Brands and consumers : the impact of consumers' scepticism and level of product category involvement on transparent information processing in the development of consumer attitudes towards a brand

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Brands and consumers

The impact of consumers’ scepticism and level of product category involvement

on transparent information processing in the development of consumer attitudes

towards a brand

Master Thesis

Amsterdam, August, 2017

Student: Ji Soo Kim Student number: 10081399 University of Amsterdam

Faculty Economics and Business – Business Administration

Supervisor: Drs. J. Labadie MBM

Date of submission: 18th of August, 2017 Version: Final

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Statement of originality

This document is written by Ji Soo Kim 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.

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1.3 Delimitations ……….... 4 1.4 Contributions ….……….. 5 1.4.1 Theoretical contributions ……….……….……. 5 1.4.2 Managerial implications ……….……….….. 5 1.5 Outline………..….... 6 2. Brand transparency …………...………..….….. 7 2.1 Transparency marketing ……….….…. 7

2.2 Types of transparency marketing ………….……….……... 9

2.3 Types of transparent advertising strategies ……….…… 10

2.4 Effect on consumer attitudes ………..………...……… 12

3. Level of involvement and scepticism ……..………,.. 15

3.1 Involvement towards the product category ……….……… 15

3.2 Scepticism towards the advertisement ……… 17

4. Hypotheses ………..……… 20 4.1 Hypotheses development ……… 20 4.2 Conceptual framework ………... 23 5. Methodology ……….……….………. 24 5.1.1 Preliminary tests ………..……… 24 5.1.1 Quantitative pre-test ………..………....……… 24 5.1.2 Qualitative pre-test ……….……… 27 5.2 Main experiment ……….……… 29 5.2.1 Research Design ……….………29

5.2.2 Procedure and data sample ……….……. 30

5.2.3 Measures ……….………. 30 6. Results ………. 33 6.1 Sample characteristics ……… 33 6.2 Data ………. 35 6.2.1 Frequency checks ……… 35 6.2.2 Reliabilty analysis ……… 36

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6.2.3 Principle axis factoring analysis ………..……… 37

6.2.4 Computing mean scales ………..……… 37

6.3 Manipulation checks ………. 38

6.3.1 Perceived level of transparency manipulation ……… 38

6.3.2 Perceived level of product category involvement manipulation ……….…….……… 41

6.4 Correlation analysis ……… 44 6.5 Hypotheses testing ………...………… 46 6.4.1 Hypothesis 1 ……….……….… 48 6.4.2 Hypothesis 2 ………..… 49 6.4.3 Hypothesis 3 ………..…… 50 6.4.4 Hypothesis 4 ……….……….……… 51 6.4.5 Hypothesis 5 ……….. 53 6.6 Additional analysis ………..……… 54 7. Discussion ……… 56 7.1 Interpretation of results ………...……… 56

7.1.1 The effect if transparent advertising ………...………… 56

7.1.2 The effect of level of product category involvement ……….……….……….. 57

7.1.3 The effect of scepticism towards the advertisement ……….. 57

7.1.4 Interactions between transparent advertising type and involvement .……….………….. 58

7.1.5 Interactions between transparent advertising type and scepticism ………...…… 59

7.2 Theoretical contributions ……….……… 60

7.3 Managerial implications ……….………. 61

8. Conclusion ……….………..……… 63

8.1 Limitations ……….………..…… 65

8.2 Suggestions for future research ……… 66

References Appendices Appendix A: Quantitative pre-test ……….……….. 75

Appendix B: Main experiment advertisements per condition ……….……... 81

Appendix C: Main experiment questionnaire ….……….……….……… 83

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Abstract

As globalization and instant communications are fuelling the transparency trend, the use of transparency marketing in the business context has recently become a compelling marketing tactic. Consumers demand openness and transparency from organizations, yet traditional marketing communication is generally biased towards ‘one-sided advertising’. Academic research on two-sided advertising ‘the voluntary disclosure of mild negative information in advertisements’ has yet to catch up on the traditional way of advertising. This study

examined the effect of type of transparent advertising on attitude towards the brand and the impact of consumers’ scepticism and level of product category involvement on this

relationship. To investigate this research topic, a 2 (one-sided / two-sided advertising) x 2 (low product category involvement / high product category involvement) between-subjects experiment was conducted. The results revealed no significant effect for level of product category involvement on brand attitudes, but did confirm significant effects for both type of transparent advertising and scepticism towards the advertisement on brand attitudes. No evidence is found for interaction effects of both involvement and scepticism on consumer attitudes towards a brand. Theoretically, this study contributes to existing literature in different areas of research such as transparency marketing, advertising strategies, and the dual process model of persuasion as an explanation for potential effects in brand attitude formation. As for managerial implications, the foremost suggestion based on the results would be to take the favourability of mild negative information disclosure into account when deciding on the content of the advertisements. The findings of this study confirmed that the two-sided advertising strategy significantly leads to more favourable attitudes towards the brand compared to the one-sided advertising strategy.

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1 MSc Business Administration | University of Amsterdam

Chapter 1: Introduction

1.1 The age of transparency

In this current digital age where consumers are more demanding and critical than ever before, Marketers are only just now starting to learn about this growing issue called brand

transparency (Pathak, 2015). Few could argue that the rise of the Internet has not radically changed the way of doing business. One aspect is the transparency the Internet has brought with it (Nayar, 2009). With the great availability of information, consumers can find out whatever they want about a brand in a split second. The chances of consumers finding out important information are higher than ever.

Lately, there has been a remarkable shift in the marketing field; instead of solely focusing on being product-driven, delivering value has become a key driver to forge genuine customer relationships (Achrol & Kotler, 2012). When talking about value delivery, this is where the marketing tactic ‘transparency marketing’ comes in. Transparency in the business context has been defined as the extent to which a firm is open and forthright regarding matters relevant to the stakeholder (DeTienne, Kristen, & Lewis, 2005. A general trend in marketing management is toward closer relationships between brands and consumers (Hultman & Axelsson, 2007). Transparency marketing has become a compelling marketing tactic in business and this has made companies face a difficult trade-off between the

opportunities of transparency and the significant dangers of information, causing damage to the brand.

