A study of visual puffery in fragrance advertising

Abstract

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -This paper aims to investigate visual exaggerations of fragrance advertisements by comparing subjects' expectations resulting from print ads to their subsequent product evaluations. It then considers whether the actual scents fall short, meet or exceed these expectations. Design/methodology/approach -By means of a semiotic analysis the authors capture the corresponding literary attributes of the ads to develop adjective pairs describing the meaning of the ads. Interviews are conducted to assess the meaning that consumers draw from the fragrance ads and the authors supplement these findings by performing a blind olfactory product evaluation of the fragrances. Paired sample t-tests are used to compare subjects' ad expectations to their subsequent product evaluation of the actual scent. Findings -These results show that the visual cues and imagery in the fragrance ads appear, under certain conditions, to result in product expectations that exceed actual product evaluations, suggesting the existence of visual puffery. The authors also found that the more abstract descriptors of the ad resulted in significantly higher expectations, while the more concrete descriptors resulted in significantly lower expectations than the actual product evaluation. Research limitations/implications -A small sample size of homogenous consumers limits the generalizability of the results. No measures of attitude effectiveness were taken. Practical implications -Visual puffery may be effective and help marketers, even in countries where verbal puffery is illegal, to use another means to reach consumers. Originality/value -This paper investigates an under-researched area in advertising. A multi-method approach and primary data are used to assess subjects' ad expectations of a fragrance and the actual product evaluation and demonstrate the existence of visual puffery.

“Wii Will Rock You!” The Use and Effect of Figurative Language in Consumer Reviews of Hedonic and Utilitarian Consumption

“…Namely, it is typical for, and expected of, advertising communication to be exaggerated and emotionally intensified. Therefore, figurative language is generally normative for advertising (Campbell and Kirmani 2000;Rotfeld and Torzoll 1980;Simonson and Holbrook 1993;Toncar and Fetscherin 2012;Xu and Wyer 2010). But user-generated content is a form of natural language in interpersonal communication.…”

Between attraction and avoidance: from perfume application to fragrance-free policies

“…Consumers are not buying the fragrance alone, but the imagery that becomes intimately associated with the fragrance. " [13]. The data in our study suggest that such promises outweigh the health effects experienced by fragrance exposure.…”

“…In the case of perfumes, the promise to become attractive is very prominent in the advertisements. Toncar and Fetscherin analyzed the visual puffery in the ubiquitous use of imagery-laden ads in the promotion of personal fragrances [13]. They describe that fragrances might be "a fantasy product, intimately connected to the self-esteem or self-image and perceived desirability and attractiveness of the buyer.…”

Claiming best or better? The effect of target brand's and competitor's puffery on holistic and analytic thinkers

“…Previous studies have also explored situational factors such as abstraction of puffery, consumer involvement, and interruption during information processing that could potentially moderate the effect of puffery on consumer brand attitude. For example, Toncar and Fetscherin (2012) investigated fragrance advertisements in three magazines using semiotic analysis and revealed the existence of visual puffery. Gao and Scorpio (2011) and Gao et al (2012) studied the effect of product involvement and puffery on ad truthfulness and brand attitude.…”

“…Second, this study examined only verbal puffery in advertisements that have been investigated in numerous empirical studies (e.g., Cowley, 2006;Gao & Scorpio, 2011;Haan & Berkey, 2002;Hoek & Gendall, 2007). However, puffery may be presented in various forms in the real marketplace, such as visual puffery (Fetscherin & Toncar, 2009;Toncar & Fetscherin, 2012) and visual hyperbole (Callister & Stern, 2007). As holistic thinkers tend to pay more attention to the whole picture than analytic thinkers, and analytic thinkers tend to pay more attention to the details of a picture than holistic thinkers, holistic thinkers and analytic thinkers might understand visually exaggerated advertisements differently.…”