Comparative advertising for goods versus services: Effects of different types of product attributes through consumer reactance and activation on consumer response

Comparative retail advertising for goods and services is often based on comparisons of intrinsic or extrinsic product attributes. We examine positive effects through activation and negative effects through reactance on ad attitudes and product evaluations for intrinsic versus extrinsic attribute comparisons and consider the product type (goods vs. services) as a moderator. The results show that reactance has negative and activation has positive effects through ad attitudes on product evaluations. For goods, extrinsic attribute comparisons are beneficial because they produce higher activation and less reactance than intrinsic attribute comparisons. For services, reactance arousal does not differ for intrinsic and extrinsic attribute comparisons, but extrinsic attribute comparisons are beneficial because they have more positive effects through higher activation, which in turn reduces reactance.