AD SKEPTICISM: The Consequences of Disbelief

Abstract

Three studies investigated the effects of consumer skepticism toward advertising on responses to ads. Consumer skepticism, defined as the tendency toward disbelief of advertising claims (Obermiller and Spangenberg 1998), is measured in each study and then related to various measures of advertising response, including brand beliefs, ad attitudes, responses to informational and emotional appeals, efforts to avoid advertising, attention to ads, and reliance on ads versus other information sources. The results generally support the hypotheses that more skeptical consumers like advertising less, rely on it less, attend to it less, and respond more positively to emotional appeals than to informational appeals.