“The effect of humor on comparative versus
non-comparative advertising”
DO “STRICTLY” COMPARATIVE ADVERTISEMENTS, IN COMBINATION WITH HUMOR, LEAD TO HIGHER PURCHASE INTENIONS AND POSITIVE ATTITUDES
TOWARDS THE ADVERTISEMENT?
Master thesis, MSc Business Administration University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam Business School
June, 24, 2016 PHILIP PRIL 10150390 Rooseveltlaan 198-1 1087 NW Amsterdam Phil.pril@student.uva.nl Supervisor Frank Slisser
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my supervisor, Frank Slisser, for his time, guidance, and valuable feedback. It was a pleasure working with you and I wish you all the best in the future.
Statement of Originality
This document is written by Student Philip Pril who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.
I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it.
The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 1: Introduction ………...………...…... 8
1.1 Introduction ………... 8
1.2 Research goal ………...…... 10
Chapter 2: Theoretical Framework .…....…….…..……….... 12
2.1 Advertising………... 12
2.2 What is comparative advertising? ………..…..……...… 13
2.3 Comparative advertising tactics.……….……... 14
2.4 Humor and (comparative) advertising .……….……….………... 14
2.4.1 Types of Humor in (comparative) advertising ……….………...… 15
2.5 Comparative advertising effectiveness ……….………...…… 16
2.5.1 Attitude towards the Advertisement .………... 17
2.5.2 Effect of Humorous advertisements on Attitude towards the advertisement………...…...…... 18
2.5.3 Purchase Intention ……….……... 18
2.5.4 Effect of humorous advertisements on Purchase Intention .……… 19
2.5.5 Effect of Comparativeness on Humor ………. 19
Chapter 3: Problem Statement ……….……… 21
3.1 Research Question ………... 21
3.2 Theoretical and Managerial contribution ………... 21
3.3 Hypotheses ……….…..… 22
3.4 Research Model ……….………..… 25
Chapter 4: Research Design ……….………..…….………....….. 27
4.1 Method and Stimuli ……….. 27
4.2 Sample and Procedure ………..… 29
4.2.1 Questionnaires ……….. 29
4.2.1 Advertisements ………. 29
4.2.3 Participants ………... 31
Chapter 5: Results ………...…….……… 34
5.1 Purchase Intention ……….……. 34
5.3 Attitude towards the Advertisement ……….……….. 34
Chapter 6: Interpretation and Discussion………..………….… 36
Chapter 7: Conclusion ……….…. 38 7.1 Conclusion ………....……….….. 39 7.2 Managerial Implications ……….………….…… 40 7.3 Limitations ………..……….…… 41 7.4 Future Research References ………..………..….…………...……... 42 Appendices ………..……… 49
TABLE OF FIGURES
Figure 3.1 – Research Model ……….… 26
Figure 4.1 – Heineken; Comparative, Non-humor ………. 30
Figure 4.2 – Heineken; Non-comparative, Non-humor ……….. 30
Figure 4.3 – Heineken; Non-Comparative, Humor ………...…. 30
Figure 4.4 – Heineken; Comparative, Humor ………...…. 30
Figure 4.5 – Grolsch; Comparative, Non-humor ………....… 50
Figure 4.6 – Grolsch; Non-comparative, Non-humor ………...….. 50
Figure 4.7 – Grolsch; Comparative, Humor ………...……. 50
Abstract
Comparative advertising has become a popular marketing tool and can be of great interest for companies, managers and even in more specific marketers to inform consumers about their product or service. This Master’s Thesis provides an insight into how comparative versus non-comparative advertising, in combination with humor, effects consumer Attitude Towards the Advertisement and Purchase Intention. We conducted an experiment where we tested these different advertising strategies through an online survey. As we expected, comparative advertisements indeed lead to higher consumer purchase intentions than non-comparative advertisements, and comparative advertisements generate lower levels of consumer attitude towards the advertisements than non-comparative advertisements. Therefore you cannot say that comparative advertisements are superior to non-comparative advertisements, it depends on which consumer outcome you as a company, manager or marketer aim. However, what we do know because of this study is that humor plays a crucial role in (comparative) advertising. First, when the right humor type is used, and is interpreted in the right way by consumers, there is a big chance that it leads to higher consumer purchase intention and attitude towards the advertisement. Second, comparative humorous advertisements moderate consumer attitude towards the advertisement. For creating positive effects on consumer purchase intention and attitude towards the advertisement, using humor on both types of strategies, comparative and non-comparative advertising, can be the key and is more effective than not using humor at all. This means that when marketers are planning to implement a comparative advertising strategy to generate positive attitude towards the advertisement, it is advised to do it with humor. Although according to the findings in this study, humor in combination with comparative advertising does not lead to an extra, unique effect on purchase intention, the use of humor in comparative advertisements will not negatively harm the level of purchase intentions significantly. But extreme caution has to be paid when using humor. Little change in the interpretation of humor in the eyes of the customer can have extreme impact on the outcomes and therefore generate whole different outcomes.
Chapter 1
Introduction
1.1 Introduction
Advertising helps in informing to the customers regarding the availability of the product and service and is one of the ways to communicate from the company to the customer (Khare, 2015). The everyday lives of consumers are filled with advertising. Because we face advertising so often, we constructed mental shortcuts to deal with it (Dahlen & Edenius, 2007). Thus, when someone encounters an ad, he or she mentally activates a so-called advertising schema (Friestad & Wright, 1994). According to Hoch and Stafford (2002) helps this advertising schema us to interpret the persuasiveness of the ad.
As rivalries between competing brands intensify, firms must continuously develop
promotional messages and actions which encourage consumers to select their brand rather than “look-alikes” promoted by their competitors (Beard, 2013). Such messages can be prepared in either a comparative or non-comparative message format (Holmes, Dosen and Greenstone, 1995). Because of the increasing volume in the field of advertising as a
marketing tool, especially online advertising, it is important to do research on the outcomes of these new online advertising tactics and to test how these influence consumers’ attitude and persuasiveness (Van Noort & Antheunis, 2012).
Since it was first allowed firms have increasingly used comparative advertising as a marketing tool to communicate to the consumer that a particular product or service is superior to the same product or service offered by a competitor (Dommering, 2000). It was already in the eighties that in America, Pepsi used comparative advertising that led to the so-called ‘Cola-war’. Pepsi ran a series of commercials in which consumers, in a blind test, chose Pepsi over Coca Cola, while being caught on hidden camera (McKelvey, 2006). Where in America, comparative advertising is commonly used in politics, in the Netherlands in the field of retail, financial service and telecom the emphasize lies on attacking competitors on price, the so called: ‘price fighters’. Where for example two Dutch competing opticians, Specsaver and Hans Anders, do price comparisons of each other on television commercials (Riel, 2008).
