Product salience, puffery and perceived deceptiveness : a comparative treatments experiment

This is a study of consumer perceptions of deceptiveness in advertisements employing social or psychological product benefits as their primary appeal. Preston (1975) generated interest in this type of advertising by claiming the practice is deceptive and should be regulated by the Federal Trade Commission.

The background of this issue, evidence from previous research, and expert opinion are presented. A theoretical structure compiled from theories of de facto selective exposure, perception and retention, and consistency and novelty theories is presented as the basis for formulation of study hypotheses.

A comparative treatments experiment is reported which attempted to test the hypothesis that forced exposure to an advertisement claiming social or psychological benefits for a product of low interest to subjects tends to result in evaluations by subjects of deceptiveness of the advertisement. Advertisements for fictitious brands of cigarettes, support hose and screwdrivers, specially prepared to be of low, high or negative interest to nursing and engineering students, were evaluated for deceptiveness by a panel of experts and by randomly assigned subjects from these student populations.

The panel of experts found the advertisements equivalently deceptive, but both student populations found the hose and cigarette advertisements more deceptive than the screwdriver advertisement. Experimental results neither supported nor disconfirmed the study hypotheses, due to the presence of a confound in the experiment. The speculative explanation of the confound was that varying appeals employed in the three ads were evaluated by subjects rather than interest in the advertised product.

The author recommends further research on the hypotheses that consumers may perceive a continuum of deceptiveness in social and psychological appeals, and that these perceptions may interact with product interest, product type, and circumstances of exposure.