Are services advertised differently? An analysis of the relationship between product and service types and the informational content of their advertisements

Abstract

This study examines the informational content of service and product advertisements and analyses the relationship between the amount and type of information in an advertisement and the type of product or service being advertised. The influence that service characteristics have on advertising strategy is still not well understood. One theory is that services need to be more tangible in order to assist in the consumer decision-making process and advertising can assist with this by providing factual information. The purpose of this paper is to establish whether this theory is recognized and adopted in advertising practice. This is achieved by performing a content analysis. The results indicate that product advertisements contain more information than services, which indicates a discrepancy between advertising theory and practice. The results also prove that there are variances in the amount and type of information included in product and service advertisements. The paper examines these variances and applies existing classification frameworks to explain them. Areas for further research are also identified.