Abstract

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of the type of claims(subjective versus subjective / objective) and the attribute-relatedness of pictorial elements in allegedly misleading advertisements on consumer's beliefs about product attributes. 16 magazine advertisements of two product categories(pill and health food) were produced and presented to the student subjects in laboratory setting. Belief strengths of the attributes of the advertised brands, attitudes toward the brands, and intentions to purchase the brands were measured as dependent variables. We found that 1) subjects were misleaded in 5 of 7 questions for measure the belief strengths of product attributes ; 2) in subjective / objective arguments condition, subjects were more misleaded than in subjective-only condition ; 3) the ads contained pictures were more effective in misleading subjects than the ads didn't contain pictures regardless of the attribute-relatedness ; 4) the type of claims and the attribute-relatedness of pictures had an interaction effect on the belief strengths.