Recently, Apple’s smartphone rivals used humor in comparative advertising to mock to the so-called “bendgate” surrounding the IPhone 6 Plus after customers complained that the newly-released phones had bent unexpectedly. “Curved. Not Bent,” Samsung posted humorously, along with a photo of its own Galaxy Note Edge phone, which features a purposely-curved edge (Digiday, 2014). In addition, Samsung mocked Apple also in a humorously way: “Our phone doesn’t bend, it flexes … on purpose,” wrote LG on Twitter (Digiday, 2014).
There are several studies that suggest various factors that influence the effectiveness of comparative and non-comparative advertising (Beard, 2015). According to Beard, who did research on comparative versus non-comparative advertising in the service brand sector, found in his results that the potential for negative outcomes are a very real possibility when prominent brands choose to go head to head using strictly comparative advertising
campaigns. A review of all the studies on the topic of comparative advertising published up to 1987 showed that researchers had failed to identify either a positive or negative effect of comparative versus non-comparative advertising (Rogers & Williams, 1989). In the decade of 2001-2010, studies of the effectiveness of comparative versus non-comparative advertising were split between those reporting a significant negative effect (Chakravarti & Xie, 2006; Shao, Bao and Gray, 2004) and those reporting non-significant differences (Chang, 2007; Thompson and Hamilton, 2006; Choi and Mircale, 2004). As the variety of literature in comparative advertising exists, no researcher conducted a study on the effect of comparative advertising versus non-comparative advertising in combination with humor on consumers’ attitude towards the advertisement and purchase intention.
Although comparative advertising functions as an effective and valuable marketing tool, former research has failed to research what the effect of this advertising strategy is when used in combination with humor. Therefore, the objective of this research is to investigate the relative effectiveness of comparative versus non-comparative advertising, and the role of humor in these, as an explanation for consumer attitude towards the advertisement and purchase intention differences. Beard (2015) did a similar study, where he researched for the variance in effectiveness between comparative versus non-comparative advertising, but this study differs on two fundamental aspects. First, Beard did research with companies in the service brand industry and in this study we are going to test companies that provide products and so are in the product brand industry. Second, Beard looked next to the difference between comparative and non-comparative advertising, at age differences. So, where Beard looked at
humor on this type of advertising strategy. In this way we are trying to close the literature gap where marketers gain insights in the risks and opportunities of using comparative versus non-comparative advertisements in combination with humor. Especially, firms and marketers gain insight in the advertisement strategies where the literature on this particular field is available but research of this topic in combination with humor is rare because there are many different humor types and the relative difficultness of testing this variable.
1.2 Research goal
The goal of this study is that the results of this research will provide marketing managers and researchers a valuable understanding of the different effects of comparative advertising versus non-comparative advertising, in combination with humor, on consumer purchase intention and attitude towards the advertisement.
Although the literature on comparative advertising already is widely investigated, less research is conducted about the direct difference between comparative versus
non-comparative advertising. Where in this study, we specifically test the non-comparative advertising strategy with the direct comparativeness type: directly attacking another brand in the
advertising rather than indirect comparative advertising where the name of a competitor is not explicitly mentioned (Belch, 1981). In this way, this study will provide an understanding whether the effect of this comparative advertising strategy is a more valuable tool compared with ‘traditional’ non-comparative advertising strategies on consumers purchase intention and attitude towards the advertisement. On top of that, we do research on product brands rather than the study of Beard (2015) where he used a service brand as measurement for comparativeness.
Moreover, this study provides important implications for companies using humor
As part of their overall (comparative) advertising strategy. The reason why testing the effect of humor on (comparative) advertising is of relevance and interest is twofold. First, the effect of humor in advertising can be unpredictable and therefore risky (Eisend, 2009). Humor is not a simple construct and therefore not easy to measure. There are a variety of humor types, where one humor type can lead to completely different outcomes (purchase intention and attitude towards the advertisement) than another humor type (Catanescu & Tom, 2001). Second, the literature on humor in comparative advertising is very rare. This study, where the effect of humor is tested on comparative advertising, will therefore deepen the current
towards the advertisement.
Thus by distinguishing comparative advertisements versus non-comparative advertisements with and without humour, the literature will be further deepened and will provide an even more elaborate image of the actual effect of (comparative) advertisement strategies. This study will enable marketers and researchers to understand whether the use of comparative advertising will provide them with the desired outcomes and which role humor plays in this advertising strategy.
Chapter 2
Theoretical Framework
In this chapter a comprehensive review of the relevant literature for this research will be discussed to understand what already has been studied about comparative advertising and non-comparative advertising and related variables, and the effect of this on attitude towards the advertisement and purchase intentions. First, advertising is going to be discussed in paragraph 2.1. After that, we go more specific and are discussing what comparative
advertising is. Thirdly, we discuss different comparative advertising tactics in paragraph 2.3. Then, in paragraph 2.4 we are going to discuss different humor types and the effect of humor on (comparative) advertising. In the last part of this chapter, we are going to discuss the dependent variables, purchase intention and attitude towards the advertisement, of this study and discuss the effect of (comparative) advertising on these variables.
2.1 Advertising
The everyday lives of consumers are filled with advertising. Advertising is a form of marketing communication, which concentrates on ‘establishing a set of feelings, emotions and beliefs about a brand or organization and changing the behaviour of people towards that brand or organization (Baines, Fill & Page, 2011, p. 381). Or as Lavidge and Steiner (2000) state, it should be seen as a process from creating brand awareness to brand knowledge to preference and eventually purchase. Advertising can also be differentiate into many forms of advertising, everything from radio and television to the newer online advertising, and from making us of celebrities to consumer- generated advertising (Choi & Gordon, 2004). We have become so used to advertising that we, as a customer, have constructed mental shortcuts to deal with it (Dahlen & Edenius, 2007). Thus, once encountered an ad, we mentally activate a so-called advertising schema (Friestad & Wright, 1994). This schema helps us interpret the ad as a persuasive attempt (Hoch, 2002). In an early advertising
textbook, Daniel Starch (1923, p. 5) suggested, “The simplest definition of advertising, is that advertising is selling in print.” Where the reference to “print”, of course, is reflected to the media of that time. Schultz (1995) states that advertising is every form of a commercial
promotional, from concert sponsorship to telemarketing, are a form of “advertising.” A more recent definition quoted by Armstrong and Kotler (2003) is: ‘any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or services by an identified sponsor’. Advertising research has shown that the context surrounding the advertisement has many effects on consumers ‘perceptions of, and reactions to, the content of the advertisement (Dahlen & Edenius, 2007). De Pelsmacker et al. (2002) state that different advertising strategies have different effects on variables like consumer cognitions, recall, attitudes and intentions. Is this also applicable for comparative advertising?
