Apparel Advertising: A Study in Consumer Attitude Change

Abstract

Advertisements for apparel products frequently feature hyperboles to convince consumers that a product is superior to other similar brand offerings. The objective of this study was to investigate what type of advertising information was believable enough to produce a change in consumer's attitudes. Two attitude models developed by Fishbein were used to assess consumers' attitudes. The original Fishbein model is based on the consumer's perception of actual product attributes provided by a brand. The extended Fishbein model includes the information used in the original Fishbein model in addition to a reference group factor. Two product groups, ladies' footwear and pantyhose, were used in this study because they are areas where product superiority claims have been made without substantiation. Female high school students were assigned to a pretest-posttest control group design. Advertisements for eight brands were used as the experimental treatment. Results from the study indicate that advertisements for five of the eight brands were believable enough to produce a significant change in attitude.