Damage from Corrective Advertising: Causes and Cures
Published 11/1/2008
Author: Peter R. Darke, Laurence Ashworth, & Robin J.B. Ritchie
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Executive Summary
This research uses the defensive suspicion model to identify both the broad negative effects that corrective advertising can have on advertising as a whole and the remedies that firms can use to avoid such negative reactions. Corrective advertising is specifically intended to undo erroneous beliefs created by misleading advertisements and can be ordered by the Federal Trade Commission only when it does not produce additional punitive effects for the firm or the brand involved. Contrary to its intended effects, this research shows corrective advertising can actually produce much broader negative outcomes by undermining the effectiveness of future advertising for different products from the same advertiser, as well as additional claims for products offered by unrelated second-party advertisers. These negative side effects occurred regardless of whether the correction came from the offending company itself or an industry regulator. Moreover, the negative side effects were obvious even when the second-party advertiser had a well-established brand image. Consistent with the theoretical framework, the results showed that the broader side effects of advertising correction occurred because they induced a generalized state of suspicion toward advertising as whole. The findings also suggest a number of remedies for these negative effects. For example, second-party firms that were endorsed by the Better Business Bureau were less vulnerable to the side effects of correction. In addition, the offending advertiser can avoid negative reactions by responding to corrections with a plausible explanation for the misleading claim, whereas no explanation, an apology, or a denial from the offending firm was not effective.
For managers, this work underlines the need to avoid misleading advertising messages in the first place. Revelations of deceptive advertising have the power to adversely affect advertising as a whole, not just the specific firm involved in the deception. For regulators, the findings suggest that careful consideration must be given to the punitive effects that such practices can have by reinforcing negative attitudes toward advertising as a whole. Furthermore, the evidence suggests that regulators also have some role to play in protecting firms against the unintended consequences of correction—namely, by publicly endorsing ethical firms. Finally, the findings imply that the broad distrust induced by corrective advertising may actually harm—not aid—consumer welfare by decreasing consumers’ ability to recognize valid information when they receive it. Thus, corrective advertising is a tool that must be used judiciously to strike a balance between the cost of erroneous product beliefs in the marketplace and the potential damage that correction can do to advertising as a whole, to honest advertisers in particular, and even to consumers themselves.
Biography
Peter R. Darke is Associate Professor of Marketing in the Schulich School of Business at York University. He received his doctoral degree in Psychology from the University of Toronto in 1993, and his dissertation research was the winner of the J.S. Tanaka Award in Personality Psychology. His current research focuses on consumer attitudes, judgment, and decision making. He has published articles in Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Economic Psychology, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Research in Personality, Journal of Retailing, Marketing Letters, and Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Finally, he is the current marketing area editor for Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences.
Laurence Ashworth is an assistant professor in Queen’s School of Business at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. He is broadly interested in social and affective influences on consumer behavior and has conducted research on fairness, impression management, suspicion, and affect in the consumer context.
Robin J.B. Ritchie is Assistant Professor of Marketing in the Sprott School of Business at Carleton University. He earned his PhD in Marketing from the University of British Columbia. His research examines consumer suspicion of marketers and its influence on interpretation of advertising claims, the nature of subsistence marketplaces, and the nature of competition in the nonprofit sector. He has coauthored several publications, including “The Defensive Consumer: Advertising Deception, Defensive Processing, and Distrust” in the Journal of Marketing Research, and “Hearing Voices: The Impact of Announcer Speech Characteristics on Consumer Response to Broadcast Advertising” in the Journal of Consumer Psychology. Dr. Ritchie’s work experience includes management of marketing research for Travel Alberta (the tourism marketing agency of the province of Alberta, Canada), and consulting for the Valencian Tourism Institute in Valencia, Spain. He has also served as an account manager with Columbus Group Internet Marketing in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Journal of Marketing, Volume 72, Number 6, November 2008
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