From a consumer’s point of view however, in a world of imperfect markets and information asymmetry, transparency allows consumers to be better informed and make more conscious and considered decisions, while also reducing risks (Hughes & Liu, 2007; Sufi, 2007). According to a consumer study by Cohn & Wolfe (2012), the number one thing consumers long more from brands is honesty. By way of example, Ein-gar, Shiv and Tormala

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(2012) conducted an experiment about a pair of hiking boots to test the effect of weak negative information disclosure on purchase intentions. To half of the group, researchers listed five great attributes about the boots. To the other half of the group, they listed the same positive attributes, however followed with an attribute that was perceived as negative; these boots, unfortunately, came in only two colours. Remarkably, the people who received the small dose of negative information were more likely to purchase the boots than those in the first group. This concise example shows that adding a minor negative detail can potentially give that description a more positive impact. Hence, disclosing honest transparent

information may have a positive influence, even when this information is slightly negative. Predominantly, the recent financial crisis has generated immense needs for

transparency between brands and consumers (Taylor, 2009). After the crisis, the world came out to be much more cynical about the behaviour and motives of corporations when engaging with an organization and the impact is still being felt. Only 3% of the respondents from another consumer study of Cohn & Wolfe (2014) said that they believe that ‘businesses are honest and transparent’. While when it comes to consumers engaging with a company, transparency is the third most important aspect, following quality and price (Bhaduri & Ha-Brookshire, 2011).

Since consumers nowadays expect a more open and honest relationship with brands, transparency is no longer an option anymore. It can be viewed as a benchmark, a new operating standard, for how progressive a company is (Piotrowski & Guyette, 2010). The relevance of transparency has further increased in the wake of recent high-profile crises. An example of Toyota Motor Corporation illustrates that providing transparency can also help to manage a crisis. During the recall of Toyota vehicles, Toyota took to social media service ‘Twitter’ to provide up-to-date information on their progress of the situation and by having

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their CEO answer questions from consumers. This transparent exchange helped reduce the damage the company’s reputation was receiving from negative press (“Total recall”, 2014).

Brand transparency is particularly essential in current times, as consumers feel that they are constantly misled and deceived by companies (Knight, Mather & Mathieson, 2015). As transparency marketing gained increasing popularity, this created more opportunities for marketers as well as arising questions to what extent transparency marketing is truly effective. In general, putting your unguarded self out there may be harder than it might appear on the surface. According to substantial research however, embracing transparency will help the brand to be perceived as more open, honest, accountable, while simultaneously connecting better with customers (Lauby, 2009). Based upon prior literature, it becomes clear that ample evidence for the positive relationship between transparent marketing and brand attitude exists (Bhaduri & Ha-Brookshire, 2011; Dapko, 2012; Wehmeier & Raaz, 2012). However, the literature on the conditions under which transparency marketing does not yield in positive consumer responses has yet to catch up. Furthermore, types of advertisement strategies have not been operationalized in the transparent marketing context yet.

The impact, direction and intensity of the role of consumers’ level of scepticism towards advertisements on the relation between type of transparent advertising and brand attitude remains unexplored. This is noteworthy, considering that this could lead to parts of information not being processed properly. Likewise, less is known so far about the different effects of a low involvement product category versus a high involvement product category on the relationship between types of transparent advertising and consumer attitudes. It is of relevance for academic literature to fulfil the existing gaps, because it may affect the results transparency marketing is expected to have on consumer attitude towards the brand.

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1.2 Problem definition and problem statement

This study will largely build on current ideas about transparency marketing. However, since this phenomenon has gained its popularity quite recently, theories about the conditions under which transparency marketing may work differently has yet to be explored. Although main effects of type of transparency marketing, level of product category involvement and level of scepticism on consumer attitudes towards a brand will be examined in the current study, the primary focus will be on investigating the types of advertisement strategies in the

transparency marketing context, as this area of the literature has yet to catch up. In order to investigate this gap in the literature, existing papers on this topic will be thoroughly reviewed, and thenceforth will be tested in an experimental design in order to demonstrate a causal relationship between the constructs.

Accordingly, this thesis aims to investigate the following research question: ‘What is

the impact of consumers’ level of product category involvement and level of scepticism towards the ad on the relationship between types of transparent advertising and consumer attitudes towards a brand?

1.3 Delimitations

In this study, a clear distinction is drawn between cynism and scepticism and likewise between dispositional scepticism and situational scepticism. Though some scholars distinguish between cynism and scepticism, in a like manner, other scholars distinguish between dispositional scepticism and situational scepticism. To clarify, cynism refers to a personality trait, enduring and an ongoing state of disbelief, which is used interchangeably with dispositional scepticism, whereas scepticism refers to a consumer state that varies depending on situational factors and is used correspondingly with ‘situational scepticism’. To avoid confusion, this study will solely focus on the latter and will be referred to as

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scepticism towards the advertisement can be measured as it refers to a consumer state, rather than a personality trait.

1.4 Contributions

1.4.1 Theoretical contributions

Presumably due to the newness of the phenomenon, the academic theory regarding

transparency marketing is not complete yet. In addition, up until now, many perspectives on this marketing tactic are based on anecdotal evidence, while thorough investigation is largely missing. From an academic perspective, this study will build on the existing literature and further extend the concept of transparency marketing. Furthermore, by investigating the type of advertising, this study will contribute to the existing literature by offering more insight into the concept of one-sided and two-sided advertising, particularly in the transparency

marketing context. This will add a new perspective to the existing theory. Moreover, the current study will add on academic theory by drawing upon the dual-process model of

persuasion to attitude formation by Petty and Cacioppo (1983) as an explanation for potential effects that may occur in the development of brand attitude formation. As a final point, this study will contribute to the existing literature by examining the constructs ‘scepticism’ and ‘involvement’ to effectively capture its effect on consumers’ attitudes toward the brand, by showing the significance of each. This allows the interaction of each of these constructs with type of advertising to be studied as well.

1.4.2 Managerial implications

The current study aims to give insights and guidance for practitioners, as it contributes to their understanding of how transparency marketing works and how to optimally implement or apply this marketing tactic. Accordingly, this study aims to assist marketers in responding to the increased need of transparency in the mind of the consumer. Knowledge of the types of

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transparent advertising can help them design advertisements that are both transparent and more effective in forming favourable consumer attitudes. Furthermore, this study aims to give insights in the type of product categories, under which transparency marketing will works best, and how consumers’ scepticism plays a role in the effectiveness of one-sided or two sided advertising in the transparency marketing context. Marketers should get a clear view of how transparency marketing works to maximize their efforts, and perhaps more interestingly, in which cases it does not work as effective. The current state regarding the topic supports the positive effects of transparency marketing in advertising. If this is always the case, the possible negative conditions need to be investigated to a greater extent,

markedly when these effects generate undesired effects for the brand. Furthermore, consumers are expected to process information differently depending on their level of product involvement. Therefore, advertisers may have to segment customers by their message-absorbing habits and customize appropriate advertisements through manipulating the cues.

