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According to evolutionary psychology studies (e.g., Buss 1989), women select partners mainly based on their financial prosperity, highlighting the importance of financial success among males. In that sense, Gulas and McKeage (2000) found that exposure to advertising containing idealized images of financially successful males reduced males’ level of self-esteem. However, they investigated only negative effects in terms of self-perceptions, but not advertising effectiveness, and more importantly, they did not include in their analysis attractiveness.

The present research aims to cover this gap, focusing on comparison of marketing effects of using successful versus attractive male spokesperson in advertising on male and female consumers. Among two experimental studies, we demonstrated that when a male consumer compares himself to an attractive male spokesperson, the attitude toward the ad is …