2.2 What is comparative advertising?
According to Soscia, Girolamo and Busacca (2010) do brands strive to enhance their market positions by differentiating themselves in current homogeneous markets. If necessary, they do this at the expense of their competitors and it is called comparative advertising (Soscia, Girolamo & Busacca, 2010). The most important reason why comparative advertisement is used is that it provides information about different brands in the market to the consumer (Eken, 2014). Comparative advertising is defined as advertising that compares alternative brands on objectively measurable attributes or price, and identifies the alternative brand by name, illustration or other distinctive information (Choi & Gordon, 2004). Comparative advertising has proved to be an effective instrument to inform consumers about the benefits of a product and to introduce new brands (Gotlieb & Sarel, 1991). On top of that, it informs consumers about alternative products, allowing them to evaluate the performance and therefore enabling them to make informed decisions about purchasing a service or product (Barigozzi & Peitz, 2006).
Comparative advertising can have several objectives. Firstly, it can have the objective to lead consumers to compare the sponsor brand with the alternative brand and thereby generate similarity among brands. Secondly, it can be used to explicitly show the difference between the sponsor brand and the alternative brand by stressing the benefits of the sponsor brand above the alternative brand (Soscia, Girolamo and Busacca, 2010). “Product X is the same as Product Y, but with much lower price”, is an example of comparative advertising that
stresses similarity. On the other hand, “Product X is much better than Product Y because this …”, is an example of advertisement that points the difference (Soscia, Girolamo and
2.3 Comparative advertising tactics
Distinction should be made between direct and indirect comparative advertising. When it is directly, the advertisement explicitly names the well-known competitor or the compared brand, and states that the comparison brand is inferior to or more expensive than the sponsor brand. When the comparative advertisement is indirectly, when the name of a competitor or the brand is not explicitly named (Wilkie and Farris, 1975). In an indirect comparative advertisement the name of a competitor is not explicitly mentioned (e.g. ‘this brand is much better than other brands’). This could result in mistakenly belief that a competitor has similar attributes as the sponsor brand, since the indirect advertisement does not name a particular competitor (Belch, 1981).
Another distinction that should be made in evaluating comparative advertisements is the familiarity of the sponsor brand (Pillai & Goldsmith, 2007). It is quite conceivable that consumers have different responses towards an advertisement that compares a familiar brand with an unfamiliar brand. An unfamiliar brand might have the objective to associate itself with a familiar competitor, while a familiar brand might want to differentiate itself from the competitor. In this way, newcomers can help to introduce new brands in a market and to gain legitimacy.
2.4 Humor and (comparative) advertising
The use of humor has become common practice in advertising. During the past decade, marketing mass communicators increasingly have employed humor as the motivational basis for their persuasive appeals (Sternthal & Craig, 2001). The belief that humor helps influence audience responses to the ad and the advertised product in a direction favourable to the advertiser increasingly stimulated the use of humor in advertising (Zang et al., 2007). But although the use of humor in advertising represents billions of dollars a year in spending, the effectiveness of humor as a communication device remains uncertain (Spotts et al., 1997). According to Catanescu and Tom (2001) it depends on how you look at it when retrieving its effectiveness. While this begs the issue of effectiveness, humor appears to be efficient in attracting attention to advertisements. Humor has been credited with increasing
comprehension of the ad, contributing to the positive attitude towards the ad and calling attention to an advertisement (Catensescu & Tom, 2011). On the other hand, the use of
humor may not be suitable for certain products or services, where the humor is inappropriate and therefore sucks attention away from the advertised product/message.
In recent years, parody and satire were more frequently used in comparative advertising but until now, academic research on this advertising tactic is rare (Beard, 2013). Beard (2013) states that using humor in comparative advertising could have a positive effect on
advertising. Further, Beard (2013) suggests that the use of humor could moderate the
perception of comparative advertisements as negative and mean. On top of that, Beard (2013) found that comparative advertisements are more effective when the advertisement is
considered more creative. Also Jean (2011) found in his study that people find parody “an amusing way to communicate” (p.22).
2.4.1 Types of humor used in comparative advertising
Stern (1996) claims that the basis of humor can be divided into four types: verbal/physical and romantic/satire. The first continuum, physical and verbal, is crucial to the electronic media, for whereas radio is de locus of verbal humor and television most often uses physical humor because of its physical action on the screen – “words” versus “action” (Stern, 1996). The second dimension, satire and romantic, is indebted to theories of laughter that
differentiate between two types of audience responses: laughter with the characters and laughter at them – “laugh with” versus “laugh at” humor (Stern, 1996).
Catanescu and Tom (2001) made a study in order to determine differences by medium. They found that it does, which suggests that managers should consider the type of humor to use in particular advertisements. In other words, different types of humor are more effective and better suited than to different media. They defined the following seven types of humor (Catanescu & Tom, 2001):
1. Comparison – putting two or more elements together to produce a humorous situation 2. Personification – Attributes human characteristics to animals, plants or other objects 3. Exaggeration – Overstating something out of proportion
4. Pun –humor Situations that are classified as silliness
5. Sarcasm – blatant ironic responses or situations (close to silliness) 6. Silliness – making funny faces to ludicrous situations
Where, according to Catanescu & Tom (2001), sarcasm is the most popular used form of humor in television and print media. But even though the variety of different humor types is not great, their effects differ significantly (Chang & Chang, 2014). For example in
advertisements, by using humor elements, consumers’ attention can be aroused, resonance can be stimulated and thus formed better advertising attitudes than other types of humor (Chang & Chang, 2014). As a result, it is important to differentiate among these types. As Catanescu & Tom’s (2001) research shown, the study revealed that humor is used more in television advertisements than print advertisements. These findings support the belief of advertising on television is the most effective.
On the other hand, attention has to be paid with the use of sarcasm as humor type in this study. Advertisements containing sarcasm are at risk of being misunderstood (Lagerwerf, 2007). If consumers fail to recognize an intentional use of irony or sarcasm in commercial advertising, they may end up disliking the advertisement and reject corresponding intention (Sperber & Wilson, 1986). Therefore, conducting a pre-test in this study is necessary to make sure that the stimuli including sarcasm humor is not misunderstood or will generate disliking feelings towards the advertisement.
Lastly, according to Charles and Weinberger (2006), yellow goods’ are most appropriate (humor and non-humor) in measuring advertising effectiveness. These goods are expressive, low involvement and low risk products. Charles and Weinberger (2006) provide in their study examples of these goods: snack foods, desserts, beer, alcohol and tobacco products.
2.5 Comparative advertising effectiveness
Prior research on most cognitive advertising outcomes (such as message processing,
attention, and message recall) almost overwhelmingly supports a conclusion that comparative advertising is more effective than non-comparative advertising (Grewal et al., 1997; Rogers & Williams, 1989). Surveys of Beard (2013) and Rogers and Williams (1989) show they also believe, on average that comparative advertising is more effective than non-comparative advertising for achieving recall of message claims and brand attributes.
Conversely, historical research also shows that many advertisers were concerned about the believability of comparative advertisements (Beard, 2013). Research findings on affective responses (attitude towards the brand and attitude towards the advertisement) and conative outcomes (purchase intention) also are somewhat mixed. Will humor in comparative
advertising will result in either a positive or negative effect on band attitude and purchase intention?
