n.s.).
Investment firms seemed to have the same appeal strategies
as the credit card companies did. For example, service quality
appeal (56.8 percent, n 225) was the most frequently used
one among investments before the crisis. Dominant use of this
appeal dramatically declined after 2007 (43.8 percent,
n 120) (x2 1 9, p , 0.01). Instead, financial value
appeal (during the crisis: 50.7 percent, n 139; pre-crisis:
26.5 percent, n 105) was heavily implemented during the
after 2007 (n 318, 46.5 percent) than before the year

(n 198, 29.1 percent) (x2 1 5:8, p , 0.05), while service
quality (pre-crisis: n 376, 55.3 percent; during the crisis:
310, 45.3 percent) and innovativeness (pre-crisis:n 106,
15.6 percent; during the crisis: 56, 8.2 percent) appeals were
less likely used in the ads during the crisis.
Meanwhile, in the transformational strategy approach,
atmospherics appeal (n 782, 70.1 percent) was more
dominantly used than family value (n 334, 29.9 percent).
And, this heavy use of the atmospherics appeal has not
significantly changed before (n 552, 69.2 percent) and
during the crisis (n 230, 72.3 percent) (x2 1 0:22, n.s.).
RQ5 examines if there has been a change in the use of FSA
appeals by each FSO before and during the financial crisis.
Table VI demonstrates that unlike the consistent shift to
informational strategies during the crisis, each FSO used
different FSA appeals. For example, while disseminating
informational advertising messages after 2007, banks relied
on financial value appeal (during the crisis: 54.1 percent,
n 40; pre-crisis: 42.3 percent, n 33) rather than other
appeals like service quality (during the crisis: 27 percent,
n 20; pre-crisis: 39.7 percent, n 31) and innovativeness
(during the crisis: 18.9 percent, n 14; pre-crisis: 17.9
percent, n 14). This overall shift to emphasizing different
appeals in the ads before or during the crisis showed a
significant difference (x2 2 4:1, p , 0.05). And, in the use
of transformational strategies, banks far more used
156
Volume 25 Number 3 2011 150 164
Figure 1 A shift of the use of FSA strategies by FSOs before and during the financial crisis
Table V Frequency and percentage of FSA strategies and appeals before and during the financial crisis
2005
n
%
Pre-crisis
2006
n
%
Sub-Total
n
%
2007
n
%
During the crisis

2008
Sub-Total
n
%
n
%
Total
n
x2 (df), p
1 (1), n.s.
9 (1), p , 0.01
5.8 (1), p , 0.05
7.9 (2), p , 0.05
Informational
Services quality
Innovativeness
Financial value
Sub-total x2 (df), p
296
156
52
88
52.7
17.6
29.7
384
220
54
110
57.3
14.1
28.6
680
376
106
198
55.3
15.6
29.1
376
158
22
196
42
5.9
52.1
308
152
34
122
49.4
11
39.6
684
310
56
318
45.3
8.2
46.5
1,364
686
162
516
50.3
11.9
37.8
Transformational
Atmospherics
Family
454
304
150
67
33
344
248
96
72.1
27.9
798
552
246
69.2
30.8
174
108
66
62.1
37.9
144
122
22
84.7
15.3
318
230
88
72.3
27.7
1,116
782
334
70.1
29.9
Total
750
728
1,478
550
452
1,002
16 (1), p , 0.01
23 (1), p , 0.01
0.22 (1), n.s.
2,480
Note: Percentage figures were calculated based on the total number of appeals used for each strategy in each year divided by the total number of the strategy
ads in the year (e.g. 52.7 percent in the 2005 service quality appeal column was from a total of 156 service quality appeal ads in the year divided by the total of
296 informational strategy ads in the year)
77.8 percent, n 378) over family one (post-crisis: 21.9

percent, n 28; pre-crisis: 22.2 percent, n 108) before and
during the crisis.
Unlike the previous organizations (banks, credit card, and
investment companies), insurance companies used different
crisis. This overall shift to emphasizing different appeals

before or during the crisis showed a significant difference
( x2 2 16:3, p , 0.01). Like credit card companies,
investment firms continued to far more use atmospheric
157
Volume 25 Number 3 2011 150 164
Table VI Frequency and percentage of FSA Appeals by FSOs before and during the financial crisis
2005
n
%
Pre-crisis
2006
n
%
Sub-total
n
%
2007
n
%
Bank
Informational
Service quality
Innovativeness
Financial value
78
26
11
5
10
42.3
19.2
38.5
84
52
20
9
23
38.5
17.3
44.2
162
78
31
14
33
39.7
17.9
42.3
62
40
12
3
25
Transformational
Atmospheric
Family
52
22
30
42.3
57.7
32
17
15
53.1
46.9
84
39
45
46.4
53.6
22
17
5
Credit card
Informational
Service quality
Innovativeness
Financial value
138
66
41
10
15
62.1
15.2
22.7
86
44
26
6
12
59
13.6
27.3
224
110
67
16
27
Transformational
Atmospheric
Family
72
61
11
84.7
15.3
42
39
3
92.9
7.1
114
100
14
Investment
Informational
Service quality
Innovativeness
Financial value
420
160
81
32
47
50.6
20
29.4
462
236
144
34
58
Transformational
Atmospheric
Family
260
199
61
76.6
23.4
226
179
47
Insurance
Informational
Service quality
Innovativeness
Financial value
114
44
23
5
16
Transformational
Atmospheric
Family
Total
During the crisis

