I'm a believer: Some product claims work better than others
December 15, 2008Consumers face a barrage of product claims each day. What makes those claims believable? A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research says both marketers and consumers can benefit from information about the way people process product claims.
Authors Elise Chandon (Virginia Tech) and Chris Janiszewski (University of Florida) began their research by identifying four different structures of product claims. The first format mentions the brand, then its associated benefit, such as "Pantene Pro-V: For Hair So Healthy It Shines." The second format mentions the lack of an important benefit, for example: "If it is not trail rated, it is not a Jeep 4X4". The third type of claim mentions the benefit, then the brand: "How do you spell relief? R-O-L-A-I-D-S." The fourth strategy is to focus on the failure to buy the brand: "If you haven't relaxed on a French Quarter balcony, you haven't lived yet."
While these formats seem similar, the authors say consumers employ different logical strategies to counteract the various pitches. "The believability of product claims depends on the consumer's ability to generate disabling conditions (i.e., other events blocking a cause from having its effect) and alternative causes (i.e., other events causing the outcome)," they write.
"A person's ability to think of alternative causes can make a claim less believable. For example, knowing that good oral hygiene also prevents cavities may reduce a person's willingness to believe that Crest prevents cavities," the authors explain. "Second, a person's ability to think of disabling conditions can make a claim less believable. For example, knowing that people with high-sugar diets are more likely to have cavities may decrease a person's willingness to believe that Crest prevents cavities." In the course of their experiments, the authors found that the first two ad formats worked better when participants were able to come up with more alternative causes than disabling conditions.
This research can help marketers determine what types of claims are more effective in different situations. It can also help consumers understand why they find some claims convincing while they remain skeptical of others.
More info: Elise Chandon and Chris Janiszewski. "The Influence of Causal Conditional Reasoning on the Acceptance of Product Claims." Journal of Consumer Research: April 2009.
Source: University of Chicago
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VOR - Dec 15, 2008
- Rank: 5 / 5 (1)
As a consumer, I always assume EVERYTHING marketers claim is a LIE, unless proven otherwise. As a group, they are amoral, even immoral, with no sense of the importance of honesty. Truth and lies are reduced to measurments of thier effectiveness, which is utterly immoral and disfunctional. On a related subject, even some scientist regard lying as an intrinsic part of modern society. Ive seen a TV show where lying was (mis)studied and its 'role' in society commented upon. What the scientists missed is that lying is mostly and usually a disfunctional behavior, (with far fewer exceptions that they noted). Lying in marketing contributes to the acceptance of lying and its disfunction. One reason lying is 'wrong' is that it causes disconnection and mistrust. The negative impact of lying in general is not accounted, and lying is not treated as a serious problem. Instead its often regarded as an attribute of society, not a problem. But it is a serious problem. It belittles us, it dishonors us! The Japanese have it right. Don't frikkin lie America!- report abuse
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gopher65 - Dec 15, 2008
- Rank: not rated yet
I hope that TV show that you're talking about isn't Bones. I stopped watching it because they strongly endorsed lying as a "necessary part of our society" in one of their Christmas episodes (lying to children about darned near everything being a prime example in the episode in question). The extremist Christian slant to the show didn't help matters, admittedly.- report abuse
Nov 10, 2009 |
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