1.5 Outline

In this chapter, the rising trend of transparency marketing was introduced, as well as the gap in the literature and the research question to be addressed. This paper will follow up with explanations of key concepts and definitions. Studies on transparency marketing and its effect on consumer attitudes toward brands, the concept of involvement, as well as scepticism towards advertisements will be explored. After that, hypotheses will be developed from the theoretical framework. This is needed to set up conditions for the experiment which will be outlined in chapter 5, the methodology. Thereafter, the results will be presented and

thereafter interpreted and discussed in the discussion. Lastly, the paper will end with a conclusion to summarize the study and discuss the limitations and recommendations for future research.

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Chapter 2: Brand transparency

The theoretical framework will be established in the following two chapters. Existing theories and prior studies related to the problem definition will be synthesized to introduce the

research topic and define it more precisely.

2.1 Transparency marketing

Transparency is a broad term that may take multiple forms and serve different functions. Lamming, Caldwell, Phillips, and Harrison (2005) formulate transparency in the business context as information sharing between two business actors that is usually not being shared, whereas Eggert and Helm (2003) define transparency as an individual’s perception of being informed about the relevant actions of the other party, although organizations have the ability to influence that perception. Schnackenberg and Tomlinson (2016) propose that transparency is the perceived quality of intentionally shared information from a sender. Although there is no rigid theoretical definition of transparency, in essence, it refers to the availability of relevant, reliable, intentionally shared information (Christensen, 2002; Tapscott and Ticolli, 2003; Schnackenberg & Tomlinson, 2016).

Brand transparency relies on the idea that organizations need to be more open and accountable to the public and refers to the degree to which a company is forthright regarding matters relevant to the stakeholder and sharing this information with its publics (DeTienne et al., 2005; Shel Holtz PC, http://blog.holtz.com/index.php). Alternatively, the absence of transparency occurs when relevant information of the issue is inaccurate, misrepresented, untimely, or denied (Vishnawath and Kaufmann, 2001).

Transparency marketing has recently become a compelling marketing tactic.

Subsequent of prominent corporate scandals in the past twenty years, by way of examples the scandals of Lehman Brothers in the year 2008, and Madoff Investment Securities in 2009,

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transparency has taken form across various areas of organizational research. Apart from a few researches that have found evidence for negative outcomes like the creation of frustration (Hultman & Axesson, 2007) or power shifting (Koslow, 2000), the fast majority of

researches from the past tend to consider transparency as a good practice for both the consumer and the organization, as it builds organizational reputation, maintains business legitimacy, delivers value to the customer and also increases satisfaction (Carter & Rogers, 2008; Eggert & Helm, 2003; Lamming et al., 2005). Now more than ever, consumers demand openness and transparency from organizations (Cohn & Wolfe, 2013). Globalization and instant communications are fuelling the transparency trend. Further, because of the development of information technology applications in marketing, transparency have increased in interest too (Christensen, 2002). According to a consumer study by Cohn & Wolfe (2012), product and organizational transparency is considered to be far more important to consumers than financial transparency, like annual reporting. Product transparency

essentially refers to the openness of a brand about their offering product(s). For the reason that financial transparency is found to be least value adding from a consumer perspective and to narrow down the broad concept of transparency, this research will not go further into the financial aspect, like annual reporting.

Diving deeper into the transparency concept, transparency is composed of three dimensions, namely information disclosure, accuracy, and clarity. It is not a one-dimensional construct as many researchers have commonly assumed. When applying transparency

marketing as a marketing tactic, these three dimensions should be taken into account. Information disclosure refers to the perception that information relevant to the issue is received in a timely manner (Williams, 2008). Thus, in order to be perceived as transparent by consumers, information must not only be openly shared, but also be relevant to the issue. As for the accuracy dimension, the disclosed information should be correct, unbiased and

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reliable. Clarity refers to the perceived level of understandability. The disclosed information should be lucid and comprehensible in order to be considered transparent by the consumer. Street and Meister (2004) contend that organizational information must be understandable. Correspondingly, Wrinkler (2000) argues that firms must present information more clearly. For instance, information including complicated algorithms (Granados et al., 2010) or unknown foreign languages (Larsson et al., 1998) cannot be seen as transparent even if it is shared and open for public.

To conclude, transparency in the business context has been broadly defined. With regard to this study, the definition of Lamming et al. (2005) is the most appropriate in order to provide an answer to the problem statement as it is clearly defined as the ability to share information that is not commonly shared.

2.2 Types of transparent marketing

The main purpose of the study of Hultman and Axelsson (2007) was to explore and extend the concept of transparency for marketing management research. They developed a concept of transparency, where the facets of transparency in buyer-supplier relationships are taken into account. More specifically, they outline four types of transparency; cost transparency, supply transparency, organizational transparency and technological transparency.

The first type of transparency to be discussed is cost transparency. Cost transparency refers to information on costs and prices becoming more open for public. Generally speaking, information on the allocation of retail price among supply-side agents is not accessible to consumers. So, when information about the price allocation of an organization is revealed to the customer, it is referred to as cost transparency strategy. In terms of supply transparency, thistype of transparency is based on the underlying principle where a higher degree of visibility of products and materials between the buyer – supplier relationship is made open

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and available to the public. As for organizational transparency, also viewed as the ‘line of visibility’, concerns information on the who-does-what or who-knows-what within the organization. The final type outlined by Hultman and Axelssom (2007) is technological transparency. Technological transparency is information sharing regarding how organizations share the use of technologies with other business partners. An important note regarding technological transparency is that this type has also been extended to attribute transparency, since this is more widely applicable to different Business2Consumer (B2C) products and services. Attribution transparency is mostly concerned with the features and quality of the product or service itself, rather than being limited to technological information sharing (Oxford Dictionaries, 2014).

To conclude, there are different ways for brands to be more open and transparent to consumers. The reason behind this thinking is that transparency is viewed as a valuable element, as it gives access to information usually not shared for the customer to see.

2.3 Types of transparent advertising strategies

The main purpose of traditional advertising has been to influence potential consumers by providing entirely positive information about their brand and products or services (Crowley & Hoyer, 1994). Positive information is expected to result in more favourable consumer attitudes and conversely, negative information is expected to negatively influence consumer attitudes towards a brand. Following this line of reasoning, marketing communication has been generally biased towards the presentation of only positive information. For many years, this marketing strategy has been found to have positive consequences in the market, such as brand awareness, favourable attitudes towards brands and brand loyalty (Keller, 1993). This explains the dominance of the one-sided advertising strategy, which can be viewed as traditional marketing. One-sided messages include entirely positive information, whereas

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two-sided messages include both positive and negative information of a product or a service, in which the negative information is included voluntarily (Crowley & Hoyer, 1994; Eisend, 2006).