2008
Sub-total
n
%
n
%
30
7.5
62.5
50
34
8
11
15
112
74
20
14
40
23.5
32.4
44.1
77.3
22.7
16
12
4
75
25
38
29
9
60.9
14.6
24.5
88
60
21
3
36
35
5
60
74
50
26
10
14
52
20
28
87.7
12.3
28
25
3
89.3
10.7
24
19
5
61
14.4
24.6
882
396
225
66
105
56.8
16.7
26.5
220
152
65
7
80
79.2
20.8
486
378
108
77.8
22.2
68
45
23
52.3
11.4
36.3
96
52
30
5
17
57.7
9.6
32.7
210
96
53
10
33
70
22
48
31.4
68.6
44
13
31
29.6
70.4
750
30.2
728
29.4
Total
x2 (df), p
27
18.9
54.1
274
152
51
28
73
33.6
18.4
48
4.8 (1), p , 0.05

0 (1), n.s.
1 (1), n.s.
4.1 (2), p , 0.05
76.3
23.7
122
68
54
55.7
44.3
2 (1), n.s.
43.6 (1), p , 0.01
18.9 (1), p , 0.01
162
110
47
13
50
42.7
11.8
45.4
386
220
114
29
77
51.8
13.2
35
3.2 (1), n.s.

1 (1), n.s.
9 (1), p , 0.01
9.8 (2), p , 0.01
79.2
20.8
52
44
8
84.6
15.4
166
144
22
86.7
13.3
14.4 (1), p , 0.01

7.8 (1), p , 0.01
0.4 (1), n.s.
42.8
4.6
52.6
182
122
55
8
59
45.1
6.6
48.3
402
274
120
15
139
43.8
5.5
50.7
1,284
670
345
81
244
51.5
12.1
36.4
9 (1), p , 0.01
38.4 (1), p , 0.01
2 (1), n.s.
16.3 (2), p , 0.01
66.2
33.8
60
55
5
91.7
8.3
128
100
28
78.1
21.9
614
478
136
77.9
22.1
33.6 (1), p , 0.01

33.6 (1), p , 0.01
0 (1), n.s.
55.2
10.4
34.4
180
124
60
9
55
48.4
7.3
44.4
146
102
63
5
34
61.8
4.9
33.3
326
226
123
14
89
54.4
6.2
39.4
536
322
176
24
122
54.7
7.5
37.9
16 (1), p , 0.01
17.6 (1), p , 0.01
21.2 (1), p , 0.01
1.5 (2), n.s.
114
35
79
30.7
69.3
56
21
35
37.5
62.5
44
36
8
81.8
18.2
100
57
43
57
43
214
92
122
43
57
1,478
59.6
550
22.2
452
18.2
1,002
40.4
5.8 (1), p , 0.05

4.4 (1), p , 0.05
13.7 (1), p , .01
2,480
55.2 percent, n 53) was more frequently shown in the ads

during the two different periods. And, in the use of
transformational strategies, the emphasis on an appeal
(either atmospherics or family appeals) was significantly
strategies to use FSA appeals. In the informational strategy,

there was no significant shift to use the three appeals before
and during the crisis (x2 2 1:5, n.s.), as service quality
158
Volume 25 Number 3 2011 150 164
changed during the crisis (x2 1 13:7, p , 0.01). In detail,

atmospheric appeal was far more used during the crisis (57
percent, n 57) while family appeal was dominant before the
crisis (63.9 percent, n 79).
possibility of deception and misleading from consumers were

