Zur Effizienz verschiedener Ausgestaltungsformen vergleichender Werbung — Internationale Rechtslage, „State-of-the-art” und Ergebnisse einer empirischen Studie

Summary In most European Countries comparative advertising is still prohibited. This paper describes the current legal position in different countries and the changes to be expected within the next few years. After the state of the art in research concerning comparative advertising the findings of a representative empirical study based on 151 respondents is presented. It is shown that direct comparative advertising outperforms non-comparative advertising in terms of producing better market transparency. However, non-comparative advertising is considered to be more credible and less unfair. Examining different comparative advertising designs, the empirical results of Kruskal Wallis Tests show that the use of several comparative brands is more efficient than the use of only one brand. Especially the market transparency, the attraction and the perceived informational value are increased. If high attraction is intended, widely known comparative brands should be used. However, the use of widely known comparative brands decreases the credibility of the advertised brand. Two-sided advertising claims are not able to provide a significant increase of advertising effectiveness. Regarding qualitative and quantitative verbal information, the latter effect (in most cases) provides a significant increase of advertising efficiency. However, they are considered to be significantly more unfair.