By way of contrast to the traditional rationale, recent scholars uncovered that disclosure of entirely positive information attributes does not necessarily have to result in more favourable attitudes (Shu & Carlson, 2014). While including negative product

information in an advertisement might seem counterintuitive, in some cases, the pro-active disclosure of some negative information has been found to have a positive effect on

enhancing credibility, brand attitudes, perceived novelty, and purchase intentions (Eisend, 2006). More specifically, there is ample evidence that the two-sided advertising can enhance consumer attitudes in the marketing context (Eisend, 2006; Eisend, 2007).

For a better understanding of the mechanisms of the two-sided advertising approach, possible explanations are derived from previously developed theories. According to the attribution theory (Jones & Davis, 1965), claims in advertisements will be attributed to either a marketer’s intention to sell a product or to the product being advertised. As it seems

implausible that negative information is made up, voluntary disclosure of negative

information will likely lead to the advertiser being perceived by the receiver as being truthful. Accordingly, two-sided messages can enhance source credibility (Kamins, Brand, Hoeke & Moe, 1989), which in turn can enhance attitude towards the advertiser and subsequently the brand (Eisend, 2006). This route is referred to as an affective route to positive evaluations. Furthermore, the optimal arousal theory (Berlyne, 1971) posits that two-sided messages can trigger attention and the inoculation theory by McGuire (1964) employs the strengthening attitudes by countering mild attacking arguments.

On the other hand, marketers are also likely to avoid the disclosure of strongly negative information, since it does carry risk. The two-sided advertising strategy is not

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without its boundaries; it has the potential to lead to negative evaluations or significantly damage brand equity and affect it in the long run (Eisend, 2006; Fournier & Avery, 2011).

Disclosure of negative information could potentially have a positive influence on source credibility, less negative cognitions, and more favourable brand attitudes. However, it has been suggested that this only occurs when the amount of negative information disclosed is of low to moderate intensity, in order to avoid the probability of working against the persuasive aims of the advertisement and thus leading to undesired communication outcomes (Crowley & Hoyer, 1994). Furthermore, the negative information is suggested to be

communicated before the consumer can experience it. Moreover, the unfavourable attribute should be closely related to a favourable attribute. Lastly, the negative information should be perceived as voluntarily disclosed, rather than forced. These parameters to effectiveness must necessarily be taken into account when considering communications using the two-sided advertising strategy.Accordingly, the question arises if, and to what extent, the type of transparent advertising matters in the transparency context in order to increase more favourable consumer attitudes toward the brand.

2.4 Effect on consumer attitudes

Over the past decades, considerable studies focused on how attitudes are formed and changed (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980; Kassarjian & Kassarjian, 1979; Petty & Cacioppo, 1983). Fishbein and Ajzen (1975) defined attitude as “a learned predisposition to respond in a consistently favourable or unfavourable manner with respect to a given object” (p. 6). Keller (2003) proposes a brand pyramid to illustrate the layers of building customer based brand equity, in which brand attitude is the third layer of this pyramid. Attitudes indicate a direction; they can be either positive/negative or favourable/unfavourable. Eventually, a consumer’s attitude towards a brand comes down to the overall brand evaluation of a consumer. These are mental

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reactions and responses to a brand and consist of judgments and feelings towards a brand (Ajzen, 2005).

Theories on information processing and persuasion provide a framework to explain the impact of intentionally disclosed information on consumer responses. The persuasion knowledge model by Friestad and Wright (1994) provides a framework to understand the underlying mechanism of the negative effect of positive product information on consumer attitudes (Shu & Carlson, 2014). This model posits that the persuasive effect of an

advertisement is determined by consumers’ attitude toward the brand’s persuasive intent and how they think they should react. Moreover, the receiver evaluates the appropriateness of the sender’s persuasive tactics in each specific situation. Hence, the persuasive effect of an advertisement is determined by consumers’ attitude toward the brand’s persuasive intent and how they think they should react. Increasing intensities of positive product information may cause consumers to be sceptical of the brand’s claims, leading them to not believe the positive information, thereby negatively influencing attitude toward the brand.

As has been mentioned before, attitudes toward brands are overall evaluations people make about brands (Ajzen, 2005). A noteworthy aspect is that these overall evaluations are not set, but can be learned, changed or influenced over time. In turn, attitudes are believed to affect consumer behaviour (Dainton & Zelley, 2005). In the study of Fishbein and Ajzen (1975), the theory of reasoned action is proposed where they advocate that all behaviour is driven by intentions. Next to subjective norms, one of the key drivers of behavioural intentions is attitude. Following this line of reasoning, product attribute valence could influence consumer behaviour through consumer attitudes. Persuasive messages aim to positively influence consumers such that they hold favourableattitudes (Walther & Langer, 2008). The persuasive effectiveness on attitudes is dependent on how receivers process them and can be explained through information processing theories (Bohner, Erb, & Siebler, 2008).

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Attitude change on persuasion is characterized by existing theories as developing from either a careful examination of arguments or from identifying diverse positive or negative cues (Petty & Cacioppo, 1983).

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Chapter 3: Level of involvement and scepticism

In an attempt to provide a thorough understanding, this chapter will be dedicated to dive into the current state of academic literature on the concept of involvement and scepticism in the business context.

3.1 Involvement towards the product

The Elaboration Likelihood Model is a dual process model of persuasion to attitude formation. According to Petty & Cacciopo (1979), the effectiveness of persuasion and attitude formation is contingent upon the individual’s level of involvement. Generally speaking, involvement is viewed as personal relevance (Zaichkowsky 1985) or the degree of consumer engagement considered to have a primary impact on consumer responses, such as on consumer attitudes (Chaiken 1980; Jain and Srinivasen 1990; Laaksonen 1994).

Involvement facilitates the motivation and ability for information processing (Mittal, 1988). A person must have the motivation and ability to think about the issue-relevant information presented. When an individual is highly involved, cognitive processing becomes more important for attitude formation (Mittal, 1988). Following this line of reasoning, when an individual is highly involved with for example a product, this person will have the motivation and ability to process persuasive communication. This will then impact the attitude towards the brand (Hajjat 2003).

