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With increasing use of explicit comparative advertisement to get share of consumers’ mind and influence their purchase decision in western context, the same is now used extensively in emerging markets like India. However, there has not been sufficient research to understand the effectiveness of explicit comparative advertisement in low and high-involvement product categories. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to attempt to understand the effectiveness of explicit comparative advertising on consumers’ attitude and purchase intention (PI) towards high and low-involvement products.

The study carried out experimental treatments with 2 × 2 factorial design among 200 Indian young consumers who were in the age group 18-25. The independent variables were product categories and type of advertising (comparative and non-comparative) and dependent variables were consumer attitude and PIs.

It was found that the comparative form of advertisement developed favourable response towards the advertisement, rather than towards the brand or PI.

The study found that comparative advertising is effective for high as well as low-involvement product category in changing the consumer’s attitude towards the advertisement. The research has used print media for conducting the experiment.

It can be inferred that comparisons should be supplemented with additional information in the form of the unique features and associated emotions and feeling of the product in order to develop favourable attitude towards the brand and PI.

Comparative advertising is a growing domain and there has been very little contribution by the researchers specially on high and low-involvement product categories.

The purpose of this study is to describe the trends and practices of comparative prescription drug advertising by examining the types of comparative claims made in direct-to-consumer (DTC) and direct-to-physician (DTP) print advertisements.

The authors conducted a content analysis of 54 DTC and DTP print prescription drug advertisements (published between 1997 and 2014) with comparative claims.

Efficacy-based comparisons appeared in 64 per cent of advertisements, and attribute-based comparisons appeared in 37 per cent of advertisements. Most advertisements made direct (vs indirect) references to competitors (85 per cent), compared the advertised drug to a single (vs multiple) competitor (78 per cent), focused exclusively on one type of comparison claim (i.e. efficacy-, risk- or attribute-based) (70 per cent) and did not contain data-driven visual aids (82 per cent). Some differences between DTC and DTP advertisements emerged. More DTP than DTC advertisements included data-driven visual aids (82 per cent vs 0 per cent, respectively), included numerical data (88 per cent vs 53 per cent) and conveyed statistical significance (52 per cent vs 12 per cent).

The study used a convenience sample rather than a random sample of advertisements; thus, the findings might not be generalizable to all pharmaceutical DTC and DTP advertisements. Examining the tactics that advertisers use to educate and influence consumers and physicians sets the foundation for future studies that examine the effects of their exposure to comparative claims. Suggestions for future research are discussed.

This study is the first to examine and statistically compare the comparative advertising tactics used in both consumer and physician prescription drug advertisements.

Extant research on comparative advertising has focused only on “market leader” comparisons (a brand targeting the market leader), whereas in the marketplace, “multi-brand” comparisons are more prevalent (Kalro et al., 2010). Moreover, most research focuses on direct comparisons only. Hence, this research aims to investigate the interplay between comparison ad strategy (“market leader”/“multi-brand” comparisons) and comparison ad format (direct/indirect comparisons) on the effectiveness of comparative advertising.

This paper uses four 2 × 2 fully crossed factorial designs (comparison ad format: direct vs indirect and comparison ad strategy: market leader vs multi brand) with established and new brands in two categories: powdered detergents and smart phones. All studies were conducted in metropolitan cities of India.

By and large, the experiments indicated that direct (indirect) comparisons lowered (heightened) perceived manipulative intent and enhanced (reduced) attitude-toward-the-ad for multi-brand (market leader) comparisons.

Findings suggest that when advertisers use comparative advertising, they may use direct ads when using multi-brand comparisons and use indirect ones when using market leader comparisons. It could also be argued that when advertisers use multi-brand comparisons because of fragmentation in the marketplace, they may directly compare against these multiple brands. When advertisers need to compare against a market leader, they may do so indirectly.

This research is among the first to investigate multi-brand comparisons that are widely used in the industry and that too in the context of both direct and indirect comparison formats.

Comparative advertising has been viewed as an aggressive advertising tactic that is useful in selected situations. However, because of the risks involved, many advertisers are skeptical of using comparative advertising as a long‐term strategy.

The purpose of this study is to test the viability of comparative advertising in Chile.

Data were collected via controlled experimentation. The study employed a 3 (comparative advertising intensity: noncomparative, indirect comparative, and direct comparative)×2 (product category involvement: low, high)×2 (sponsor brand's relative market share: market leader, other brand) between‐subjects factorial design.

The results suggest that direct and indirect comparative advertisements are not more effective than noncomparative advertisements in Chile. Additionally, data do not support the idea that the effect of comparative advertising intensity is moderated by the product category involvement and/or by the sponsor brand's relative market share. Since comparative advertising was not shown to be more effective than noncomparative advertising, the authors hypothesize that it is due to cultural biases and the novelty of comparative advertising in Latin America, as expressed through negative message believability.

