Maria Elena Aramendia-Muneta, Mar Rubio-Varas and Joseba De la Torre
This study aims to examine how the nuclear energy issue was used for advertising purposes at the dawn of the atomic era in Spain.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine how the nuclear energy issue was used for advertising purposes at the dawn of the atomic era in Spain.
Design/methodology/approach
Newspapers and magazines from the atomic era were reviewed to assess the impact of nuclear energy on advertising campaigns for all kinds of unrelated products. This study interprets the message and information contained in several marketing campaigns from the detonation of the first nuclear bomb in 1945 until the inauguration of the first nuclear facility in Spain in 1968.
Findings
Private companies leapt at the chance to use the new technology, with its promises of a brighter future, to promote their products, including watches, Venetian blinds, anisette, chocolates, pencils and fountain pens, spa resorts, books and encyclopaedias, laundry detergents, pressure cookers, concentrate feeds and hair restorers. This study makes a major contribution to the history of marketing literature, focusing on nuclear energy as an influential agent in industry, advertising agencies and popular culture. It shows how advertising campaigns used terms such as “nuclear”, “atomic” and “atomic bomb” and images of mushroom clouds or atom symbols to denote modernity and allure and explores how government policies – in this case, concerning nuclear energy – can influence marketers and advertisers.
Originality/value
The paper’s originality stems from its analysis of Spanish advertisements to explore marketing history through the terms and imagery associated with nuclear energy and its industry. It further contributes to the understanding of how nuclear energy is represented and conceptualised for various purposes in popular culture.
Details
Keywords
Higher economic growth accompanied by rising energy demand poses severe challenges to the long-term environmental sustainability of E7 economies, including Brazil, China, India…
Abstract
Purpose
Higher economic growth accompanied by rising energy demand poses severe challenges to the long-term environmental sustainability of E7 economies, including Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia and Turkey. Thus, this paper explores the influence of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows on energy diversification for E7 economies.
Design/methodology/approach
The dataset is panel data for emerging seven (E7) economies, covering the period 1992–2017. The empirical investigation relies on econometric techniques: panel cointegration test and panel autoregressive distributed lag model.
Findings
The findings reveal that energy diversification and FDI inflows are cointegrated. In the long run, higher FDI inflows encourage energy diversification, but energy efficiency improvements discourage energy diversification. In the short run, the effects of FDI inflows on energy diversification vary across E7 economies, highlighting the role of country-specific factors in determining the short-run influence of FDI inflows on energy diversification.
Research limitations/implications
The findings suggested that FDI policies should encourage the adoption of nonconventional energy resources to stimulate energy diversification in E7 economies. Besides, better coordination between energy diversification and energy efficiency policies is required in the long run for a successful transition towards low-carbon economy goals.
Originality/value
This study is a unique empirical exercise that uncovers a cointegrating relationship between energy diversification and FDI inflows for E7 economies. Moreover, the analysis provides homogenous long-run and heterogeneous (country-specific) short-run coefficient estimates for the effect of FDI inflows on energy diversification.