With regard to motivation, determinants of motivation can be both personal (internal) and situational (external). Need for cognition is a personal determinant whereas personal relevance, product category, or message framing are examples of situational determinants of motivation. High product involvement occurs when an issue has personal relevance to an individual (Zaichkowsky 1985). Personal relevance can be explained by intrinsic importance (Sherif & Hoveland, 1961), concerns about the outcomes (Cialdini et al., 1976), or the

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expectancy of bringing significant impact to their lives (Aspler and Sears, 1968). Under high personal relevance, attitudes are influenced primarily by the quality of the arguments

presented in the message. Conversely, under low personal relevance, primarily the affective associations influence attitudes. When there are many personal consequences involved, individuals will be generally more likely to evaluate the arguments. Vice versa, when there are few consequences involved, individuals will have less motivation to do the work

necessary to develop a more accurate and reasoned opinion. To put it briefly, when personal relevance increases, motivation to scrutinize the information presented increases as well. Thus, an increase in involvement is linked to an increase in the importance of message arguments in persuasion and attitude formation. It takes substantial effort to evaluate arguments and will be best performed when it is of high personal relevance.

A second possible explanation for the greater processing of personally relevant argumentation under high involvement compared to under low is that people have a greater ability to do so (Petty & Cacciopo, 1979). Personal determinants of true ability are expertise, familiarity and experience, whereas distraction, complexity, repetition, and time constraints are examples of situational determinants of ability. When a product or service has high personal relevance, extensive thinking has likely already been done in the past, so preexisting information may be stored in an individuals’ mind. This is beneficial in fresh information evaluation. For this reason, it might be easier to evaluate new information on a high involvement state, rather than a low involvement state.

Depending on the level of involvement, Petty & Cacciopo (1979) propose two distinct routes to attitude change, namely the peripheral – and the central route of persuasion. The peripheral route, also known as heuristic processing, views attitude change as a result of the attitude object being associated with either positive or negative cues. These peripheral cues are signals such as attractive, powerful, or credible sources, which help them to evaluate

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quickly and can influence attitudes whether or not any information relevant to the merits of the issue are considered. For this route, it is not assumed that the message recipient will undertake the considerable cognitive effort required to evaluate the merits of the arguments. Processing through this route is more vulnerable to counterarguments opposed to the central route. Attitudes formed via the central route, also called systematic processing tend to persist relatively longer and be better predictors of subsequent behaviour than when formed via the peripheral route. This reasoning is based on the notion that attitude formation via the central route is based on a thorough basis of relevant arguments.

The central route is about the way in which an individual combines and analyses issue-relevant arguments into an overall evaluation. Hence, via this route, information processing is based on the persistent consideration of arguments central to a product or service. Following this line of reasoning, an individual’s motivation and abilities are different under high – and low involvement conditions. It suggests that some manipulations should be effective under high but not low involvement, while other variables should show the reverse pattern.

The description of involvement towards the product category by Hajjat (2003) fits best within this research, as it covers the facilitating role of product involvement on

motivation and ability to process persuasive communication, impacting the attitude towards the brand.

3.2 Scepticism towards the advertisement

Scepticism has been broadly defined as an individual’s tendency to doubt, disbelieve, or question a statement (Boush et al., 1994; Obermiller & Spangenberg, 1998; Foreh & Grier, 2003). The term is often used interchangeably with cynism, despite that they are in fact conceptually different from each other. Whereas cynism has a long-term, enduring,

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non-18 MSc Business Administration | University of Amsterdam

context-specific nature of disbelief, scepticism, on the other hand, may only be present in certain contexts and situations. However, both cynicism and scepticism do potentially diminish the positive impact persuasive communication can have on consumer attitudes towards a brand. When consumers are sceptical about marketing claims, it is unlikely that they will be persuaded by the message (Obermiller & Spangenberg, 1998).Whereas cynism can be treated as a stable personality trait and an on-going state of disbelief, level of

scepticism can temporarily increase through certain characteristics of a message (Foreh & Grier, 2003). To narrow it down, scepticism in the business context is mostly referred to as a potential consumer response to advertising, promotion, and public relations (e.g., Boush et al., 1994; Obermiller et al., 2005) and consumer scepticism refers to the tendency toward

disbelief of marketing claims (Gaski & Etzel, 1986).

Though some scholars distinguish between cynism and scepticism, in a like manner, other scholars distinguish between dispositional scepticism and situational scepticism. Cynism and dispositional scepticism are often used interchangeably, indicating a personality trait (e.g., Boush et al., 1994; Obermiller & Spangenberg, 1998), whereas scepticism is used correspondingly with ‘situational scepticism’, which refers to a consumer state that fluctuates depending on the situation (e.g. Mohr et al., 1998; Foreh & Grier, 2003; Vanhamme & Grobben, 2009). A unique characteristic of situational scepticism is that the mind of the consumer can be updated or adjusted when presented with sufficient evidence (Mohr et al., 1998). Accordingly, scepticism is a cognitive response that can result from situational factors (Foreh & Grier, 2003).

More generally speaking, consumers use scepticism as it helps to protect themselves from misleading marketing claims. Thus, scepticism is used as a defensive mechanism against deceptive marketing practice(Mohr, Eroglu, & Ellen, 1998; Mangleburg & Bristol, 1998). For the reason that reported incidents of irresponsible corporate behaviour exist in

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abundance (Carson, 2003; Lange & Washburn, 2012), consumer scepticism in the business context is increasing despite the huge investments of companies in promoting their good works (The Economist, 2012). Furthermore, consumers are sceptical of marketing messages not just because these advertising messages can be misleading, present false information or lack credibility in arguments, but also because scepticism helps individuals cope with an advertising system that is commonly perceived as selling, rather than informing. By accumulating knowledge about marketing tactics, like transparency marketing, consumers develop sceptical attitudes toward marketing claims (Friestad & Wright, 1994).

To conclude, the terms ‘cynism’ and ‘scepticism’ are often used interchangeably in the marketing context, as they both diminish the positive impact of persuasive

communication on consumer attitudes towards a brand. Nevertheless, this study will solely focus on scepticism, to narrow down the concept of scepticism and for the reason that

scepticism depends on contexts and is not fixed in its nature. Moreover, while scholars define scepticism in various ways, in this study it is defined as an individual’s tendency to doubt, disbelieve, or question a statement, as this definition is the most appropriate to provide an answer to the research question. (Boush et al., 1994; Obermiller & Spangenberg, 1998; Foreh & Grier, 2003).

