Download Impact of Consumer Involvement on Advertising Skepticism

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Impact of Consumer Involvement on Advertising Skepticism
A Framework to Reduce Advertising Skepticism
Syeda Nazish Zehra Rizvi (Corresponding author)
Lecturer IBIT, University of the Punjab Lahore
Manahil Sami
Shamaila Gull
Lecturer IBIT, University of the Punjab Lahore
ABSTRACT
The research focuses on an ever growing concern for marketers in the form of consumer skepticism
towards advertising (CSA). This variable was studied along with consumer involvement, analyzing
the fact that whether the level of involvement has any relation with the level of skepticism and finally
three of marketing‟s best known and diverse tools, i.e. CSR, source credibility, and Opinion leaders
were analyzed as means to reduce skepticism. The analysis was carried out using SPSS on questions
comprising of 5 point likert scales.
Keywords: Advertising Skepticism,Consumer Skepticism towards Advertising, CSA, Consumer
Involvement, CI, Source credibility, Corporate social responsibility, CSR, Opinion seeking behavior.
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of the study is to evaluate and understand the relationship between consumer
involvement (CI) and consumer skepticism towards advertising (CSA). The concept of CSA is
defined as the tendency of consumers to have a disbelieving attitude towards the claims made by
advertisers/marketers.
CSA has emerged as an important phenomenon having significant effects on consumer behavior. It
has said to be gained through intergenerational variables to some extent, whereas market knowledge,
individual personality characteristics and experience are the factors that are closely connected to
CSA.Consumer involvement has various definition attached to it as it is a diverse concept related to
consumer behavior.
This research is being designed to study whether consumer involvement has any effect on CSA, Here
the concept of levels of involvement would be considered too. The study is planned in a way that
discovers their relationship and trends how they correlate, here relationship between the level of
involvement and ad skepticism would be considered. It further will discover the varying CSA among
different demographics. And then the study would be considering the impact of following three
variables on CSA to investigate which of them could help in reducing CSA:
 Source credibility