less utilized in FSA during the crisis (Abernethy and Franke,
1996; Preston, 2002). This finding shows the extent to which
financial crisis has led to changes in crisis management
strategies of FSOs motivation and ability to protect or
reinforce a variety of important marketing communication
outcomes including the corporate reputation, social
responsibility, account acceptance, and negative word-ofmouth by releasing informational advertising (Arpana and
Roskos-Ewoldsen, 2005; Coombs and Holladay, 2006).
Another explanation for this finding could be the role of
governmental interventions and regulatory guidelines about
information provision (i.e. advertising disclosure) of FSA.
Financial insecurity represented as excess debt, insufficient
savings, poor retirement planning, and suboptimal financial
management behavior attracts considerable concerns from the
US policy makers and civic groups during the financial crisis
(Kozup and Hogarth, 2008). From a public policy and
consumer welfare standpoint, one of the governmental
remedies and social responses to reduce the vulnerability of
consumers is information disclosure (Bone, 2008). Warren
(2008) suggests that labels and disclosures on financial
products help consumers make more rational and effective
decisions about financial products and, at the same time,
provide regulatory compliance and liability protection for
financial service providers. In addition, it is important to point
out the tendency to discuss objective/strategy and principal
risks about financial services by increasing language clarity
and message readability of FSA. This finding is consistent
with extant literature in marketing communication indicating
that managers may alter their communication style (e.g.
clarity, readability) to meet changing conditions (Philpot and
Johnson, 2007).
Fourth, it is interesting to note that insurance companies
increased the total volume of advertising whereas investment
companies significantly reduced their advertising in business
and finance magazines in the financial crisis climate. In
general, research has indicated that investment companies
tend to spend more expenditure on advertising activities than
other financial services providers because investment
advertising has emerged as one of the most important
sources of information for individual investors when making
investment decisions (Capon et al., 1996; Jones and Smythe,
2003). However, it was likely that the credit crunch and
financial meltdown led investment companies to be cautious
or skeptical of their advertising nature and function to
primarily address risk perceptions, risk propensity, and
expected returns from the consumer decision-making
process because individual investors, even investment
experts, were inclined to avoid risky investment, and
households failed to make net financial asset purchases of
investment products in the financial crisis (Byrne, 2005). In
contrast, insurance companies might more easily and
proactively advertise their services during the crisis because
the market performance, relevance, value, and accountability
of insurance products are relatively apart from gains and
loss perceptions and risk and return judgments for either
novices or experts in decision making (Hinshaw, 2005).
Fifth, this study also looked at how different financial
services categories strive to communicate with potential
customers through print advertisements before and during the
financial crisis. During the crisis the primary advertising
appeals utilized by FSOs focused on financial value appeals
Discussion
This study revealed interesting findings that may contribute in
several ways to our understanding of the reaction of FSOs
before and during the financial crisis. First, this study found
that because of the economic struggle, there was a significant
decline in the total number of yearly FSA that appeared in the
business and finance magazines during the financial crisis
(32.2 percent). This current crisis was triggered by the
mortgage collapse and financial market crash in the US. As a
result, many FSOs cut budgets and downsized their business
expenses by decreasing the number of advertising activities.
Second, this study found that despite the declined
institutional role of FSA in terms of quantity, FSOs stepped
up communication efforts by increasing the proportion of ads
featuring on informational strategy over a transformational
one during the financial crisis, which evidences the changing
intensity of one of the FSAs institutional roles, that is, simply
providing appropriate financial information directly targeting
consumers. This finding is consistent with Everetts finding
that a previous economic crisis led to an increase in the use of
informational message strategy with more rational, functional,
and utilitarian appeals in advertising (Everett, 1988).
Furthermore, it might be inferred from the research findings
that the economic crisis would allow financial services
marketers to reconsider the institutional role of advertising
and be more concerned with informational strategy to reduce
confusion, uncertainty, and incredibility as well as present
more clear and conspicuous advertising claims. In other
words, the informational strategic approach is likely to offer
verifiable information and substantiated guidance on their
services and bring solace or confidence of their existence to
customers fiscal health.
Third, this study found that there were differences in the
use of overall FSA strategies among FSOs before and during
the financial crisis. In the two periods, all of the FSOs were
more consistent users of transformation strategies before the
crisis, but became information providers during the crisis. For
example, throughout their pre-crisis ads, credit card providers
in particular seemed to focus on either the image of the user,
the social aspects of the card, or the fun of having the card.
Only when the financial crisis became severe did the
organization shift to an informational approach. Like credit
card companies, banks, investment firms and insurance
providers appeared to have read the economic trends and
shifted their strategies in a timely manner. This suggests that
perhaps most FSOs are more attuned and socially responsible
to the market and the economic situation, and that in turn
market structures also affect the way financial services
providers deal with the crisis in a similar way. Furthermore,
FSOs were found to make a much greater attempt to provide
and reinforce informational contents of advertising such as
price-related information, composition of financial product,
service quality, performance, distribution, independent
research, company-sponsored research, and special offers
(Resnik and Stern, 1977). In contrast, it was found that
subjective advertising claims, anti-factual content detracting
from the informativeness of the ads, and leading to the
159
Volume 25 Number 3 2011 150 164
based on informational strategy and atmospheric appeals

based on transformational strategy. Specifically, across four
years of interest, FSOs placed the greatest value on the
dimension of services quality by employing specific appeals of
product effectiveness, product productivity, safety, and
personnel (e.g. financial advisor) wisdom for informational
advertising. However, in the financial crisis, the heavy use of
economy and convenience appeals indicating financial value
also elucidates the FSA changing bases of the competitive
and strategic process over the crisis. This finding supports the
idea that financial services providers need to place an
emphasis on lowering overall costs and the value of
convenient service for the satisfaction of consumers,
particularly business and professional consumers (Devlin,
1997; Levesque and McDougall, 1996).
In particular, the heavy use of advertising appeals related to
the financial value is meaningful to understanding the
institutional role of advertising in the financial marketplace.
According to elaboration likelihood model (ELM) (Petty and
Cacioppo, 1984), when elaboration is high, people evaluate
persuasive appeals by considering the veracity of the claims.
When elaboration is low, people are influenced primarily by
stylistic aspects of the message, which are termed peripheral
cues. Commonly cited peripheral cues include the number of
arguments presented in a message, attractive colors or
pictorial scenes, and the physical attractiveness of a
spokesperson in an advertisement (Petty and Cacioppo,
1984). Literacy is a key ability factor that should influence
whether a consumer is persuaded by peripheral cues rather
than message claims (Jae and Delvecchio, 2004). Indeed,
policy makers and consumer advocates are now concerned
about the low level of financial literacy by the average
American. Prior research has indicated that both laypeople
and experts may deviate from rational principles of judgement
and decision making in financial management due to the
intangible, complex nature of financial products and the
widespread use of simplifying heuristics leading to suboptimal
economic decisions (Harvey, 1998; Hedesstrom et al., 2007).
In that regard, the significant increase in the use of rational
approach and cognitive-based appeals dealing with financial
value in FSA should contribute to the interplay between
information provision on the sellers side and information use
on the buyers side in terms of the economics of information.
In addition, useful information provision and effective
communication tactics of FSA can improve the quality of
consumer decisions and serve the role of consumer education
in the financial marketplace.
Nonetheless, although informational advertising strategy
gained dominance in the financial crisis climate, FSA has
invariably continued to rely on the atmospheric dimension by
incorporating appeals to ornamentation of the physical
environment, a relaxing services encounter, and popularity
of the service provider for transformational advertising.
Specifically, popularity appeal was mentioned in the form of
reputation and repeat patronage as well as the
recommendation from friends and colleagues. Relaxation
appeal stressed comfort, rest, contentment, being at ease, or
being laid-back images and environments in ads. Some ads
contained only aesthetics, elegance, and artwork although it is
believed that people are disinclined to admit that ornamental
elements seriously affect their demand (LeBlanc and Nguyen,
1996). Based on these findings, FSOs have continued to
recognize and utilize atmospheric-related appeals for
transformational advertising because these appeals could be