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Chapter 4: Hypotheses

4.1 Hypotheses development

Traditional advertising is based on the notion that disclosing positive information will result in more favourable consumer attitudes whereas conversely, disclosing negative information is expected to negatively influence consumer attitudes. This line of reasoning explains the dominance of one-sided advertising; providing entirely positive information about the brand and product(s) in advertisements in order to positively influence potential consumers

(Crowley & Hoyer, 1994).

However, Eisend argues that disclosing some negative information, also known as two-sided advertising strategy, can positively affect consumer attitudes towards the advertiser and subsequently towards the brand in the marketing context (Eisend, 2006; Eisend, 2007). Based on the attribution theory, voluntarily disclosing negative information can enhance perceived truthfulness and source credibility since it seems implausible that negative

information is made up (Jones & Davis, 1965; Kamins et al., 1989). Furthermore, in line with the optimal arousal theory elaborated in the study of Berlyne (1971), two-sided advertising can trigger attention and based on the inoculation theory by McGuire (1964), countering mild attacking arguments can strengthen attitudes.

Hence, pro-active disclosure of some negative information has been found to have a positive effect on enhancing credibility and brand attitudes. Following the line of reasoning that two-sided advertising can enhance consumer attitudes in the marketing context, it is not to be expected to work differently with transparency marketing. This leads to the first hypothesis:

H1: Transparency marketing with two-sided advertising leads to more favourable

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A consumer’s motivation and abilities are different under high – and low involvement conditions. In other words, some manipulations should be effective under high but not low involvement, while other manipulations should show the reverse pattern. Hajjat (2003) proposes that when an individual is highly involved in a product category, the increase in motivation and ability to process persuasive communication may positively impact the consumer attitude towards the brand. Following this line of reasoning, level of involvement towards the product category is expected to have a positive direct effect on consumer attitude towards a brand. Based on the studies of Hajjat (2003), the following hypothesis is proposed:

H2: When level of product category involvement is high, consumer attitudes towards the

brand will be higher compared to when level of product category involvement is low

Kisielius and Sternthal (1984) suggest that scepticism should lead to counter arguing and greater elaboration on the claims made by marketers and, subsequently, less positive attitudes towards the brand. In other words, level of scepticism towards the ad is expected to have a negative direct effect on attitude formation. Following their line of reasoning, the following hypothesis is formulated:

H3: When scepticism towards the ad is higher, consumer attitudes towards the brand will

be lower compared to when scepticism towards the ad is lower.

Although the type of transparent advertising could have a direct effect on consumer attitude towards a brand, a simple linear relationship between these variables cannot be assumed. According to Mittal (1988), an individuals’ involvement towards a product category facilitates the motivation and ability for information processing (Mittal, 1988). Following

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Kamins et al. (1989), individuals in the low involvement state may agree with the ad more easily when advertisements are two-sided, because it seems illogical to disclose negative transparent information. Thus, under involvement towards the product:

H4: The effect of type of advertising on consumer attitudes towards a brand (H1) is less

pronounced when level of product category involvement is high compared to when

level of product category involvement is low

Gaski & Etzel (1986) describe consumer scepticism as the tendency toward disbelief of marketing claims. Boush et al. (1994) and Obermiller et al. (2005) define scepticism in a business context as a potential consumer response to advertising. When consumers are sceptical about marketing claims, it is unlikely that they will be persuaded by the message (Obermiller & Spangenberg, 1998). Next to the expectation that scepticism has a dampening direct effect on brand attitude formation, this study aims to find an interaction effect between scepticism and transparent advertising type on consumer attitudes towards a brand.

According to Magleburg & Bristol (1998), audiences are sceptical about advertisements and doubt the credibility of advertising messages since advertisements generally only disclose positive sides of the product. In an attempt to find evidence that the two-sided advertising strategy reduces an individuals’ level of scepticism, the last hypothesis is formulated:

H5: The effect of type of advertising on consumer attitudes towards a brand (H1) is less

pronounced when consumers’ level of scepticism towards the ad is higher compared

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4.2 Conceptual Framework

The derived hypotheses are illustrated in the following model, which presents the theoretical framework of this study. The signs ‘+’ and ‘–‘ refer to the difference in scores between two constructs (e.g. for H1 ‘+’, two-sided transparent advertising scores higher compared to one-sided transparent advertising) .

Figure 1: Proposed Conceptual Model

high low H2 (+) H4 (-) H1 (+) two-sided H5(-) one-sided H3 (-) high low Type of transparent advertising Level of product category involvement Level of scepticism Consumer attitude towards brand z

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Chapter 5: Methodology

This chapter provides insight into the method that is used for this study. At first, the

quantitative as well as the qualitative pre-test will be discussed. Thereafter, the development of the main study will be presented by outlining the research design, describing the procedure and discussing the measures of the constructs that will be used to test hypotheses.

5.1 Preliminary tests

An important component in the development of the final experiment is to establish the right stimuli to assure successful manipulations. In this study, the main manipulations involve the role of type of transparent advertising (one-sided / two-sided) and the role of level of product category involvement (low / high). In order to ensure that the respondents perceive the stimuli as intended, the right stimuli have to be carefully selected. For this reason, a quantitative, as well as a qualitative preliminary test have been conducted.

5.1.1 Quantitative pre-test

The main purpose of the quantitative pre-test was to decide on the type of transparency marketing for the main experiment and select the product categories for the involvement manipulations for the main experiment. A total of 17 participants fully completed the pre-test survey (N = 17). First of all, in order to choose the transparency marketing type

(cost/supply/organizational/technological), the requirements for transparency marketing had to be identified. To stay consistent with the definition used in the present study, discussed in the theoretical framework (chapter 2), transparency in the marketing context has to satisfy three dimensions, namely relevance, accuracy, clarity. The first dimension refers to the extent that respondents perceive the transparent information as openly shared and relevant to the issue (Williams, 2008). The second dimension is ‘accuracy’, based on the notion that transparent information should be correct, unbiased and reliable (Wrinkler, 2000; Granados et

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al., 2010; Larsson et al., 1998). The third dimension is ‘clarity’; transparent information should be presented clearly, without complicated algorithms or foreign languages. That is to say, the disclosed transparent messages should be understandable, lucid and comprehensible (Street & Meister, 2004).

