The effect of advertising format and means-end information on consumer expectations for apples

Abstract

The effect of advertising content and format on consumer expectations for a new apple variety was examined. In particular, the impact of presentation format (whether advertisements contained a picture of the new apple variety or not) and textual advertising claims, which communicated means-end information of differential cognitive strength and structure, was considered. While expectations raised by advertising featuring pictorial information differed from those raised by textual only information, differential means-end chain information did not influence product expectancy. Consumers reacted negatively to a photo of the apple, which was predominantly red in appearance. The pictorial information influenced consumers varying in need for cognition (NFC) differently. As predicted, a picture of the advertised apple variety influenced individuals high in NFC to a greater extent than those low in NFC. A critical examination of the experimental execution suggested a need to align procedures with those used in expectations research in marketing.