easily fused to the nonverbal channel of communication and
the emotional messages to easily lead to various heuristic
choice rules commonly observed in human decision making
regardless of the financial crisis (Graber, 2002).
Moreover, because the purpose of this research was to take
a direct look at the change in FSA strategies in conjunction
with US financial crisis by focusing on ads published in the
US magazines, financial services marketers in different
countries should view US advertising strategies and crisis
communication activities identified in this study with caution.
Consistent with the prior research that American advertising
has tended to be information-oriented, direct rhetorical styles,
confrontational appeals, and hard-sell approaches based on its
own distinctive cultural value system and communication
patterns (Miracle et al., 1992), results from this study imply
that FSOs in the US may be more adapted to their
fundamental cultural values and communication styles by
increasing informational advertising and appeal strategies in
an ear of economic crises. Along this line, international
marketers for financial institutions should specifically address
the degree of congruency between cultural distinctions and
advertising strategies when conceiving crisis and/or marketing
communications plans during the economic crisis.
In the same vein, the findings of this study yield insights
into the standardization versus localization of FSA across
different cultures. As companies internationalize their
financial services and financial customers demands and
tastes have become more similar on a global scale,
international marketers might prefer to employ a
standardized advertising strategy across countries as a tool
of creating a worldwide brand image and recognition with
cost efficiency. However, cultural values or orientations
should be reflected in the financial decision making of local
consumers (Grable et al., 2009). Hence, for international
marketers, the message and appeal issues of FSA should be
addressed in response to a combination of economic,
historical, technological, socio-cultural, and political forces.
Finally, this study underscores the basic lesson of marketing
and marketing communications for all service providers: Stay
in touch with your consumer based and address changes and
their concerns in the marketplace. Indeed, Fall (2004) found
that tourism managers redirected their target audiences and
redesigned their promotional messages to support revamped
organizations objectives in the wake of 9/11. Considering that
advertising is one of the key components in service marketing,
all service providers should continue to carefully monitor and
restructure their marketing communications to establish
effective crisis-response procedures.
Limitations and future study

As with most studies, this study has certain limitations that
should be addressed in the future. First, most importantly, as
this study focused on analyzing FSOs FSA messages, the
findings help us understand their strategic reaction to the
crisis. However, we know that their efforts may not be always
perceived in the same way by their consumers. Future study
may consider how the change of message and appeal strategies
by FSOs affects their consumers (e.g. reinforcement of brand
loyalty, financial risk-perception, attitude change to a financial
service, purchase intention change to a financial product,
etc.).
160
Volume 25 Number 3 2011 150 164
Second, as this study used only print advertising, the

findings could bring reliability and validity issues. To
overcome these matters, future research should aim at not
only other traditional media such as television and radio, but
also new media like the internet, podcastings, or weblogs. In
doing that, the future study may provide additional analysis of
advertising and message strategies, and further give
researchers opportunities to examine the consistency of
these strategies across multiple media types.
Last, in a global economy in which multinational financial
services companies have emerged with operations in more
than one country and have rapidly built local customer bases,
the investigation of financial services advertising in other
countries would seem warranted. For example, global
financial services firms such as Visa, Master, American
Express, Citi, Met Life, New York Life, and Morgan Stanley
have successfully applied their knowledge of local consumers
underpinning needs and preferences into their marketing
strategy (Albers-Miller and Straughan, 2000). In addition, as
the world economy is expected to slow, with recent turbulence
in financial markets triggered by the fallout from the US
subprime mortgage market, a question deserves special
consideration from FSOs: Are the advertising strategies of
these global financial institutions the same in other countries,
or can US advertisers learn something from research
analyzing international services advertising? Future study
may answer this question.
Albers-Miller, N.D. and Straughan, R.D. (2000), Financial

