Ninth graders were randomly exposed to one of eight slice-of-life videotapes showing stimulus advertising (cigarette, antismoking, both, neither) and unfamiliar peers who either did or did not smoke cigarettes. The findings indicate that the cigarette advertising primed positive smoker...

The explicit superiority claims in direct comparative ads should facilitate differentiation of the advertised brand from the comparison brand. However prior research suggests that such ads primarily associate brands. This problem is investigated by considering the categorization and inferential...

Prior research suggests that young adolescents' perceptions of smokers are strongly associated with smoking initiation. Thus, we experimentally investigated the effects of antismoking and cigarette advertising on nonsmoking youths' perceptions (evaluative judgments) of a peer who smokes. Results...

There is discrepancy between practitioners' views of comparative advertising and null findings by academics. However, in most studies, subjects' attention to and memory of the comparative claims were inflated, which may have precluded effects on these variables and on purchase intentions. This...