After identifying the requirements, advertisements could be developed for each type of transparency marketing. In the study of Hultman & Axelsson (2007), four types of transparency marketing are outlined, namely cost transparency, supply transparency, organizational transparency and technological transparency. For each of the transparency marketing types, advertisements were created to investigate which advertisement satisfied the three dimensions best. This evaluation is based on the perceived transparency scale,

measuring the three dimensions. A three-item, 7-point semantic scale was used to measure the degree of perceived transparency, derived by Vishwanath, Tara, and Daniel Kaufmann (1999) (Cronbach’s α = .87). Based on the extent each advertisement satisfied the three requirements, the transparency marketing type that scored the highest, and thus, was perceived as most transparent, was selected for the main experiment.

An overview of the results concerning the type of transparent marketing are presented in Table 1. In terms of transparency marketing types, ‘Cost transparency’ was perceived as most transparent, based on the three criteria for transparency in the marketing context (M = 5.96, SD = .69). For this reason, the main experiment will apply cost transparency marketing in each advertisement.

Table 1

Mean scores and standard deviations for the transparency marketing types

Type of transparency marketing Mean SD

Cost transparency 5.96 0.69 Supply transparency 5.76 0.83 Organizational transparency 5.82 0.57 Technological transparency 5.44 0.73

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For the manipulation of product category involvement, one product category perceived as low involvement and one product category perceived as high involvement needed to be selected for the main experiment. A successful manipulation of ‘level of involvement’ is important as the motivation and abilities of an individual are supposedly different under high, and low involvement conditions. Prior research suggests, that price has been mostly used in the marketing context to establish conditions of involvement, considering the risks of a mis-purchase. To put it briefly, the risks are higher when the price is higher, and conversely lower, when the price is lower (Rothschild,1979). Hence, it is likely that consumers are more

involved in a product category when the price is higher. Further, durable goods are also considered to be an indicator of high involvement, as seen once purchased, one is stuck with that product for a longer time. As a final point, fashion is also considered as a high

involvement product category, because of its symbolic character and its capability to express oneself (Levey, 1959).

Based on the existing literature, a total of six product categories were carefully selected for the pre-test. The three product categories chosen for the low involvement

conditions were coffee beans, a chocolate bar and a white t-shirt. As for the high involvement conditions, the included product categories were a coffee machine, leather wallet and sweater. To measure the level of involvement per product category, all subjects were asked to indicate for each of the six product categories, to what extent they (dis)agreed with the statements from the pre-validated, cognitive involvement pre-test scales from Drossos, Kokkinaki, Giaglis, and Fouskas (2014) (Cronbach's α= .88). The six-item scales were measured using a 7-point Likert’s scale. Then, the product category with the lowest mean was selected for the low involvement conditions and the product category with the highest mean for the high involvement conditions.

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For the manipulation of product category involvement, the results are presented in table 2. As predicted, the coffee beans, chocolate bar and white t-shirt chosen for the low involvement conditions scored indeed lower compared to the product categories chosen for the high involvement conditions. As presented in table 2, the chocolate bar was perceived as the lowest involvement product category (M = 2.36, SD = .90), having the lowest mean out of the six product categories. The product category that was scored the highest on the

involvement scale was the leather wallet (M = 5.5412, SD = .96116). Accordingly, these two products are selected for the involvement manipulation in the main study.

Table 2

Mean scores and standard deviations for product category involvement

Product category M SD Coffee beans Chocolate bar White t-shirt 2.76 2.36 4.42 .76 .90 .87 Coffee machine Leather wallet Sweater 5.51 5.54 4.84 .87 .96 .93

5.1.2 Qualitative pre-test (Stimuli selection and development)

The one-sided advertisement conditions and the two-sided advertisement conditions will disclose the same positive transparent information. The main objective of the qualitative pre-test is therefore to select the transparent information with a negative tone for the two-sided conditions to manipulate the construct ‘Type of transparent advertising’ (one-sided / two-sided advertisement). On the basis of structured informal interviews, a focus group (N = 12) is conducted to explore the text messages for each type of advertisement in the main

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Firstly, all subjects were familiarized with the ‘type of transparent advertising’ definition and subsequently the difference between ‘one-sided’ and ‘two-sided’ advertising. After that, for both the chocolate bar and the leather wallet, which were selected for the involvement manipulation in the quantitative pre-test, there were each three statements that were expected to be perceived as negative. Following the criteria of Eisend (2006), discussed in the theoretical framework (chapter 2), the negative statements should not be too strong. The participants were exposed to these, in total six supposedly negative statements and were asked if they could indicate to what extent they perceived each statements as negative. Thereafter, the participants were asked to select two statements (one from each involvement condition) that they perceived as negative to a similar extent in order to select statements with a similar valence intensity. Also, since Eisend (2006) proposed not to put the negative

information at the end, this will be kept in mind in the development of the main experiment. Thus, the selected negative information will be disclosed in the middle of the advertisement in the two-sided advertisement conditions.

Taking into account the criteria aforementioned; the stimuli for the qualitative pre-test were selected. The results of the qualitative pre-test reveal that ‘made in a factory in

Bangladesh, where the workers work every single day of the week for you to have the highest quality chocolate bar’ and ‘made in a factory in Bangladesh, where the workers work every single day of the week for you to have the highest quality durable leather wallet’ are

perceived by the participants as similarly negative. This selection was based on the fact that they met the criteria for two-sided advertising from Eisend (2006) best and did not differ much from each other in terms of content and valence intensity. Carefully selecting the stimuli for the manipulations are important, as successful manipulations minimizes the chance that the results of the test will be influenced by variables that were not intended to do so.

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5.2 Main experiment

5.2.1 Research design

The main aim of this study is to research the effect of consumers’ scepticism and level of product category involvement on transparent information processing in the development of consumer attitudes towards a brand. A deductive approach is used for this study, since the hypotheses and accordingly the conceptual model are developed based on existing literature from prior studies. In order to examine the hypothesized relationships, an experimental design is applied. An experimental design allows the respondents to be randomly assigned to different treatment conditions of the experiment, which prevents the respondents from predicting hypotheses. Furthermore, an experimental design provides the opportunity to manipulate variables. By manipulating variables, effects on different groups and causal relationships between the variables can be examined (Lewis & Saunders, 2012).

The main study conducted a 2 (one-sided / two-sided advertising) x 2 (low product category involvement / high product category involvement) between subject factorial design, resulting in four treatment conditions, since each respondent will be randomly assigned to one of the four conditions. A between-subjects design is chosen to avoid ant carry-over effects, as the first impression of participants may change with more exposure.

