The piecemeal approach to comparative advertising.

When attempting to portray the attractiveness of a brand vis-à-vis its competitors, an ad may make global claims about superiority or specific claims about one or more attributes. A special case of latter is the piecemeal ad in which the advertised brand is compared to a competitor on one attribute, a different competitor on a second attribute, another competitor on a third attribute, and so on. The present research demonstrates the effectiveness of this technique and explores the basis for its influence. A series of experiments reveals a robust effect mediated by perceived message credibility.Advertising; Effectiveness; Credibility;

The premium as informational cue in insurance decision-making

Often in insurance decision making, there are risk factors on which the insurer has an informational advantage over the consumer. But when the insurer sets and posts a premium for the consumer to consider, the consumer can potentially use the premium as an informational cue for the loss probability, and thereby to reduce the insurer’s informational advantage. We study, by means of a behavioral model, how consumers would use the premium as an informational cue in such contexts. The belief formation process in our model assumes that both prior knowledge and the premium (as a proportion of the compensation) might have an impact on the consumer’s estimate of the loss probability. Moreover, the premium impacts the estimate through an anchoring-and-adjustment process. The model potentially leads to violations of rational expectations, with which the consumer overestimates the loss probability beyond what could be inferred from the premium, given the premise that the insurer must seek to break even or earn an expected profit. Our model analysis moreover implies that the frequency of such violations is non-increasing as the premium increases. Lastly, the model implies a generally inverted-U relationship between insurance demand and the premium, so that the demand is upward sloping at low premium levels and downward sloping at high premium levels. A pilot field study and a laboratory experiment provide robust evidence for our model implications and calibrations for its parameters

Multiattribute perceptual mapping with idiosyncratic brand and attribute sets

This article proposes an extremely flexible procedure for perceptual mapping based on multiattribute ratings, such that the respondent freely generates sets of both brands and attributes. Therefore, the brands and attributes are known and relevant to each participant. Collecting and analyzing such idiosyncratic datasets can be challenging. Therefore, this study proposes a modification of generalized canonical correlation analysis to support the analysis of the complex data structure. The model results in a common perceptual map with subject-specific and overall fit measures. An experimental study compares the proposed procedure with alternative approaches using predetermined sets of brands and/or attributes. In the proposed procedure, brands are better known, attributes appear more relevant, and the respondent's burden is lower. The positions of brands in the new perceptual map differ from those obtained when using fixed brand sets. Moreover, the new procedure typically yields positioning information on more brands. An empirical study on positioning of shoe stores illustrates our procedure and resulting insights. Finally, the authors discuss limitations, potential application areas, and directions for research

DECISION AMBIGUITY AND INCUMBENT BRAND ADVANTAGE

This article examines the role of decision ambiguity in judgments that consumers make about an incumbent (the brand a consumer currently uses) versus an attack brand (a new, superior competitor). It is hypothesized that decision ambiguity creates an advantage for the incumbent. A conceptualization of decision ambiguity is offered. In three experiments, factors that can cause decision ambiguity are manipulated and their effects on preference for the incumbent are investigated. The results underscore the role of decision ambiguity in incumbent brand advantage. In two other experiments, boundary conditions are examined

Search and alignment in judgment revision: Implications for brand positioning

The authors propose a model of judgment revision, which posits that counterattitudinal challenges to a brand initially trigger a memory search for proattitudinal information about the brand. The proattitudinal information accessible from memory is then aligned with information contained in the challenge in order to assess the diagnosticity of the challenge, that is, how much it "damages" the retrieved brand information. If the challenge is not perceived to be diagnostic, the retrieved brand information is used to defend the previous attitudinal position. If the challenge is perceived to be diagnostic, judgments are revised in direct proportion to the amount of damage identified in the alignment phase. Four experiments test the model's predictions about the influence of abstract versus attribute-specific brand positioning on judgment revision. Consistent with the model's predictions, results show that compared with attribute-specific positioning, abstract positioning will result in less judgment revision when the challenge is specific (e.g., a direct attack about particular attributes of the brand) and the initial brand evaluation is based on limited learning of the positioning information. When the challenge is general (e.g., a blanket, unspecific negative statement about the brand), abstract positioning will result in greater judgment revision than attribute-specific positioning will. The differential effectiveness of abstract versus attribute-specific positioning is mediated by (1) the accessibility in memory of the positioning information at the time of the challenge and (2) the perceived diagnosticity of the challenge after alignment with the retrieved brand information

Contextual effects on the revision of evaluative judgments: An extension of the omission-detection framework

When consumers are presented with negative information about a brand that they have evaluated positively earlier, the extent to which they change their initial evaluation may depend on the formats in which information is presented (noncomparative vs. comparative) at the two stages. In four experiments, we manipulate the format in which information is presented at an initial and at a challenge stage and investigate their effects on the degree of revision in evaluative judgments. The results of the four experiments suggest that when consumers receive initial information in a noncomparative format, a comparative challenge causes a greater degree of revision in the evaluative judgments than does a noncomparative challenge. However, when the initial information is presented in a comparative format, this pattern reverses, and a greater degree of revision occurs under a noncomparative challenge than under a comparative challenge. We demonstrate that sensitivity to missing information in either of the two stages is the process by which these effects obtain. In a fifth experiment we examine a boundary condition for these effects

The piecemeal approach to comparative advertising

When attempting to portray the attractiveness of a brand vis-à-vis its competitors, an ad may make global claims about superiority or specific claims about one or more attributes. A special case of latter is the piecemeal ad in which the advertised brand is compared to a competitor on one attribute, a different competitor on a second attribute, another competitor on a third attribute, and so on. The present research demonstrates the effectiveness of this technique and explores the basis for its influence. A series of experiments reveals a robust effect mediated by perceived message credibility.status: publishe

Does greater amount of information always bolster attitudinal resistance?

Previous research suggests that attitudinal resistance to information that challenges a prior evaluation increases with the amount of information underlying the prior evaluation. We revisit this proposition in a context in which a set of important claims about a target brand are presented either alone-a lower amount of "isolated" information- or along with other favorable, but less important claims-a higher amount of "embedded" information. Results from two experiments show that when the challenge occurs immediately after the initial evaluation, a greater amount of "embedded" initial information does produce greater attitudinal resistance. However, when the challenge occurs after a delay, a lesser amount of "isolated" information produces greater attitudinal resistance. The findings qualify previous assumptions about the role of prior information in attitudinal resistance, and Support a constructive view of judgment revision and attitudinal resistance