services advertising in eight non-English-speaking
countries, International Journal of Bank Marketing, Vol. 18
No. 7, pp. 347-57.
Arpana, L.M. and Roskos-Ewoldsen, D.R. (2005), Stealing
thunder: analysis of the effects of proactive disclosure of
crisis information, Public Relations Review, Vol. 31 No. 3,
pp. 425-33.
Belch, G.E. and Belch, M.A. (1994), Advertising and
Promotion: An Integrated Marketing Communications
Perspective, McGraw-Hill/Irwin, New York, NY.
Bernanke, B.S. (2009), Four questions about the financial
crisis, available at: www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/
speech/bernanke20090414a.htm (accessed 28 April 2009).
Bone, P.F. (2008), Toward a general model of consumer
empowerment and welfare in financial markets with an
application to mortgage services, Journal of Consumer
Affairs, Vol. 42 No. 2, pp. 165-88.
Byrne, K. (2005), How do consumers evaluate risk in
financial products?, Journal of Financial Services Marketing,
Vol. 10 No. 1, pp. 21-36.
Capon, N., Fitzsimons, G.J. and Prince, R.A. (1996),
An individual level analysis of the mutual fund
investment decision, Journal of Financial Services
Research, Vol. 10 No. 1, pp. 59-82.
Carey, J.W. (1960), Advertising: an institutional approach,
in Sandage, C.H. and Fryburger, V. (Eds), The Role of
Advertising in Society, Richard D. Irwin, Homewood, IL,
pp. 3-17.
Chamberlain, N.W. (1977), Remaking American Values:
Challenge to a Business Society, Basic Books, New York, NY.
Coleman, R. and Wu, H.D. (2006), More than words alone:
incorporating broadcasters nonverbal communication into
the stages of crisis coverage theory evidence from
September 11, Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic
Media, Vol. 50 No. 1, pp. 1-17.
Coombs, W.T. and Holladay, S.J. (2006), Unpacking the
halo effect: reputation and crisis management, Journal of
Communication Management, Vol. 10 No. 2, pp. 123-37.
Culter, B.D. and Javalgi, R.G. (1993), Analysis of print ad
features: services versus products, Journal of Advertising
Research, Vol. 33 No. 2, pp. 62-9.
Devlin, J.F. (1997), Adding value to retail financial services,
Journal of Marketing Practice, Vol. 3, pp. 251-67.
Everett, S.E. (1988), Financial services advertising before
and after the crash of 1987, Journalism Quarterly, Vol. 65
No. 4, pp. 920-4.
Fall, L.T. (2004), The increasing role of public relations as a
crisis management function: an empirical examination of
communication restrategising efforts among destination
organization managers in the wake of 11th September,
2001, Journal of Vacation Marketing, Vol. 10 No. 3,
pp. 238-52.
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) (n.d.),
available at: www.fdic.gov/ (accessed 15 December 2008).
Firestone, S.H. (1983), Why advertising a service is
different, in Berry, L.L. (Ed.), Emerging Perspectives on
Services Marketing, American Marketing Association,
Chicago, IL, pp. 86-9.
Graber, D. (2002), Mass Media and American Politics, CQ
Press, Washington, DC.
Grable, J.E., Park, J.Y. and Joo, S.H. (2009), Explaining
financial management behavior for Koreans living in the
Conclusion
This study investigated how the US FSOs changed the way
they provided marketing information/messages and the way
they strategically used various appeals through their FSA
before and during the financial crisis. The results of this study
showed three significant findings:
1 There was a significant decline in the total number of
yearly FSA during the financial crisis.
2 The economic crisis led to an increase in the use of
informational message strategy across all FSOs rather
than transformational strategy that was more frequently
used before the crisis.
3 Financial value and atmospherics appeals over service
quality appeal were far more frequently used after 2007.
However, each financial organization used them in a different
way.
References
Abernethy, A.M. and Butler, D.D. (1992), Advertising
information: services versus products, Journal of Retailing,
Vol. 68 No. 4, pp. 398-419.
Abernethy, A.M. and Franke, G.R. (1996), The information
content of advertising: a meta analysis, Journal of
Advertising, Vol. 25 No. 2, pp. 1-17.
Advertising Age (2009), Ad spending heads into tepid
recovery, Advertising Age, December 28, available at:
http://adage.com/article?article_id141211
(accessed
January 25, 2010).
Albers-Miller, N.D. and Stafford, M.R. (1999),
International services advertising: an examination of
variation in appeal use for experiential and utilitarian
services, Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 14 Nos 4/5,
pp. 390-406.
161
Volume 25 Number 3 2011 150 164
United States, Journal of Consumer Affairs, Vol. 43 No. 1,

