Comparative Advertising: A Factual Claim or an Evaluative Claim

Abstract

Comparative advertising is widely used in the U.S and much remains to be learnt about when comparative advertising is used with the two forms of verbal claim; factual and evaluative claim. An experimental design with the 2 forms of verbal content (factual vs evaluative) and the two forms of comparative advertisements (direct vs indirect) were examined to identify the form of verbal content and comparison that would be most persuasive. In measuring the persuasiveness, attitude towards the brand and purchase intention were included as dependable variables. Results show that there was no significant difference between the two types of verbal content and the two types of comparisons which indicate that any forms of verbal content under any form of comparative advertisements is equally persuasive.