The Risk of Vampire Effect in Advertising

The concept of vampire effect in advertising appears to be underresearched by marketing specialists. In the race for getting attention of target audience advertisers often use special attention-getting devices. This in turn exposes them to a higher risk of creating a vampire effect when the core message about the brand or a product is eaten up by such devices. Therefore this study provides deepeer insights into the vampire effect occurences. A deductive approach is used. First secondary literature review on preconditions of vampire effect occurrences and various types of vampire effect is covered. Primary data collection and analysis is performed next. This part is narrowed down to researching vampire effect risks when using celebrities as attention-getting device in printed advertisement. Research tools of this study include an eye-tracking device and a survey of 72 students from the University of Economics in Prague. The research concludes that a significantly higher risk of creating a vampire effect exists when using an unrelated attention-getting device. Marketers are advised to use related celebrities if choosing to stick to the attention-getting device approach. However, the concept of "relatedness" should be effectively pre-tested prior to advertising campaign start.