Corporate social responsibility

Opinion seeking behavior
LITERATURE REVIEW
Ad Skepticism
There has been tremendous research on the market belief called consumer skepticism towards
advertising (CSA). It has been defined as: “A tendency to disbelieve advertising claims” by
Obermiller and Spangenberg (1998).
It has been said in the literature that promoters use the emotional plea in the ads to evade the
consumer‟s disbelief for the informational content in the advertisements (Friestad and Wright 1994).
A study concluded that individuals who are skeptical about the ad claims prefer verifying them by
asking a friend or using the product, instead of considering consumer report and related magazines. It
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further provided that skepticism might not consider as much of the usage of magazine analysis of
product but it might increase with involvement and interest for product.
“The results did not support the hypothesis that skeptics have a preference for any type of ad appeal
(items 10-12). These results support the notion that SKEP is not a measure of consumer cynicism. It
has been suggested that cynical consumers may be especially vigilant against overtly manipulative
attempts (Campbell 1995; Kanter and Wortzel 1985). High skeptics showed no disinclination toward
celebrity spokespeople, info-mercial structure, or “soft sell” ads (emphasis on pictures, music, or
humor).” (Carl Obermiller, Eric Spangenberg, and Douglas L. MacLachian, fall 2005).
Individuals who are advertising skeptics were defined in a way that they don‟t believe advertising and
don‟t consider them significant enough to process. “Skeptics are not immune to advertising. In
addition to an openness to emotional appeals , studies have provided limited evidence that high
skeptics respond well to products for which they are highly involved” (Carl Obermiller, Eric
Spangenberg , and Douglas L. MacLachian, fall 2005).
Literature says that the SEC framework suggested that consumers have more skeptical attitude
towards the credence attributes in comparison to search attributes which can be verified unlike the
credence attributes. There also exists differential skepticism towards experience claims of high and
low priced products. (Gary t. Ford,Darlene b. Smith and john l. Swasy, march 1990). According
to Ford, Smith, and Swasy (1990) the perceived value of the information, the appropriateness of
advertising for specific audiences, the motives of the advertisers, and the truth of claims may be
contributing factors to consumer skepticism.
Consumer involvement
Consumer involvement is defined as a variable “With a high predictive value for purchase behavior”
(Evrard and Aurier, 1996). Quester and Lim (2003) divides involvement into product involvement and
purchase involvement, where product involvement is establish to be the more stable (enduring) and
consumer-based notion.
Corporate Social Responsibility
Responsibility refers to fair business practices based on values like social, ethical, environmental and
respect for people. The concept of CSR was initially stated by Drucker (1974) concluding that
organizations must spend a portion of their profits in social activities to benefit community. “CSR has
also termed as “corporate citizenship” which means that a company should be a good neighbor in its
host community” (U.S. Agency for international development, catalyst consortium, 2002).
It has been discussed that companies in order to differentiate themselves in the market are using the
strategies to promote their CSR activities or they are doing cause-related marketing. Similarly firms
are through various promotional tools tries to communicate that how they are associated to welfare.
Here CSA is involved too making the consumer doubtful about what the firm is claiming. It has been
discussed that in addition to be truthful in CSR related claims the firms must have an understanding
about the extent of consumer‟s learning about the CSR, and their degree of skepticism. (Peggy Simcic
Brønn, Associate Professor and Albana Belliu Vrioni, MSc Student, May 2001).
Opinion Seeking Behavior
Opinion seeking has been considered as part of purchase decision making. Consumers seek opinions
when they are willing to make more satisfying purchase decisions. (Punj and Staelin 1983)
Source Credibility
Source credibility is considered as a multi - faceted concept, and its two dimensions are perceived
expertise and perceived trustworthiness (Hoveland et al., 1953; McGuire, 1987, Ohnian, 1990).Both
these dimensions are further defined as: Perceived expertise is described as the extent to which a
source is considered to be proficient of making valid assertions. Perceived trustworthiness is defined
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as the level of confidence exists towards the source being motivated to transfer valid assertions.
(Hoveland et al., 1953; McCraken, 1989)
The literature further revealed that irrespective of the prominence on any of the two dimensions it has
been observed that highly credible sources brings greater attitude change in comparison to low
credible sources(Mills and Jellison, 1967; Rhine and Severance, 1970).
METHODOLOGY
Probability sampling has been used for selecting a total of 300 individuals for the survey. To analyze
and evaluate the survey findings a statistical tool SPSS 17 will be used, to portray the findings and the
trends appropriately.
Scales considered for measuring variables

Skep-scale is to be considered for measuring the degree of ad skepticism in a consumer. The
Cronbach‟s coefficient of the scale is 0.85

CIP-scale is used to measure the level of consumer involvement. The Cronbach‟s coefficient
of the scale is 0.702

To measure the opinion seeking behavior of a consumer a Reynolds and Darden 1971 3 item
scale would be considered. The Cronbach‟s coefficient of the scale is 0.785

Source credibility would be measured by the scale known as Harmon and Coney 1982. The
Cronbach‟s coefficient of the scale is 0.742

