The roles of message content, product risk, and communication modality in determining consumer response to advertising

The study examined cognitive and affective effects of modality, product type and claim type in an Integrated Model of Message Acceptance context. This model is based upon theoretical underpinnings provided in (a) Petty and Cacioppo's (1983) Elaboration Likelihood Model (Central and Peripheral Routes to Persuasion), (b) the Cognitive Response Model (Greenwald, 1968, Wright, 1973), and (c) the Integrated Information Response Model (Smith and Swinyard, 1982). The new model merges and extends the three aforementioned models, augmenting explanatory and predictive power. Hypotheses are developed on the new model basis.;The experimental design manipulated 3 variables: Modality (print/audio), Product Type (high risk/low risk) and Message Content (subjective/objective claims) in a 2 x 2 x 2 factorial design. 360 study subjects were recruited from a large shopping mall in the Midwest U.S.A. Data were analyzed using (but not restricted to) multivariate analysis of variance and covariance. This study employed two covariates (product familiarity and need for cognition).;Results showed that situation wherein content types are balanced as to attribute saliency and evaluative extremity appear to indicate strong preference for objective over subjective content. This suggests a strong informational rather than persuasive role for advertising when performance oriented products are involved. The amount of thoughts generated was greater when the product involved a high rather than a low risk product, and for objective rather than subjective content. A strong to very strong significant pattern prevailed for product X modality interaction. Thus, this interaction apparently makes a strong underlying contribution to message acceptance. Furthermore, a strong content main effect prevailed. It thus appears that the content variable may sometimes operate independently of product type and modality. Finally, the only significant 3-way interaction was for claim credibility. The results suggest that for a print mode regardless of the level of riskiness, an objective content is preferable in terms of credibility. In contrast, for an audio mode, objective content is preferable for a high risk product while a subjective content is preferable for a low risk product.