pp. 80-107.
Gross, D. (2008), The US economy faces the guillotine,
Newsweek, 4 February, p. 39.
Grove, S.J., Pickett, G.M. and LaBand, D.N. (1995),
An empirical examination of factual information content
among service advertisements, The Services Industries
Journal, Vol. 15 No. 2, pp. 203-15.
Gummesson, E. (1993), Quality Management in Service
Organizations, International Service Quality Association,
New York, NY.
Harvey, J.T. (1998), Heuristic judgment theory, Journal of
Economic Issues, Vol. 32, pp. 47-64.
Hedesstrom, T.M., Svedsater, H. and Garling, T. (2007),
Determinants of the use of heuristic choice rules in the
Swedish premium pension scheme: an internet-based
survey, Journal of Economic Psychology, Vol. 28 No. 1,
pp. 113-26.
Hinshaw, M. (2005), A survey of key success factors in
financial services marketing and brand management,
Journal of Financial Services Marketing, Vol. 10 No. 1,
pp. 37-48.
Iacobucci, D. (1992), An empirical examination of some
basic tenets of services, in Swartz, T.A., Bowen, D.E. and
Brown, S.W. (Eds), Advances in Services Marketing and
Management, JAI, Greenwich, CT, pp. 23-52.
Jae, H. and Delvecchio, D. (2004), Decision making by lowliteracy consumers in the presence of point-of-purchase
information, The Journal of Consumer Affairs, Vol. 38,
pp. 23-56.
Jones, M.A. and Smythe, T. (2003), The information
content of mutual fund print advertising, Journal of
Consumer Affairs, Vol. 37 No. 1, pp. 22-41.
Kiviat, B. (2008), Need a loan? The credit crunch is
reaching Main Street. How it might affect you?, Time,
13 October, p. 25.
Kotler, P. and Armstrong, G. (1994), Principles of Marketing,
Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
Kozup, J. and Hogarth, J.M. (2008), Financial literacy,
public policy, and consumers self-protection more
questions, fewer answers, Journal of Consumer Affairs,
Vol. 42 No. 2, pp. 127-36.
LaBand, D.N., Pickett, G.M. and Grove, S.J. (1992),
An empirical examination of the informational content of
services advertisements, American Marketing Association,
pp. 166-7.
LeBlanc, G. and Nguyen, N. (1996), Cues used by
customers evaluating corporate image in service firms:
an empirical study in financial institutions, International
Journal of Service Industry Management, Vol. 7, pp. 44-56.
Legg, D. and Baker, J. (1987), Advertising strategies for
service firms, in Surprenant, C. (Ed.), Add Value to Your
Service, American Marketing Association, Chicago, IL,
pp. 163-8.
Levesque, T. and McDougall, G.H.D. (1996), Determinants
of customer satisfaction in retail banking, International
Journal of Bank Marketing, Vol. 14 No. 7, pp. 12-20.
Lovelock, C. (1991), Services Marketing, Prentice-Hall,
Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
Lovelock, C. (2001), Services Marketing: People, Technology,
and Strategy, Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ.
Mangold, W.G., Miller, F. and Brockway, G.R. (1999), Wordof-mouth communication in the service marketplace,
Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 13 No. 1, pp. 73-89.
Mediamark Research (2008), available at: www.mediamark.
com (accessed 8 February 2008).
Miracle, G.E., Chang, K.Y. and Taylor, C.R. (1992),
Culture and advertising executives: a comparison of
selected characteristics of Korean and US television
commercials, International Marketing Review, Vol. 9 No. 4,
pp. 5-17.
Mortgage Asset Research Institute (2008), Quarterly fraud
report, available at: www.marisolutions.com/pdfs/mba/mor
tgage-fraud-report-2008Q1.pdf (accessed 28 October
2008).
New York Times (2008), Consumers feel the next crisis: its
credit cards, available at: www.nytimes.com/2008/10/29/b
usiness/29credit.html?_r2&refyourmoney (accessed
11 November 2008).
Nielson, W. (2008), Credit card services advertising down in
September, available at: http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwir
e/media_entertainment/credit-card-services-advertisingdown-in-september/ (accessed 22 October 2008).
Norris, V.P. (1966), Toward the institutional study of
advertising: occasional papers in advertising, The American
Academy of Advertising, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 59-73.
Pennington, R. (1993), Domestic and foreign advertising in
Mexican newspapers, paper presented at the Annual
Convention of the Association for Education in Journalism
and Mass Communication, Kansas City, MS, 12-15 August.
Perreault, W.D. Jr and Leigh, L.E. (1989), Reliability of
nominal data based on qualitative judgments, Journal of
Marketing Research, Vol. 26, May, pp. 135-48.
Petty, R.E. and Cacioppo, J.T. (1984), Source factors and
the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion, Advances
in Consumer Research, Vol. 11, pp. 668-72.
Philpot, J. and Johnson, D.T. (2007), Mutual fund
performance and fund prospectus clarity, Journal of
Financial Services Marketing, Vol. 11 No. 3, pp. 211-16.
Pine, J.B. (1993), Mass Customization: The New Frontier in
Business Competition, Harvard Business School Press,
Boston, MA.
Pollay, R.W. (1983), Measuring the cultural values manifest
in advertising, in Leigh, J.H. and Martin, C.R. Jr (Eds),
Current Issues and Research in Advertising, University of
Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, MI, pp. 71-92.
Pollay, R.W. (1985), The subsiding sizzle: a descriptive
history of print advertising, 1900-1980, Journal of
Marketing, Vol. 49 No. 3, pp. 24-37.
Potter, D.M. (1954), People of Plenty, University of Chicago
Press, Chicago, IL.
Preston, I.L. (2002), A problem ignored: dilution and
negation of consumer information by anti-factual content,
Journal of Consumer Affairs, Vol. 36 No. 2, pp. 263-83.
Puto, C.P. and Wells, W.D. (1984), Informational and
transformational advertising: the differential effects of
time, in Kinnear, T.C. (Ed.), Advances in Consumer
Research, Association for Consumer Research, Provo, UT,
pp. 638-43.
Resnik, A. and Stern, B.L. (1977), An analysis of
information content in television advertising, Journal of
Marketing, Vol. 41, pp. 50-3.
Reuters (2009), Three top economists agree 2009 worst
financial crisis since great depression: risks increase if right
162
Volume 25 Number 3 2011 150 164
Executive summary and implications for

