News

More than 700 academic and industry experts will gather from October 7-10, 2004, at the Hilton Portland (921 S.W. 6th Avenue) in Portland, Ore. for the 32nd annual Association for Consumer Research conference. The conference will cover a broad range of topics from advertising to politics and is of significance to academics, industry experts, public policy and ordinary consumers. Portland State University's School of Business Administration has helped with the organization of the conference.

With more than 1,700 members, the Association for Consumer Research (ACR) is the world's leading organization for advanced research on all aspects and dimensions of the consumption experience. In addition to furthering academic research, presentations at the annual conference help inform a wide variety of applications, including product development, advertising, marketing and communications and public policy.

Some of the conference research topics include "The Effects of Negative Political Advertising," a very timely session that will center on results from research on how negative advertisements change voter behavior; "Speed Dating", which will focus on how actual consumer decisions correspond with what consumers say and believe about the drivers of their decisions, and "Impact of Racial Attitudes on Consumer Purchase Decisions", which will examine how a product's ethnic origin, not just its country of origin, may impact racist consumers' attitudes towards the product.

Charla Mathwick, associate professor of Marketing at Portland State University, will present on the topic "The Effect of Playful Web Experiences on Brand Attitude Formation," which shows that immersive web experiences are likely to have a stronger influence on creating favorable brand attitudes than the reaction to the information on the brand's web page. Mathwick will present on Friday, October 8, 2004, at 8:30 a.m.

The cost for the conference is $470 for non-members and $430 for members. For a complete schedule of the presentations or for more information about the conference, please contact R.M. Unni, Portland State University, at 503-725-3707 or Akshay Rao, University of Minnesota, at 612-624-8049 or Geeta Menon, New York University, at 212-998-0513 or visit www.acrweb.org/acrcm/conference/index.aspx.

Source:
R.M. Unni (503-725-3707)
School of Business Administration