Measuring the Believability of Advertising Claims

Abstract

EVERY observer of advertising knows that an advertising claim may be highly effective without being either literally true or universally credible. Hyperbole has as legitimate a place in advertising as in many other forms of writing. Picturesque exaggerations have provided advertisers with some of their most effective and durable themes and slogans. But not all hyperbolisms fare equally well. Some advertising claims, there is reason to believe, fail because they strike most readers or auditors as being too absurd to deserve attention or because they make an unfavorable impression on those who do take notice of them. They are the kind that are quietly interred after a few months or a year or two, not because they have lost timeliness but merely because they have never gained effectiveness. An advertiser is taking something of a chance when he puts a large appropriation behind some such claim as World's Most Comfortable Mattress, Toilet Soap 9 Out of io Screen Stars Use, or Most Modern Car in the World. The public may respond to the claim as an impressive and memorable bit of audacity. On the other hand, the customers may think it is an insipid piece of braggadocio and may react unfavorably, or may not react at all.