How to manage the intensity of comparison in comparative advertising over time
JangSun HwangUniversity of Tenessee, Knoxville
Introduction
During the past quarter century, comparative advertising (CA) has been one of the most popular advertising message formats in the USA since the Federal Trade Commission's informal encouragement of explicit comparisons in 1972 (Barry 1993b). While numerous research efforts have been devoted to this area, the majority of CA studies have explored the effectiveness of CA by contrasting CA with noncomparative advertising (NCA). Although, according to the large body of extant empirical research, the effectiveness of CA seems to be equivocal,...