A gaps analysis of consumer behavior and legal perspectives on advertising processing and deceptive advertising

This research was designed to identify critical areas to help understand federal regulation of and consumer processing of deceptive advertising and to encourage communication between the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and consumer behavior researchers in this area. A gaps analysis was proposed to focus on the three parts of the FTC deceptive advertising test as the critical areas of interest: reasonable consumers; likely to mislead; and materiality. Subjects viewed one of four comparative advertisements embedded within a television program. Questionnaires were distributed to record reactions to the advertisements. The constructs of advertisement processing involvement and product experience were used to examine potential processing differences in "reasonable consumer" types. Advertisement processing differences were reflected in advertisement claim thoughts and execution thoughts recalled. A believability scale was used to operationalize likely to mislead; trial and purchase intention scales were used to test materiality. The hypotheses were tested using a General Linear Models Procedure.

The findings suggest that "reasonable consumers" differ on measures of recalled thoughts, reflecting processing differences, as well as on the outcome measures of believability and trial and purchase intentions. Differences varied by consumer types and by comparative advertisement execution type. The study illustrates the need to encourage the dialog between the FTC and consumer behavior researchers and to incorporate research findings into deceptive advertising decision making.