managers and executives
steps are not taken, available at: www.reuters.com/article/

pressRelease/idUS19352027-Feb-2009BW20090227
(accessed 2 March 2009).
Riffe, D., Lacy, S. and Fico, F.G. (1998), Analyzing Media
Messages: Using Quantitative Content Analysis in Research,
Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ.
Rotzoll, K.B. (1976), Advertising in the large: four
institutional views, Journal of Advertising, Vol. 5 No. 3,
pp. 9-15.
Sandage, C.H. (1972), Some institutional aspects of
advertising, Journal of Advertising, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 3-10.
Schudson, M. (1984), Advertising, the Uneasy Persuasion:
Its Dubious Impact on American Society, Basic Books,
New York, NY.
Stafford, M.R. (1996), Tangibility in services advertising:
an investigation of verbal versus visual cues, Journal of
Advertising, Vol. 25 No. 3, pp. 13-28.
Stafford, M.R. and Day, E. (1995), Retail services
advertising: the effects of appeal, medium, and services,
Journal of Advertising, Vol. 24 No. 1, pp. 57-71.
Stern, B.B. (1988), How does an ad mean? Languages in
services advertising, Journal of Advertising, Vol. 17 No. 2,
pp. 3-14.
TNS Ad$spender (2009), TNS media intelligence reports
US advertising expenditure declined 14.7 percent in first
nine months of 2009, December 8, available at: www.tnsmi.com/news/2009-Ad-Spending-Q3.htm
(accessed
January 20, 2010).
Vargo, S.L. and Lusch, R.F. (2004), The four service
marketing myths: remnants of a goods-based,
manufacturing model, Journal of Service Research, Vol. 6
No. 4, pp. 324-35.
Warren, E. (2008), Product safety regulation as a model for
financial services regulation, Journal of Consumer Affairs,
Vol. 42 No. 3, pp. 452-60.
Young, R.F. (1981), The advertising of consumer services
and the hierarchy of effects, in Donnelly, J. and George, W.
(Eds), Marketing of Services, American Marketing
Association, Chicago, IL, pp. 196-8.
Zeithaml, V.A. and Bitner, M.J. (2000), Services Marketing:
Integrating Customer Focus across the Firm, McGraw-Hill,
Boston, MA.
Zeithaml, V.A., Parasuraman, A. and Berry, L.L. (1985),
Problems and strategies in services marketing, Journal of
Services Marketing, Vol. 49, Spring, pp. 33-46.
Zinkhan, G.M., Johnson, M. and Zinkhan, F.C. (1992),
Differences between product and services television
commercials, Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 6,
Summer, pp. 59-66.
This summary has been provided to allow managers and executives

a rapid appreciation of the content of this article. Those with a
particular interest in the topic covered may then read the article in
toto to take advantage of the more comprehensive description of the
research undertaken and its results to get the full benefits of the
material present.
Once upon a time, when you read financial services
advertisements in newspapers and magazines, all seemed
well with the world. You could make your money grow in safe
investments. You did not have to wait until you had saved
enough money for that new car or luxury holiday. You could
borrow against your house, which was steadily rising in value,
or put it on the credit card. Everyone, it seemed, was a
winner. Well, we know better now. Financial service
organizations advertisements will not be guaranteeing us
riches beyond our realistic expectations any more. We will be
reading them after we have taken off those rose-tinted
spectacles.
In an uncertain and complex environment where economic
conditions are likely to remain difficult, advertising activity of
the financial services organizations (FSOs) is expected to
undergo a challenging period of adjustment. Advertising by
credit card services companies including Capital One,
Discover, Synovus, Washington Mutual, and Visa dipped
significantly in the first three weeks of September 2008 as the
ongoing economic turmoil in the US reached a boiling point.
Advertising spending by other sectors of the financial services
industry has also declined steadily.
Then, how do FSO advertising managers react proactively
yet sensitively to the noxious mix of fiscal aggravation,
damaged normal operations, jeopardized image, and
organizational culpability during an economic crisis? It
seems that they are forced to agonize over the best way to
communicate to handle their vulnerability and potential
consequences of the crisis. Despite how solid their advertising
strategy may have been up until that point, they may need to
reinvestigate their underlying strategies that are central to
their advertising activity.
In A strategic response to the financial crisis: an empirical
analysis of financial services advertising before and during the
financial crisis, Taejun D. Lee et al. examine how FSOs used
print advertising before and during the financial crisis of
2007-2008, which has been referred to as the most serious
financial crisis since the Great Depression. The results of their
study showed three significant findings:
1 There was a significant decline in the total number of
yearly financial service advertisements (FSAs) during the
financial crisis.
2 The economic crisis led to an increase in the use of
informational message strategy across all FSOs rather
than transformational strategy that was more frequently
used before the crisis.
3 Financial value and atmospherics appeals over service
quality appeal were far more frequently used after 2007.
Further reading
Ferguson, N. (2008), The end of prosperity?, Time,
13 October, pp. 36-9.
Pollay, R.W. (1986), The distorted mirror: reflections on the
unintended consequences of advertising, Journal of
Marketing, Vol. 50 No. 2, pp. 18-36.
However, each financial organization used them in a different