2.5.1 Attitude towards the advertisement
To gain more detailed insights into the effectiveness of comparative advertising, this study examines users’ attitudes towards the advertisement and purchase intentions toward comparative advertising. Affective process outcomes, attitude towards the advertisement, capture how advertising encourages favourable feelings toward an advertisement (Beard, 2013). But attitude towards the advertisement is not a simple construct, it is critical to our understanding of effective advertising strategy (Percy & Rossiter, 1992). General advertising attitudes can influence attitudes towards the advertisement (MacKenzie et al., 1986).
Attitudes towards the advertisement are defined as the consumers’ overall evaluations of an advertisement (Wilkie, 1986). Or according to Eagly and Chaiken (1993, p.1) attitude towards the advertisement is: “a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular advertisement some degree of favour or disfavour.” Attitudes towards the
advertisement are important because they often form the basis for real consumer behaviour and therefor brand choice (Keller, 1993). According to Zeithaml (1988), attitude towards the advertisement can be related to beliefs of product-related attributes in the mind of the
consumer and the functional and experiential benefits, consistent with perceived quality. Research findings on affective consumer response (attitude towards the advertisement) are somewhat mixed. A review of all the studies on this topic published up to 1987 showed that researchers failed to identify either a positive or negative effect of comparative versus non-comparative advertising (Rogers & Williams, 1989). According to Grewal et al. (1997), comparative advertising has been found to generate more negative attitude towards the advertisement than non-comparative advertisements. On the other hand, agency creative professionals believe that comparative advertising is less effective than non-comparative advertising for achieving attitude towards the advertisement (Beard, 2013).
In the decade of 2001-2010, studies of the effectiveness of comparative versus
non-comparative advertising in achieving attitude towards the advertisement were split between those reporting non-significant differences (Chang, 2007; Choi & Mircale, 2004; Thompson & Hamilton, 2006) and those reporting a significant negative effect (Chakravarti & Xie,
2.5.2 Effect of humorous (comparative) advertisements on Attitude towards the advertisement
One of the strategy types of comparative advertising is the use of humor. A meta-analytical research (Eisend, 2009) shows that humor has a positive strong effect on attitude towards an advertisement. Further, Dee (1993) claimed that the presence of humor effectively increases attentions towards ads. Also the research of Rossiter and Percy (1997) shows that humor effects desirable responses by attracting attention and makes ads more memorable (Rossiter & Percy, 1997). In addition, Weinberger et al. (2007) found evidence that humor is directly linked to attention, recognition and purchase intention. According to Zhang and Zinkhan (2006) humor helps to influence audience responses in favour of the advertiser. Moreover, the funnier and more relevant the humor, the more likely it is to cause a change in the consumers’ attitude (Zhang & Zinkhan, 2006). When humor is perceived as appropriate for advertising a particular product or service it can make the ad more likeable (Rositter & Percy, 1997). Zhang et al. (2007) conclude that humor can have a huge influence on the attitude of a consumer, especially when this is used when involvement of customers is low (Zhang et al., 2007).
2.5.3 Purchase intention
Another variable that is influenced by comparative advertising is consumer’ purchase intention. Purchase intentions are formed under the assumption of a pending transaction. Therefore, this can be considered as an important indicator of an actual purchase. If a product is judged low in value, purchase intention is expected to be low and therefore the actual purchase is considered also to be low (Chang & Wildt, 1994). On the other hand, when the value of a product is perceived to be high, the purchase intention is expected to be high and therefore also the actual purchase intention is considered to be high. General advertisements enhance the purchase intention because they attract attention and promote favourable
attitudes and perceptions.
Prior research on comparative advertising and non-comparative advertising also is inconclusive. A literature review revealed that the failure to identify either a positive or negative effect of comparative versus non-comparative advertising on purchase intention
(Rogers & Williams, 1989). Since 1997, five works have appeared reporting direct effects of comparative versus non-comparative advertising on purchase intention, with three reporting non-significant differences (Chang, 2006) and two reporting positive findings in favour of comparative advertising (Barone & Miniard, 2004). Rogers and Williams, concluded that researchers had failed to identify either a positive or negative effect of comparative versus non-comparative advertising on purchase intention. Grewal et al., on the other hand, report that comparative ads increase purchase intention more than non-comparative ads. Beard (2013) similarly report that creative executives agree that comparative advertising is more effective than non-comparative advertising for achieving purchase intention, but less
effective for encouraging repeat purchase. Further, Stewart (1990) did research on the effect of comparative advertising on purchase intentions. In his research, low-share brands gained from comparative advertising and detract purchase intention for established brands.
2.5.4 Effect of humorous (comparative) advertisements on Purchase Intention Communication managers in the United States have generally assumed that humor enhances advertising’s effectiveness (Madden and Weinberger, 1984). According to Scott et al. (1990) humor is more likely to enhance purchase intention when the humorous message coincides with ad objectives, is well integrated with those objectives and is viewed as appropriate for the product category. A meta-analytical research (Eisend, 2009) shows that humor has a significant positive effect on purchase intention.
Advertisements with humorous elements can be draw more attention compared with those without humorous elements. In previous literature, it was discovered that humorous ads had positive effects on attracting consumers’ attention (Geuens & Pelsmacker, 2011). Based on the study of Huang and Kuo (2010), it was suggested that advertisements using humor in advertisements would result in persuasive effects, and therefore increase purchase intention.
2.5.5 Effect of Comparativeness on Humor
As stated above, literature on the effect of humor on purchase intention and attitude towards the brand are available, but no research is conducted regarding the effect of humor on
comparativeness of an advertisement. According to Catanescu and Tom (2011) it depends on how you look at it when retrieving its effectiveness. While this begs the issue of
effectiveness, humor appears to be efficient in attracting attention to advertisements. But does the effect of humor differ in consumer purchase intention and attitude towards the
Chapter 3
Problem Statement
3.1 Research Question
Literature on the (direct) effect of comparative versus non-comparative advertising, and this in combination with humor, on consumer purchase intention and attitude towards the
advertisement is extremely rare. Therefore, in this study we try to deepen and clarify the current literature and try to close this gap by investigating the following research question:
“How does comparative versus non-comparative advertising, in combination with humor, effects attitude towards the advertisement and purchase intention?”
We will specify our variables in the Research Design (chapter 4) section.
3.2 Theoretical and Managerial contribution
This research will make a contribution to the existing literature in several ways. First of all, we are going to search for the differences between comparative and non-comparative
advertisements and how these effects result in customer’s attitude towards the advertisement and purchase intentions. This would be an added value to the current literature because in this way managers, marketers and researchers will know if strictly comparative advertisements (with or without humor) are more or less effective than non-comparative advertisements. Thus, this study will provides important implications for companies using comparative or non-comparative advertising as part of their overall advertising strategies. In this way, companies can realize the opportunities and the additional drawbacks of using strategies. On top of that, a better understanding of the causal dynamics of attitude and intention formations would not only aid marketers in measuring the attitudinal impact of marketing variables, but also help managers develop more effective marketing strategies.