Corporate social responsibility towards the community would be measured by the
questionnaire of Maignan& Ferrell model. A five-point likert scale was used. The Cronbach‟s
coefficient of the scale is 0.822.
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RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
1. Consumer Involvement and Consumer Skepticism towards Advertising
Pearson correlation shows a value of 0.282 depicting the strength of the relationship which is weak
and the value of significance is less than 0.05 so H° can be rejected with 95% level of confidence. So
marketers/advertisers should keep in mind that involvement can bring up high level of skepticism.
CSA
1
CSA
Pearson Correlation
Sig. (2-tailed)
N
300
CI
Pearson Correlation
.282**
Sig. (2-tailed)
.000
N
300
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
CI
.282**
.000
300
1
300
After analyzing the relationship between the two variables we move on to analyzing the relationship
between three marketing tools and ad skepticism, in order to determine which one of them would be
the best in reducing skepticism among consumers.
2. Consumer skepticism towards advertisements and Opinion seeking behavior
The two variables depict a weak yet significant relationship with each other therefore leading to the
finding that various tools of marketing such as opinion leaders, brand ambassadors, word of mouth
advertising can be used to reduce ad skepticism.
CSA
Pearson Correlation 1
CSA
Opinion
behavior
Sig. (2-tailed)
N
300
seeking Pearson Correlation .178**
Sig. (2-tailed)
N
.002
300
Opinion seeking behavior
.178**
.002
300
1
300
3. Consumer skepticism towards advertisements and Source credibility
The following table depicts opinion leaders as a weak but significant tool for impacting ad skepticism.
CSA
1
Source credibility
.165**
CSA
Pearson Correlation
Source credibility
Sig. (2-tailed)
N
Pearson Correlation
300
.165**
.004
300
1
Sig. (2-tailed)
N
.004
300
300
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Consumer skepticism towards advertisements and corporate social
responsibility:
It can be stated with 99% confidence that CSR is a moderately strong tool for reducing skepticism
towards advertising in consumers.
CSA
1
CSR
.238**
Sig. (2-tailed)
N
Pearson Correlation
300
.238**
.000
300
1
Sig. (2-tailed)
N
.000
300
300
CSA
Pearson Correlation
CSR
Regression Analysis
The following tables depict CSA‟s regression analysis with all the other variables.
5. CI and CSA
The analysis reveals the following regression equation:
Consumer skepticism towards advertisement= Slope * Consumer involvement + Intercept
= 0.248 * Consumer involvement + 2.077
Standardized
Unstandardized Coefficients Coefficients
Model
B
Std. Error
Beta
t
Sig.
1
(Constant) 2.077
.152
13.705
.000
CI
.248
.049
.282
5.083
.000
a. Dependent Variable: CSA
6. CSA and OSB
Standardized
Unstandardized Coefficients Coefficients
Model
B
Std. Error
Beta
1
(Constant)
2.461
.122
Opinion seeking behavior .135
.043
.178
a. Dependent Variable: CSA
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t
20.159
3.123
Sig.
.000
.002
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7. CSA and CSR
Model
1
(Constant)
Unstandardized Coefficients
B
Std. Error
2.328
.123
CSR
.182
a. Dependent Variable: CSA
.043
Standardized
Coefficients
Beta
.238
t
18.942
Sig.
.000
4.233
.000
8. CSA and Source Credibility
Standardized
Unstandardized Coefficients Coefficients
B
Std. Error
Beta
2.461
.131
.159
.055
.165
Model
1
(Constant)
Source
credibility
a. Dependent Variable: CSA
t
18.785
2.894
Sig.
.000
.004
The results of statistical tests and the literature review helps concluding that Consumer skepticism
towards advertising is a variable that is of tremendous importance to marketers.
And consumer involvement is a factor that it moderates the influence of CSA.
As the involvement increases a consumer tends to be more skeptic, but the increase is not large. When
involvement is really high consumers prefer searching and verifying the claims instead of being
skeptical about them. So the advertisers/marketers should get the understanding from this that CSA
can be reduced when consumers find it easy to verify the claims. And most importantly when the
claims are verified, it develops a sense of trust in the consumer‟s mind for the
brand/company/advertiser.
Marketers can get the understanding from results that promotion of corporate social responsibility is
of considerable importance for the consumers. And it might help reducing CSA to a considerable
degree, depending upon the fact that it is considered truthful by the target audience. Consumer
encourages the fact that companies should be associated with welfare activities. The insight for
marketers is that the CSR campaigns must be promoting the real efforts conducted instead of fake
claims
regarding
welfare.
And if presented with vague CSR campaigns this will back fire and will company will suffer.
Opinion seeking seems to have an impact more than the variable source credibility. So this provides
an insight that marketers could get help from the opinion leaders in reducing the degree of skepticism.
Consumers who have a positive attitude towards opinion seeking are the one who are more skeptical
about the ad claims. The insight here for marketers is that using appropriate opinion leaders would
have an influence on the consumers and it will moderate the effect of skepticism.
Source credibility does not seem to have a considerable influence on CSA. But they share a positive
linear relationship. So it can be one of the tools to reduce CSA.
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