Manipulating Message Involvement in Advertising Research

Abstract

Abstract Given the influential role involvement plays in advertising processing, it is important that researchers planning to manipulate the construct take great care in developing their manipulations and manipulation checks. This study discusses a procedure, adapted from Churchill's (1979) paradigm for developing better measures of marketing constructs, that may be useful in constructing manipulations of advertising (message) involvement. A manipulation and accompanying manipulation checks are offered as examples of instructions/items satisfactorily meeting reliability and validity requirements. The study draws attention to the importance of developing valid manipulations of involvement when conducting advertising research.