Correspondence: Jami A. Fullerton, Oklahoma State University, 700N Greenwood Ave., Tulsa, Oklahoma 14106, USA. E-mail: jami.fullerton@okstate.edu

¹is a Professor and holds the Welch Chair in Strategic Communication at Oklahoma State University. She is the author of Advertising's War on Terrorism with Alice Kendrick. She received her PhD from the University of North Texas, USA. Her research interests included cross-cultural communication and media globalization.

²obtained her PhD from University of Tennessee, USA, and is a Professor of Advertising in the Temerlin Advertising Institute, Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, USA. Her research interests include mass media and public diplomacy, advertising education and career paths, and de-consumption of products.

³obtained her PhD from Queensland University of Technology, Australia. She is a senior lecturer in advertising and IMC at the School of Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations, Queensland University of Technology. She worked in the creative side of advertising, before joining academia more than a decade ago to teach and research in advertising and integrated marketing communication. Her areas of research interest include advertising ethics and self-regulation, advertising management and strategic research, integrated marketing communication and educational issues in both advertising and IMC.

Received 21 January 2009.

Abstract

A study among Australian college students gauged their reactions to a television commercial produced for the US Commerce Department to bolster sagging tourism numbers among international visitors. In addition to using traditional measures applied to tourism advertisements, the study also included items to measure attitudes toward the US government and its people. Pre- and post-viewing results indicated that although the Hollywood-movie-themed commercial was not well received by the Australian students as a tourism message, it did result in more favourable attitudes toward the US government, although not the US people. The findings lend partial support for the potential of tourism advertising efforts to exert a 'bleed-over effect' in terms of their contribution to overall attitudes toward a country, regardless of whether viewers plan to visit the country whose travel advertisements they see.