Furthermore, by researching the differences between humor and non-humor (comparative) advertisements, distinction can be made on the effectiveness of these strategies. Knowing for
a marketer if humor is appropriate and when not can be of great value. Especially if using humor in advertisement is inappropriate and therefore can lead to negative brand image of the brand (Santos & Venus, 1980). On top of that, this would be an added value to the current literature because literature on using humor in ads is rare and therefore the current literature will be deepened and more clarified.
Lastly, through counterbalance our study, we will replicate the study of Pechmann and Stewart (1990) and test if the outcomes are consistent. In the study of Pechmann and Stewart (1990), where they combined comparative advertising with the market share of the company, they found that direct comparative claims in the product brand industry attract attention and thereby enhance purchase intentions for low-share brands, but detract from purchase
intentions for established brands by increasing awareness of competitor. With this study we will deepen and clarify the current literature regarding these findings.
3.3 Hypotheses
In order to answer the research question, several hypotheses can be formulated that are based on the theoretical framework. Since 1977, five works have appeared reporting the direct effects of comparative versus non-comparative advertising on purchase intention, with the reporting a non-significant difference and two reporting positive findings in favour of comparative advertising (Grewal & Kavanoor, 1997). Prior research on most cognitive advertisement outcomes, such as attention, attitude towards the advertisement, purchase intentions, message recall, and message processing, supports a conclusions that direct comparative advertising is more effective than comparative non-comparative advertising (Grewal et al., 1997; Rogers & Williams, 1989). According to Rogers and Williams’s survey of advertising creative executives representing the top 500 U.S. agencies and Beard’s (2013) recent replication both report that respondents agreed comparative advertising is relatively more effective than non-comparative advertising for achieving purchase intention. Also, Grewal et al. (1997) reported in his study that comparative ads increase purchase intentions more than non-comparative ads.
H1: Comparative advertisements lead to higher purchase intentions than non- comparative advertisements.
Research findings on affective consumer response (attitude towards the advertisement) are somewhat mixed. A review of all the studies on this topic published up to 1987 showed that researchers failed to identify either a positive or negative effect of comparative versus non-comparative advertising (Rogers & Williams, 1989). According to Grewal et al. (1997), comparative advertising has been found to generate more negative attitude towards the advertisement than non-comparative advertisements. On the other hand, agency creative professionals believe that comparative advertising is less effective than non-comparative advertising for achieving attitude towards the advertisement (Beard, 2013).
In the decade of 2001-2010, studies of the effectiveness of comparative versus
non-comparative advertising in achieving attitude towards the advertisement were split between those reporting non-significant differences (Chang, 2007; Choi & Mircale, 2004; Thompson & Hamilton, 2006) and those reporting a significant negative effect (Chakravarti & Xie, 2006; Donthu, 1998; Shao et al., 2004). Taking all these studies into consideration, our second hypothesis is:
H2: Comparative advertisements lead to lower attitude towards the advertisement than non-comparative advertisements.
Another advertising strategy that is used by marketers is advertising through humor. Weinberger et al. (2007) found evidence that humor is positively linked to attention, recognition and purchase intention. Beard (2013) states that using humor in comparative advertising could have a positive effect on advertising effectiveness since consumers will be distracted which could prevent from counterarguments. Further, Beard (2013) suggests that the use of humor could moderate the perception of comparative advertisements as negative and mean. On top of that, Beard (2013) found that comparative advertisements are more effective when the advertisement is considered more creative.
A meta-analytical research (Eisend, 2009) shows that humor has a positive strong effect on attitude towards an advertisement. In addition, Dee (1993) claimed that the presence of humor effectively increases attentions towards ads. Also the research of Rossiter and Percy (1997) shows that humor effects desirable responses by attracting attention and makes ads more memorable (Rossiter & Percy, 1997). When humor is perceived as appropriate for advertising a particular product or service it can make the ad more likeable (Rositter & Percy,
encourage desire among consumers for a product and therefore affect the ultimate decision to purchase it (Beard, 2013).
Advertisements with humorous elements can be draw more attention compared with those without humorous elements. In previous literature, it was discovered that humorous advertisements had positive effects on attracting consumers’ attention (Huang and Kuo, 2010). Based on the study of Huang and Kuo (2010), it was suggested that advertisements using humor in advertisements would result in persuasive effects, and therefore increase purchase intention. Also Koo and Ju (27) claimed that advertisements using humorous elements scored higher in persuasive effects than the average.
On top of that, studies have shown that advertising through humor is an effective way to gain attention (Eisend, 2009; Rossiter & Percy, 1997). Furthermore, 55% of advertising research executives believes humor to be superior to non-humor in gaining attitude and conative outcomes (Madden & Weinberger, 1984). On top of that, Speck (1987) compared humorous advertisements with non-humorous advertisements on over attitude. He found humorous advertisements outperform non-humorous advertisements on the attitude measure. According to Zhang and Zinkhan (2006) humor helps to influence audience responses in favour of the advertiser. Moreover, the funnier and more relevant the humor, the more likely it is to cause a change in the consumers’ attitude (Zhang & Zinkhan, 2006). Jean (2011) found that people find parody “an amusing way to communicate” (p.22). Consistent with the above theoretical development, it is expected that a humorous advertisements will elicit more favourable responses and cognitions than non-humorous advertisements and therefore:
H3: Humorous advertisements lead to higher purchase intention.
H4: Humorous advertisements lead to higher attitude towards the advertisement.
It might be that whether comparative advertisements are effective rely on whether or not humor is included in the advertisement. As stated, with regard to comparative advertising, research does not come with a clear answer of the effectiveness on attitude towards the advertisement. What we do now, stated above, is that studies of the effectiveness of comparative versus non-comparative advertising in achieving attitude towards the
Choi & Mircale, 2004; Thompson & Hamilton, 2006) and those reporting a significant negative effect (Chakravarti & Xie, 2006; Donthu, 1998; Shao et al., 2004). Taking into consideration that humor has an unique additive effect at comparative advertisements, we propose humor to moderate the relation between comparativeness on attitude towards the advertisement. That is, we only expect comparative advertisements to work when there is also humor included:
H5: Humorous comparative advertisements lead to higher level of attitude towards the advertisement than humorous comparative advertisements, or non-humorous non-comparative advertisements.
To my knowledge, no research is conducted regarding the combined effect of humor and comparativeness on purchase intention. Therefore, I do not expect humor to moderate the relation between comparativeness and purchase intention. In other words, humor and comparativeness both lead to greater purchase intention, but the purchase intention is not differently affected when both humor and comparativeness are combined.
H6: The use of humor in comparative advertisement does not lead to an extra, unique effect on purchase intention.