While experimental research is not sufficient to establish the generalized non‐superiority of comparative advertising in the region, the results support the idea that comparative advertising might not be more effective than noncomparative advertising for many marketing campaigns in Latin America.

Several recent studies have investigated international differences in advertising practices. Most of these address advertising in general, leaving the transferability of comparative advertising practices largely unexplored (White Nye et al.). Analyzing the case of Latin America is highly relevant due to the limited development that exists with respect to comparative advertising in the region.

The purpose of this study is to understand the effect of different brand positions (underdog vs top dog) and comparative advertising on consumers’ brand attitudes. Additionally, this study also aims to demonstrate the effects of inspiration, self-relevance and empathy on the relationship between brand positioning and comparative advertising.

A two-by-three factorial design was employed with brand positions (underdog vs top dog) and three types of comparative advertising (noncomparative, indirect comparative and direct comparative) as the independent variables. Inspiration serves as the mediator, while self-relevance and empathy act as moderators and brand attitude is the dependent variable.

The results show that different brand positions significantly affect brand attitudes, with respondents having a better brand attitude toward the underdog brand. Brand attitude is partially mediated by inspiration. Self-relevance moderates the relationship between brand positioning and brand attitude. However, brand positioning, comparative advertising and empathy do not have interaction effects.

This study contributes to a better understanding of the effect of psychological variables on brand positioning and comparative advertising.

The results suggest that the underdog setting requires a real and honest story because consumers will spot a fake underdog story, which will damage consumer trust in the brand and harm the brand image.

There is a lack of research using psychological variables to demonstrate the effect of being the underdog brand. This study contributes to the literature by employing psychological variables to illustrate the effect of underdog positioning. These findings can help brands develop branding positioning strategies.

The purpose of this research is to examine the influence of direct comparative advertising on brand information processing and purchase intentions compared with that of indirect comparative advertising in non‐forced exposure conditions.

The overall sample of 240 female consumers (aged between 25 and 51 years, and representative of French women in terms of region and profession) was divided into two equal groups. These two groups viewed a televised montage that followed GfK's pretest methodology for TV advertising (a 20‐minute television show, an advertising break with seven commercials, a short questionnaire, a 20‐minute television show, an advertising break with four commercials, and a longer questionnaire), which favors a low involvement context in laboratory conditions. These two groups were respectively exposed to two 20‐second ads for a well‐known challenger brand (identical except for whether they name the leading brand and its price or “brand X” without price information).

This research provides original evidence that the comparative ad that cites the name and price of the leading brand increases purchase intentions for the sponsored brand, more than an equivalent that uses brand X. This effect operates through an increased probability of message processing, which in turn enhances the perceived compelling character of ad content.

Despite the many studies of comparative advertising in existing literature, little research has been devoted to the potential alternative of replacing a “brand X” designation with the name of a competing brand. Moreover, previous research often includes participants (e.g. students) engaged in deliberate processing of a single advertisement in conditions of artificial exposure.

This paper provides a theoretical framework for examining a global (standardized) versus specialized (adaptive) print advertising strategy for the global audience. Likelihood of standardization will depend upon the information content and emotional appeals conveyed in the advertisements. A research design is provided which may study and compare advertisements of identified product types and sponsors using content analysis. Development of a comparative frame of reference for competitive product positioning is explored as an alternative to direct comparative advertising.

At the marketing/entrepreneurship interface, most research concerns how entrepreneurs market their businesses, rather than how advertisers market to entrepreneurs. The purpose of this study is to address this gap.

The authors undertake a content analysis of 88 recent issues of the two largest print magazine titles targeted at American entrepreneurs, with particular attention to advertising content for known small business success factors.

This study finds no correlation between factors most important to small business success and advertising volume. However, this study finds a strong, inverse correlation between US small business performance for each success factors and the volume of advertising for that competitiveness factor. Finally, it is found that advertisement characteristics (placement, timing, repetition, contact channel, and competitor comparison) vary by competitiveness factor.

This study is limited to print advertising to US entrepreneurs. The findings imply that small business competitiveness factors may need to be amended, and that the nature of advertising to small businesses should be further investigated.

The ability to identify shortcomings in what small businesses need to succeed may spur advertisers to remedy the gap with product promotions that create awareness of need solutions.

This study is the first to use content analysis of B2B print advertising targeted at entrepreneurs to develop insights into the nature of the target market (US entrepreneurs); to explore the extent to which advertised goods and services match needs of the target market; and to examine whether advertisers communicate the various factors that address target market needs, in different manners.

Are retail advertisers using price‐featuring tactics effectively? After a review of past findings on the effectiveness of comparative price formats, this study conducted a content analysis of retail newspaper advertising. The study revealed that advertisements for service retailers and service products consistently used the least effective approaches. Nearly half of all the clothing and department store advertising examined used less effective tactics. Other retailers and retail items tended to use the more effective approaches.