When Attention-Getting Advertising Tactics Elicit Consumer Inferences of Manipulative Intent: The Importance of Balancing Benefits and Investments

Abstract

This research examines two attention‐getting tactics commonly used in television advertising and explores how the use of these tactics might sometimes lead consumers to infer that the advertiser is attempting to manipulate the audience. The article explores how inferences of manipulative intent might arise if a consumer's perceptions of personal investments, personal benefits, advertiser's investments, and advertiser's benefits associated with the ad are not in balance. The data show that inferences of manipulative intent are related to measures of personal benefits, personal investments, and advertiser's investments as predicted and that these variables mediate the relationship between the attention‐getting tactics and inferences of manipulative intent. Inferences of manipulative intent are found to lower advertising persuasion as measured by ad attitudes, brand attitudes, and purchase intentions.