EFFECTS OF COMPARATIVE ADVERTISING IN HIGH-AND LOW-COGNITIVE ELABORATION CONDITIONS

ABSTRACT:

An experiment using print ads as experimental stimuli base that the relationship between consumer attitudes and comparative advertisement intensity (CAI) tread on the heels ofs a rotated S-shaped pattern; in other words, it is a thirdorder 1 with a local maximum at the minimum value of CAI, and also a local maximum at the approximately third quartile value of CAI. Consumer attitudes were greatest in quantity positive either when there was no brand comparison (the minimum condition) or when the comparison was moderately intense (the third quartile condition). The rotated S-shaped pattern was more pronounced in the high-cognitive elaboration (CE) condition than in the low-CE condition. single week after exposure to the ads, the rotated S-shaped pattern disappeared in the one and the other the high- and low-CE conditions, on the other hand the attitudes declined more in the high-CE condition than in the low-CE condition. Managerial implications are discussed.

The research upon comparative advertising, wherein a outcome or service is explicitly compared with that of a competitor, has obtained mixed rises On the one hand, a certain number of researchers (e.g., Levine 1976; Shimp and Dyer 1978) set that comparative ads are no more effective than noncomparative ads. upon the other hand, Demirdjian (1983) Pechmann and Ratneshwar (1991) and Tannenbaum (1976) showed that comparative ads were more effective and advocated their use above noncomparative ads. To reconcile this discrepancy, Donthu (1992) allude toed that the intensity of the comparison in an ad should be taken into account. Comparative advertisement intensity (CAI) is quantifiable, as discussed below. Donthu's findings showed that consumer attitudes were greatest in quantity positive when the intensity of the comparison was moderate, and les positive when there was either no comparison or a highly intense comparison.

In the at hand study, we seek to stretch out Donthu's (1992) research on comparative advertising through including cognitive elaboration (CE) as a variable. Despite the large material substance of research on CE (eg diminutive and Cacioppo 1986; Wilson and Brekke 1994) no attempt has been made to examine the event of CE on consumers' reactions to comparative ads. The not away study set out to fill this gap. Drawing upon Kelley's (1967, 1973) attribution theory, we move that the pattern of the relationship between CAI and consumer attitudes should be an S-shape rotated 90 stages anti-clockwise, as shown in Figure 1 We set that Donthu's (1992) findings are characteristic of the lowCE condition. Finally, we examine the persistence of consumer attitudes formed below high- and low-CE conditions.

COMPARATIVE ADVERTISEMENT INTENSITY (CAI)

In his investigation of television ads, Donthu (1992) defined five horizontals of CAI, ranging from 0 to 4 where 0 stands for "no comparison" and 4 stands for "very intense comparison." The horizontal of CAI is determined by means of four factors: whether the competing brand is named or not (X1) whether specific rather than overall comparisons are made (X2) whether one-sided rather than two-sided comparisons are made (X3) and whether more than 50% of the time of a television commercial is wearied on comparisons (X4). Each of these factors, if not away can increase CAI by individual level, as shown in the following formula:

CAI = X1 + X2 + X3 + X4 (1)

Thus, CAI would be higher when the competing brand is explicitly named (Wilkie and Farris 1975) if the comparisons are made upon specific attributes (rather than a general statement saying that the advertised brand is better) (Wilkie and Farris 1975) if sole one-sided comparisons are made (Kamins and Assael 1987; Swinyard 1981) and if above 50% of the time for a television commercial is exhausted on comparisons.

The particular issue of one-sided versus two-sided comparisons has been widely researched. Researchers (eg Kamins and Assael 1987; Swinyard 1981) generally agree that twosided comparisons, consisting of the two favorable and unfavorable comparisons, make the ad les confrontational and thereby decrease the intensity of the brand comparison. upon the other hand, one-sided comparisons, although more intense, exhibit more counterarguments in the minds of consumer and lead to les acceptance than do two-sided comparisons (Kamins and Assael 1987; Swinyard 1981)

THE DISCOUNTING AND AUGMENTING PRINCIPLES

According to attribution theory (Kelley 1967 1973) whether a consumer believes the claims made in an ad hangs on the attributions that he or she makes concerning those claims (Gorn and Weinberg 1984) Kelley's discounting principle states that if a consumer attributes the claims to external factors, of that kind as environmental pressure on the advertiser to make cash by enticing consumers into buying the advertised outcome the believability of the claims will be discounted (eg Gotlieb and Sarel 1991) single example would be a shabbily aligned street hawker extolling the virtues of a pile of counterfeit ladies' handbags. The hawker's obvious financial ne would lead the consumer to finish that the hawker's claims are phony and that there is nothing particularly desirable about the bags (except perhaps, their depressed prices). On the other hand, Kelley's augmenting principle refer tos that when no plausible cause can be base in the environment, the consumer attributes the claims to the genuine beliefs of the advertiser, and the believability of the claims are increased (eg Swinyard 1981) single example is the series of Daimler-Benz commercials highlighting the safety features of Mercede passenger cars. Since the company is extremely wealthy and a world leader in its field, consumer are l to end that the claims are motivated by the agency of the company's genuine interest in safety, and the ads are therefore seen as credible. These sum of two units attribution principles have been generally supported by the agency of experimental studies (e.g., Hansen and Hall 1985; for a review, diocese Fiske and Taylor 1991). These studies also present to view that the discounting effects are more pronounced than the augmentation consequences