way.
The study underscores the basic lesson of marketing and
marketing communications for all service providers: stay in
Corresponding author
Taejun (David) Lee can be contacted at: davidtjlee@
gmail.com
163
Volume 25 Number 3 2011 150 164
touch with your consumer base and address changes and their
concerns in the marketplace. Considering that advertising is
one of the key components in service marketing, all service
providers should continue to carefully monitor and
restructure their marketing communications to establish
effective crisis-response procedures.
FSOs stepped up communication efforts by increasing the
proportion of ads featuring informational strategy over
transformational, simply providing appropriate financial
information directly targeting consumers. There were
differences in the use of overall FSA strategies among FSOs
before and during the financial crisis. In the two periods, all of
the FSOs were more consistent users of transformation
strategies before the crisis, but became information providers
during the crisis. For example, throughout their pre-crisis ads,
credit card providers in particular seemed to focus on either
the image of the user, the social aspects of the card, or the fun
of having the card. Only when the financial crisis became
severe did the organization shift to an informational approach.
FSOs were found to make a much greater attempt to
provide and reinforce informational contents of advertising
such as price-related information, composition of financial
product, service quality, performance, distribution,
independent research, company-sponsored research, and
special offers. In contrast, it was found that subjective
advertising claims, anti-factual content detracting from the

informativeness of the ads, and leading to the possibility of
deception were less utilized in FSA during the crisis. One of
the governmental remedies and social responses to reduce the
vulnerability of consumers is information disclosure.
During the crisis the primary advertising appeals utilized by
FSOs focused on financial value appeals based on
informational strategy and atmospheric appeals based on
transformational strategy. Specifically, across the four years of
interest, FSOs placed the greatest value on the dimension of
services quality by employing specific appeals of product
effectiveness, product productivity, safety, and personnel (e.g.
financial advisor) wisdom for informational advertising.
However, in the financial crisis, the heavy use of economy
and convenience appeals indicating financial value also
elucidates the FSAs changing bases of the competitive and
strategic process over the crisis. Financial services providers
need to place an emphasis on lowering overall costs and the
value of convenient service for the satisfaction of consumers,
particularly business and professional consumers.
(A precis of the article A strategic response to the financial crisis:
an empirical analysis of financial services advertising before and
during the financial crisis. Supplied by Marketing Consultants for
Emerald.)
To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: reprints@emeraldinsight.com

Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints
164

5

Transféré par

Informations du document

Copyright

Formats disponibles

Partager ce document

Partager ou intégrer le document

Options de partage

Avez-vous trouvé ce document utile ?

Ce contenu est-il inapproprié ?

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

5

Transféré par

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

Journal of Services Marketing

Emerald Article: A strategic response to the financial crisis: an

A strategic response to the financial crisis:

slowly, reaching from subprime borrowers and home builders

An executive summary for managers and executive

Journal of Services Marketing

Received September 2009

A strategic response to the financial crisis

Journal of Services Marketing

Taejun (David) Lee, Wonjun Chung and Ronald E. Taylor

Volume 25 Number 3 2011 150 164

In a very uncertain and complex environment where

perspective, advertising brings buyer and seller together on

Has there been an overall change in the number of

Advertising strategies of financial services

A strategic response to the financial crisis

Journal of Services Marketing

Taejun (David) Lee, Wonjun Chung and Ronald E. Taylor

Volume 25 Number 3 2011 150 164

word-of-mouth of the organization and its people in order

consuming the advertised brand with a unique set of

Has there been a change in the use of FSA strategies

Beyond the aggregate analysis of the use of FSA strategies, it

Has there been a change in the use of FSA strategies

A strategic response to the financial crisis

Journal of Services Marketing

Taejun (David) Lee, Wonjun Chung and Ronald E. Taylor

Volume 25 Number 3 2011 150 164

ads offers us opportunities to understand the extent to which

chosen for this study: Businessweek, The Economist, Fortune,

Finally, three factors such as services quality, innovativeness

Has there been a change in the use of FSA appeals

Like RQ3, this study further examines how each FSO

Has there been a change in the use of FSA appeals by

Coding categorization development

A strategic response to the financial crisis

Journal of Services Marketing

Taejun (David) Lee, Wonjun Chung and Ronald E. Taylor

Volume 25 Number 3 2011 150 164

Table I Operational definitions of FSA strategies and appeals

Providing factual financial service/product information about a brand or company

services ad among the list of 13 financial services advertising

A strategic response to the financial crisis

Journal of Services Marketing

Taejun (David) Lee, Wonjun Chung and Ronald E. Taylor

Volume 25 Number 3 2011 150 164

frequently, followed by insurance (21.6 percent), credit cards

Table II Intercoder reliability indices

Perreault and Leigh

Notes: Ir F=N 2 1=kk=k 2 1:5 for F/N $ 1/k, Ir 0 for F/

During the crisis

9.9 (1), p , .01

A strategic response to the financial crisis

Journal of Services Marketing

Taejun (David) Lee, Wonjun Chung and Ronald E. Taylor

Volume 25 Number 3 2011 150 164

During the crisis

2.54 (1), n.s.

14.4 (1), p , 0.01

4.8 (1), p , 0.05

4.0 (1), p , 0.05

atmospheric appeal (during the crisis: 76.3 percent, n 29;

after 2007 (n 318, 46.5 percent) than before the year

A strategic response to the financial crisis