3.4 Research Model
In light of the above literature review, this study developed a conceptual framework (Figure 1) for exploring comparative advertisements versus non-comparative advertisements, in combination with humorous elements, and their relationship attitude towards the
advertisement and purchase intention effectiveness. The following model provides a
representation of the conceptual framework and a representation of the hypotheses tested in this study.
Chapter 4
Research Design
4.1 Method and Stimuli
The focus of this study lies on investigating the effectiveness of comparative versus non-comparative advertisements, and examine which role humor plays in this effectiveness. Therefore, the experiment of this study has a 2 (comparative vs. non-comparative) x 2 (humor vs. non-humor) factorial design. The questionnaire took place online via the questionnaire programme Qualtrics. Since both constructs, purchase intention and attitude towards the advertisement, have been widely tested in previous research and the constructs are clear, questionnaires with standard questions are used to test our study (Muehling et al., 1990; Yi, 1990).
The experiment consists of four different (comparative) advertisements strategies. To test the effectiveness of these strategies it is important to choose a product, and therefore brand(s), that suits best to test our hypotheses. The research objective (investigating how consumers respond to comparative versus non-comparative advertising, in combination with humor, on behalf of product brands) precluded the use of fictional brands and necessitated the use of two existing brands/companies. Thus, we do our experiment with a familiar brand that attacks another familiar (direct) competitor. This because otherwise we have no starting point on testing consumers’ purchase intention and attitude towards the advertisement before the manipulation (baseline measurement). We can only ask participants their attitude towards the advertisement and purchase intention towards a company when they are familiar with it. On top of that, the respondents of this study will be selected through convenience sampling method, and therefore most (not all) participants will be Dutch. That is way it is the best to use (familiar) Dutch companies in the experiment because the product and brand(s) have to be known by the participants, otherwise, as stated above, a baseline measurement (the ‘before’ condition) is impossible.
As stated in paragraph 2.4, products that are most effective for both humor and non-humor advertisements are expressive, low involvement and low risk ‘yellow goods’ (Charles &
strategies, we are going to use beer as the product type in our experiment. As we test the effect of humor on (comparative) advertising it makes sense to use one of these
(expressive/low involvement/low risk) product types and therefore we choose beer. This because the respondents will be mainly students and the product beer is common, interesting and accessible for this target group.
In addition, in our experiment we are going to use sarcasm as humor type in own-designed advertisements. The reason for that is twofold. First, according to Catanescu & Tom (2001), sarcasm is the most popular used form of humor in television and print media. Because we want to test the effect of our manipulation as best as possible (to become as much reliable as possible), we think that we have to choose the humor type that all participants are most familiar with. Second, designing an advertisement for our experiment with the sarcasm is most simply and straight forward. With designing a sarcasm advertisement you only have to do two things: choose an original photo and add a text that differs from the original
advertisement.
Lastly, we choose two equal market share brands in the Dutch beer market: Heineken and
Grolsch. This because, two studies (Demirdjan 1983; Shimp & Dyer 1978) found that
consumers are most likely to be persuaded to purchase a low-share advertised brand it is directly compared to a high-share comparison brand. Also Pechmann and Steward (1990) found that direct comparative claims in the product brand industry attract attention and thereby enhance purchase intentions for low-share brands, but detract from purchase intentions for established brands by increasing awareness of competitors. In other words, according to Pechmann and Stewart (1990) state that direct comparative advertising strategies for low-share brands will effect consumer purchase intention and brand attitude more than for high-share brands. To test if there are significant differences between brand A is attacking brand B, or vice versa, we are going to counterbalance. This means, we are going to test both ways around where Heineken attacks Grolsch and Grolsch attacks Heineken.
According to news article Beurs (2014), Heineken is market leader in the Dutch beer market closely followed by Grolsch and therefore we do not expect significant differences regarding the dependent variables on the base of brand choice.
Taking all these aspects into consideration for choosing the right product, brands and humor type, we choose to compare beer from Heineken and Grolsch with sarcastic humor
advertisements. This because Heineken and Grolsch are two well-known brands on the Dutch market and beer is a familiar expressive, low involvement and low risk product. As stated earlier in this paragraph, because sarcasm as humor element in advertisements is tested most
effective on respondents’ attitude, we choose to use this type in our experiment for the two conditions with including humor.
4.2 Sample and Procedure 4.2.1 Questionnaires
The questionnaires took place online via the questionnaire programme Qualtrics. All relevant and acknowledged measures of the constructs that are studies are derived from previous research (see: 4.2.3. Measures). These measurements are set up in English, therefore these questionnaires are developed in English.
Each questionnaire started with a short introduction stating that the questionnaire was about the effectiveness of advertisements. Participants were also told that the answers would be processed anonymously, that there were no right or wrong answers and that the participants should follow their first intuition in answering the questions. Further, participants were told that participation is completely voluntary and they have the right to withdraw at any time or refuse to participate entirely. On top of that, we told that all data obtained from participants will be kept confidential and will only be reported in an aggregate format (by reporting only combined results and never reporting individual ones). After reading the introduction and answering the questions, the participants were asked to fill out their gender, age and educational background.
After the introduction, respondents were subjected (at random) to one of the four conditions: comparative ad with humor, comparative ad without humor, non-comparative ad with humor and non-comparative ad without humor. Every question needed to be answered in order to submit the questionnaire. The participants could only proceed to the next page if all questions were answered and it was not possible to back a page.
4.2.2 Advertisements
In order to measure the effectiveness of comparative versus non-comparative advertising (in combination with humor) on attitude towards the advertisement and purchase intention, the advertisements where displayed all equally. Each stimulus advertisement had a headline, logo and slogan. Besides the manipulations, all other content characteristics – such as colour, size, lay-out, typefaces – were identical across treatments. In this way it is possible to truly
research the single effect of every comparison for the different advertising strategies. Examples of the advertisements where Heineken attacks Grolsch (4 manipulations; comparative advertisement with humor, comparative advertisement without humor, non-comparative advertisement with humor and non-non-comparative advertisement without humor) are shown below. A complete overview of all the advertisements can be found in appendix A.
Figure 4.1 – Heineken; Comparative, non-humor Figure 4.2 – Heineken; Non-comparative, non-humor
Figure 4.3 – Heineken; Non-comparative, non-humor Figure 4.5 – Heineken; Comparative, non-humor
The research objective (investigating how consumers respond to comparative versus non-comparative advertising, in combination with humor, on behalf of product brands) precluded the use of fictional brands and necessitated the use of two existing brands/companies.
Therefore, to further reduce undesirable effects and for making sure that the outcome is the only result of the stimuli (respondents do not know the advertising already), the format of the advertisements are made especially for this study and a pre-test was conducted to check the manipulations. The pre-test has shown that humorous advertisements were rated more funny
(M =5.04, SD = 1.13) than non-humorous (M = 2.00, SD = .98), comparative advertisements
were rated more comparative (M = 1.93, SD = .24) than non-comparative advertisements (M = 1.06, SD = .24), and it does not matter which brand mocks the other brand (Grolsch M = 3.51 , SD = 1.81; Heineken M = 3.78, SD = 1.94).
