Australasian Marketing Journal

This study examines how moods elicited by television programmes influence viewer attitudes, intentions, cognitive responses and recall when considered in conjunction with a commercial's affective tone, and message framing. Three hypotheses are tested addressing: (1) The predictions of the mood congruency and mood consistency models. (2) Whether mood effects for the two models are moderated by self-esteem. (3) The interaction of mood state and message framing.

An experiment using actual television programmes and differentially framed and affectively toned commercials found that sad commercials resulted in more favorable intentions and greater recall than happy commercials under both happy and sad mood conditions. These findings contradict prevailing mood theory, yet are supported by protection motivation theory, cognitive priming, stereotyping and self-discrepancy perspectives. The mood, affective tone and self-esteem interaction was not evident. Framing results support research on the negative bias and the notion that incongruent information prompts more elaborative processing.

This paper examines the power bases used by the most influential person in the buying centre established for the selection of the services of an advertising agency. Findings suggest that expert power and referent power are important determinants of manifest influence. Kohli's (1989) measure of information power is found to be inadequate, and may require a new scale to measure possession and use of information, as opposed to the process of obtaining information.

How should a postgraduate research student present a thesis? This paper provides a structure as a starting point for understanding what a thesis should set out to achieve, and also provides a basis for communication between a student and his or her supervisor. Firstly, criteria for judging a thesis are reviewed and justification for its structure is provided. Then writing style is considered. Finally, each of the five sections are described in some detail: introduction, literature review, methodology, analysis of data, and conclusions and implications.

(1) Students writing their theses need to address specific research questions, and take clear positions with respect to these questions. (2) They should strive to present, validate and discuss their own research contributions, and in so doing demonstrate how they have made distinct contributions to knowledge. (3) An appropriate structure for this purpose is to start at the end, by writing the thesis around key findings. (4) Throughout, the aim should be to communicate effectively, so that the evidence and position with respect to the research questions is crystal clear and unambiguous. (5) Academic or institutional conventions which impede these goals should be firmly challenged.