Figure 2

The 2 x 2 between-subjects research design

Level of product category involvement Low High

Type of transparent advertising

One-

sided Condition 1 Condition 3

Two-

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5.2.2 Procedure and data sample

For the main experiment, data is collected by means of an online questionnaire, hosted by Qualtrics. Based on the researcher’s network, potential respondents were invited through social media to participate in this experiment. Since the experiment was distributed online, there was no possibility to monitor the participants, which could impact the reliability of the final results. In order to minimize subject errors and reliability issues, preliminary tests were conducted as outlined in the previous section. Since this study researches consumers’ attitude towards a brand, the primary premise of the potential participants was that they are

consumers. Considering the time constraints, the assumption is made that every potential participant of this study is a consumer and thus valuable. Therefore, convenience sampling is applied to collect data.

The experiment started with a brief introductory welcome message. After that, each respondent was randomly assigned to one of the four conditions and was exposed to the advertisement of that condition only. Thereafter, respondents were asked to indicate the extent to which they (dis) agreed to a series of statements on a 7-point Likert scale, 1 being ‘Strongly disagree’ and 7 being ‘Strongly agree’ (appendix A) An explanation was provided with each statement to minimize confusion or misunderstandings. The opportunity to leave comments about the survey was provided at the end of the questionnaire.

5.2.3 Measures

This part discusses the measurement scale of each variable that will be used in the main experiment. Firstly, the independent variables will be further elaborated, followed by an explanation of the dependent variable.

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Independent variable

Level of scepticism. Level of scepticism is an independent variable, yet is also

expected to be a potential moderator in this study. The construct is continuous and is measured in the main experiment. To measure the level of scepticism, a four-item scale derived from Mohr, Eroglu, and Ellen (1998) on ad scepticism was used. This is a pre-validated scale, which had a Cronbach’s alpha of .79 (Cronbach’s α = .79). The four items asked respondents to indicate their feelings towards the claims and messages in the

advertisement shown.

Dependent variable

Consumer attitude towards a brand. The attitudes of the respondents towards the

brand were measured using a four-item scale from Berger and Mitchell (1989) on the effect of advertising attitudes. The items were rewritten to the level of agreement and the

respondents were asked to judge the brand as shown in the advertisement on a 7-point semantic differential scale.

Manipulation checks

Type of transparent advertising. As described earlier, type of transparent advertising

is a categorical variable, which consists of two levels: one-sided and two-sided. One sided advertising refers to positive information disclosure, whereas two sided advertising refers to positive, as well as some negative information disclosure in the advertisement. The type of advertisement was manipulated by using the same advertisements, aside from minor changes in the information disclosed. In order to check whether the manipulation was perceived as intended, a three item scale derived from Vishwanath, Tara, and Daniel Kaufmann (1999) was used (Cronbach's α = .87). The three items were as follows: ‘I believe the disclosed

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information is clear’, ‘I believe the information is relevant’, and ‘I believe the information is accurate’. Furthermore, a dummy variable was created for this variable. A 0 was given in

case of one-sided advertising, whereas a 1 was given in the case of two-sided advertising.

Level of product category involvement. Level of product category involvement is also

an independent variable, but is also expected to function as a potential moderator in this study. This variable is also a categorical variable and consists of two levels as well. Namely, low product category involvement and high product category involvement. To check whether the manipulation was perceived correctly, a five item scale derived from Drossos, Kokkinaki, Giaglis, & Fouskas (2014) was used (Cronbach’s α = .88). Respondents were asked to

indicate the extent to which they (dis) agreed to the following five statements: ‘Choosing this

product category involves an important decision’, ‘This decision requires a lot of thought’, ‘I have a lot to lose if I choose the wrong brand’, ‘Decision is mainly objective’, and ‘Decision is based mainly on functional facts’. For this variable, a dummy variable is computed as well.

Where a 0 was given for a low involvement product category, a 1 was given for a high involvement product category.

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Chapter 6: Results

In this section, the sample and collected data will be discussed, results will be presented and answers will be given to each hypothesis by using the results that stem from the full factorial Analysis of Variance (ANOVA).

6.1 Sample characteristics

The aim for the current research design was to reach a minimum of 30 respondents for each condition, so a total of 120 respondents, in order to generate reliable results. Ultimately, the dataset of this online-experiment consisted of a total of 257 respondents. However, 37 of the 257 responses were not completed and therefore not useful. Excluding these from the dataset led to 220 respondents, from which 2 were missing, so the final dataset consisted of a total of 218 respondents.

In order to reduce the possibility of alternative explanations for the outcomes, demographic variables are included in the questionnaire. With regard to the age of

participants, the majority (58.7 %) of the respondents was between the ages of 18 and 24. Since most of the participants (98.2%) were under the age of 35 years, it is hard to express the representability of the sample towards the society. This piece of demographic information may be interesting theoretically, though, following the line of reasoning that the primary source of influence on scepticism toward ads is the quality of accumulated consumer experiences. The more consumers experience what they perceive to be deception and exaggeration in advertising, the more sceptical they will become. In other words, the assumption arises that age increase may reflect more instances when advertising failed to match product performance. Thus, a generally positive relation between age and ad

scepticism is expected. However, since the conditions are randomized and the data sample has no variation in age, this control variable will not generate striking results. To clarify,

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demographic variables are only relevant and need to be controlled for, when they fluctuate over the conditions of an experiment. As seen there is no case of compelling fluctuations across the conditions, there is no expectation that controlling for this demographic variable in the main tests will generate significant insights.

In terms of the gender of the respondents, a similar case is going on. Although a fairly even distribution can be concluded, the demographic variable ‘Gender’ is not expected to have consequences for the results of the hypotheses analysis, since the participants are randomly assigned to one of the conditions in the final experiment. In other words, there are again no structural variations across the conditions regarding the demographic variable ‘gender’.

Finally, the respondents were asked to indicate their (highest) level of education. This question was included because of its potential influence on the dependent variable ‘Consumer

attitude towards a brand’. The highest level of education for the majority of the respondents

turned out to be at University level (67.0%). From a theoretical perspective, the demographic variable ‘Highest educational level’ could impact the relationship between type of transparent advertising and consumer attitude towards a brand, as most of the respondents are highly educated. This can be interesting to research as it may affect the results of the hypotheses testing. However, since the control variable ‘Highest educational level’ did not fluctuate across the conditions of the experiment, it was not relevant to investigate as a control variable either.

In conclusion, theoretically speaking, the demographic variables could be interesting to study. However, for the reason that this data sample revealed no structural variations in the background variables, there is no point in investigating it further in the main hypotheses testing.

Brands and consumers : the impact of consumers' scepticism and level of product category involvement on transparent information processing in the development of consumer attitudes towards a brand