4.2.3. Participants
In May 2016, participants were approached to participate in this study through convenience sampling method is through Facebook, via an e-mail, or face-to-face. Finding respondents through Facebook is relatively easy and less time consuming than offline sampling. Because we have four conditions in this study: comparative advertisement with humor, comparative advertisement without humor, comparative advertisement with humor and
non-comparative advertisement without humor, we needed at least 200 respondents (50 per condition).
A total of 206 participants took part in the study with 4 questionnaires that where not finished completely (1.94% missing items ratio), and therefore the total number of valid participants were N=204. The average age of the participants was 25.3 years old (SD = 4.63). This average age of participants is corrected by setting one participants age variable on ‘missing’ because one participant stated that he/she was 267 years, what is impossible and can mean that he/she meant to be 26 or 27 years old. With the exclusion of this variable, the average age therefore slightly decreased (from 26.5 years to 25.3 years on average). From the total of respondents 69,4% (n=143) is male and 28.6% (n=59) is female. Lastly, the participants indicated their highest or current education level: 58.3% (N=120) had a Master’s degree, 30.1% (n=62) had a Bachelor’s degree, 3.9% (n=8) where High school graduate, both 2.4% (n=5) have Doctorate degree or higher, 2.4% (n=5) had Some college and 1.0% (n=2) have been doing Less than high school.
4.2.3. Measures
The objective of this study is to do research on the differences in effectiveness between comparative versus non-comparative advertising, in combination with humor, on attitude towards the advertisement and purchase intention. Responses to the two dependent variables, attitude towards the advertisement and purchase intention, were measured using a 7-point scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).
The two variables were measured using previously developed scales (Muehling et al., 1990; Yi, 1990). The attitude towards the advertisement scale consisted of four 7-point bipolar items with anchors of (Yi reported a Cronbach’s α of 0.85):
o good/bad
o interesting/uninteresting o like/dislike
o irritating/not irritating
The intention to purchase a product or service is a relative clear construct to measure. As discussed, purchase intentions are formed under the assumption of a pending transaction. Therefore they could be considered as an important factor of an actual purchase. Purchase intention also was measured using Yi’s three-item scale (Yi reported a Cronbach’s α of 0.89). The bipolar anchors for the 7-point scale consisted of:
o likely/unlikely o possible/impossible o probable/improbable
The two extracted factors include 7 items in total. To investigate whether these items can be merged into two variables, the new variables are tested on their reliability (appendix A). Both items, attitude towards the brand an purchase intention, had high level of Cronbach’s Alpha which show that it could be assumed that all items measure the same construct. Since a Cronbach’s Alpha of .7 or above is the ideal value that is considered reliable (DeVellis, 2003), all items in this study are very reliable because they are internal consistent. The Cronbach’s Alpha coefficients are: .911 (purchase intention) and .837 (attitude towards the
advertisement). Where, for both, deleting one item would decrease the Cronbach’s Alpha and therefore it is assumed that all items measure the same construct.
Chapter 5
Results
In this chapter the results of the quantitative study are discussed. The data is analysed with the statistical software program IBM SPSS 22. The relevant output and tables can be found in appendix A. On both measures, we conducted univariate Analyses of Variance (ANOVA) with humor (non-humor vs. humor) and comparativeness (non-comparative vs. comparative) as between-subjects variables. We will discuss the correlations and results of Purchase Intention and Attitude towards the advertisement independently from each other.
5.2.1 Purchase Intention
The Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) of humor and comparativeness on purchase intention revealed a main-effect of humor, F(1,198) = 53.17, p < .001, η2 = .21, meaning that humorous advertisements generally generate higher levels of purchase intention (M = 5.25, SD = 1.32) than non-humorous advertisements (M = 4.01, SD = 1.10). Next to this, there was a main-effect of comparativeness, F(1,198) = 5.01, p = .026, η2 = .03, meaning that comparative advertisements generate higher levels of purchase intention (M = 4.83, SD = 1.31) than non-comparative advertisements (M = 4.45, SD = 1.39). There was no interaction effect of humor and comparativeness on purchase intention, F<1, p= .491.
5.2.2 Attitude towards the Advertisement
The Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) of humor and comparativeness on attitude towards the advertisement revealed a main-effect of humor, F(1,198) = 94.91, p < .001, η2 = .32, meaning that humorous advertisements generally generate higher levels of attitude towards the advertisement compared to non-humorous advertisements. Next to this, the analysis revealed a main-effect of comparativeness, F(1,198) = 29.15, p < .000, η2 = .13, meaning that comparative advertisements generate lower levels of attitude towards the advertisement than non-comparative advertisements. The analysis also revealed a significant interaction effect of humor and comparativeness on attitude towards the advertisement, F(1,198) = 18.39, p <
.001, η2 = .09. To interpret this interaction effect, we ran two separate t-tests of the effect of comparativeness at non-humorous and humorous advertisements. At non-humorous
advertisements, there was a higher attitude towards the advertisement in non-comparative (M = 5.25, SD = 1.32) as compared to comparative (M = 3.12, SD = 0.77) advertisements, t(97) = 9.24, p < .001, d = . However, in humorous advertisements, there was no difference between the non-comparative (M = 5.28, SD = 1.03) and comparative conditions (M = 5.12, SD = 1.37), t <1, p = .510.
Chapter 6
Interpretation and Discussion
In this chapter the results discussed above are shortly summarized and interpreted by using the assumptions deducted from the theoretical framework.
Previous studies have shown positive findings in favor of comparative advertising on purchase intention (Grewal & Kavanoor, 1997; Rogers & Williams, 1989). The assumption that comparative advertisements lead to higher purchase intention than non-comparative advertisements was confirmed by the findings discussed in chapter 5.3. This is in line with the findings of Rogers and William’s (1989) and Beard (2013) where in both studies they reported that respondents agreed that comparative advertising is relatively more effective than non-comparative advertising for achieving purchase intention. On the other hand, the findings of this study show that comparative advertisements lead to lower attitude towards the advertisement than non-comparative advertisements is consistent with the findings in previous studies (Chakravarti & Xie, 2006; Donthu, 1998; Shao et al., 2004), where they found significant negative effects between comparative advertisements and attitude towards the advertisement.
As the results show, humorous advertisements lead to higher purchase intention than for non-humorous advertisements. This is in line with the assumption we made in chapter 3 where Weinberger et al. (2007) found evidence that humor is positively linked to attention,
recognition and purchase intention. Reasons for that, according to Beard (2013), could be that when humor is used in advertising the consumers will be distracted which could prevent from counterarguments and these humorous advertisements are considered more creative which is more effective. This is also in line with the findings in the study of Huang and Kuo (2010), where they found that advertisements using humor in advertisements would result in persuasive effects, and therefore increase purchase intention. This also goes for attitude towards the advertisement where the assumptions, humor has a positive strong effect on attitude towards the advertisement (Eisend, 2009), is consistent with the findings of this study. Next to Jean (2011), who found that people find parody “an amusing way to
responses in favour of the advertiser. Moreover, the funnier and more relevant the humor, the more likely it is to cause a change in consumers’ attitude (Zhang & Zinkhan, 2006).
