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Comparative Advertising and Brand Evaluation: Toward Developing a Categorization Approach
Author(s) -
Snyder Rita
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
journal of consumer psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.433
H-Index - 110
eISSN - 1532-7663
pISSN - 1057-7408
DOI - 10.1016/s1057-7408(08)80043-5
Subject(s) - categorization , comparative advertising , competitor analysis , advertising , psychology , brand awareness , brand names , marketing , business , computer science , artificial intelligence
A categorization model was proposed to account for the effects of direct, indirect, and no comparison advertising on aspects of new brand evaluation. Direct comparisons were hypothesized to promote exemplar‐based processing, and indirect comparisons were hypothesized to promote prototype‐based processing. Evaluation of attributes of the new brand were hypothesized to depend on the type of processing promoted by the comparative ads. Subjects used comparative response scales to evaluate attributes of the new brands relative to a leading brand or “other brands.” Results supported the utility of developing a more formal categorization model. Indirect comparisons resulted in more favorable evaluation of the new brands relative to “other brands” than to the leading brand, whereas direct comparisons resulted in more favorable evaluation relative to both leading and “other brands.” Both kinds of comparative advertising were more effective than noncomparative advertising in promoting favorable evaluations. I concluded that the categorization model may be useful for accounting for effects of different types of comparative advertising, including association of the new brand with positive category attributes and differentiation of the new brand from competitors on evaluative dimensions.