For attitude towards the advertisement a general moderation effect has occurred.
The results in this study show that non-humorous, non-comparative advertisements have greater influence on attitude towards the advertisement than non-humorous comparative advertisements. Meaning that, non-humorous advertisements are more positively associated with attitude towards the advertisement when the advertisement is non-comparative, than when no humour is used in comparative advertisements. When humor is used in comparative or non-comparative, no differences are found regarding to the Attitude towards the
advertisement. This is in line with the assumption we made that (comparative and non-comparative) advertisements with humor lead to higher attitude towards the advertisements compared to non-humorous comparative advertisement, or non-comparative advertisements without humor. Simply said, humorous advertisements are more positive effective than non-humorous comparative and non-comparative advertisements when it comes to attitude towards the advertisement. A reason could be that when humor is used in comparative advertising, consumers see comparing with another brand (without humor) as something negative or silliness. As a result, when consumers are subjected to comparison in an humorous advertisement, they will be distracted form mocking with another brand which prevents them from forming counterarguments as they found the advertisement funny (Beard, 2013). For purchase intention no moderation effect has occurred. These findings are also consistent with the assumption we made earlier, where humor and comparativeness lead to greater purchase intentions, but the purchase intention is not differently affected when humor and comparativeness are combined and therefore does not lead to an extra, unique effect on purchase intention. This finding therefore does not indicate that comparative advertisement including humor lead to positive purchase intention.
Chapter 7
Conclusion
7.1 Conclusion
In this study an attempt is made to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the effects of comparative versus non-comparative advertising on purchase intention and attitude towards the advertisement. Simultaneously it is attempted to gain insight which role humor, sarcasm, plays in these advertising strategies on consumers’ purchase intention and attitude towards the advertisement.
With regard to the research question, how does comparative versus non-comparative advertising, in combination with humor, effects attitude towards the advertisement and purchase intention, it can be argued that in general the findings in this study confirm findings from previous research and therefore confirm the assumptions made in chapter 3.
Comparative advertisements indeed lead to higher purchase intentions than compared to non-comparative advertisements. But at the other hand, non-comparative advertisements lead to lower levels than non-comparative advertisements when we it comes to consumers’ attitudes towards the advertisement. A reason for that could be that consumers who see that one brand is attacking another brand in an advertising see the comparativeness as something
inappropriate or silliness. This means that you cannot say that comparative advertisements are superior to non-comparative advertisements, it depends on which consumer outcome you as a company or marketer want to accomplish.
However, what we do know because of this study is that humor plays a crucial role in (comparative) advertising. The reason for that is twofold. First, when the right humor type is used, and is interpreted in the right way by consumers, there is a big chance that it leads to higher consumer purchase intention and attitude towards the advertisement. This sounds logical but when the humor is inappropriate in the eyes of the customer it may lead to completely different outcomes where both, purchase intentions and attitude towards the advertisement, are decreasing. Second, comparative humorous advertisements moderate consumer attitude towards the advertisement. When humor is used in comparative advertising it generates a higher level of attitude towards the advertisement than when no humor in
comparative advertisements, or no humor in non-comparative advertisements is used. This means that when brands are planning to implement a comparative advertising strategy to generate positive attitude towards the advertisement, it is advised to do it with humor. Although according to the findings in this study, humor in combination with comparative advertising does not lead to an extra, unique effect on purchase intention, the use of humor in comparative advertisements will not negatively harm the level of purchase intentions
significantly.
7.2 Managerial Implications
Using comparative advertisement strategies can be of great interest for companies, managers and even more specific for marketers. A manager or marketer is recommended to use
comparative advertising, preferably with humor, if the aim is that consumers have to
purchase the advertised product. But with using comparative advertising, the danger exist that consumers find this kind of advertising inappropriate or silly, what can have negative
influence on consumer attitude towards the advertisement. Therefore, when the aim of managers and marketers is that that consumers have to generate positive attitude towards the advertisement, comparative advertising is less applicable. Only looking at this means that you cannot say that comparative advertisements are superior to non-comparative advertisements, it depends on which consumer outcome you as a company, marketer or manager want to accomplish.
When (comparative) advertising is used as a marketing communication tool, the risk of enhancing humor has proven to be negligible when used properly. For creating positive effects on consumer purchase intention and attitude towards the advertisement, using humor on both types of strategies, comparative and non-comparative advertising, can be the key and is more effective than not using humor. But when humor is used, extreme caution has to be paid with choosing the right type of humor and in the right context. Little change in the interpretation of humor in the eyes of the customer can have huge impact on the outcomes. This can simply be prevented by marketers, as we did in our research, due conducting a pretest to see how people react to the humor in the advertisement. Once the right humor type is clear and used in the right context, managers and marketers can use humor in comparative advertisement as a moderator for attitude towards the advertisement.
In short, when considering comparative advertising as a marketing instrument, carefully think about the message of the advertisement and humor type. When executed properly,
comparative advertising, preferable with humor, is the designated method to increase purchase intention and attitude towards the advertisement.
7.3 Limitations
Although this study should be perceived as an explanatory study of the effects of comparative versus non-comparative advertising including humor, some limitations exist. The results in this study are limited because we used one advertisement (adapted to every manipulation) to test the effectiveness. Adding more different advertisements but with the same research objectives would make the results more robust and could provide more findings and influence the interpretation of the current results.
Another limitation is that the use of humor type is crucial for obtaining desired consumer outcomes. In this study we used sarcasm as humor type in the advertisement because of the relative ease of use and its proven effectiveness. But in this way, humor is not generalizable and therefore not always an effective strategy for obtaining positive attitude towards the advertisement and purchase intention. Simply said, different types of humor are better suited to different types of advertising.
In addition, another limitation in this study is the interpretation and understanding of
customer purchase intention. We did found evidence an increase in purchase intention when comparative advertising is used. But we did not do research on the effect of comparative advertising on consumer the long-term decision making effect. Rogers and Williams (1989) reported that comparative advertising is more effective than non-comparative advertising for achieving purchase intention, but is according to less effective for encouraging repeated purchases over time. This could mean that comparative advertising is effective for short-term consumer purchase intention, but less effective for (long-term) repeated purchases.
Thereby the fact that the average age of the respondents is relatively low could also have an effect on the results. It could be conceivable that the low value of attitude towards the brand (comparative, non-humor) would be less decisive when the average age of the respondents increased because prior to the 1970s, comparative advertising was deemed unfeasible due to related risks and therefore older respondents react differently to nowadays (more used) comparative advertising.
