Advertising Claims, Expectation Fulfillment and Product Evaluation

Consumerism movements like ‘Truth in Advertising’ have prompted formulation of legal and other public policy measures to regulate deceptive advertising. While a great deal of effort has gone into evolving mechanisms to protect consumers from deceptive advertising. Surprisingly little systemative attempts have been made to investigate whether exaggerated and false advertising claims are at all useful for the marketer in promoting his product. Consumers’ attitudes towards products are influenced by i) communications concerning products, ii) experience with products, and iii) interaction of communications and product experience. Expectations are created about products by advertising and other means, while actual product experience and the levels of expectation determine the extent to which expectations are confirmed. This ‘expectation fulfilment’ or lack thereof (disconfirmed expectancy) influences the individuals’ attitude and subsequent actions towards the concerned product or object. It is important to understand and take into account the role of ‘expectation fulfilment’ while considering influences on attitude and behaviour concerning products. One way to take into account its role is to investigate and establish the nature and direction of influence has on attitude. Unfortunately, both theoretical sources and the limited empirical evidence that exists suggest conflicting and contradicting influences. Moreover, from managerial point of view, situation-specific variables are likely to require a case by case assessment. What is therefore needed is an approach that recognises the influence of ‘expectation fulfilment’ and explicitly incorporates it in evaluative mechanisms for the major decision areas like new product-concepts and new campaigns. This paper develops and tests a model using such an approach. The model postulates the influence of ‘expectation fulfilment’ on effective and conative components of attitude. It is tested in the context of a new product-concept evaluation by a sample of 903 housewives. The results, with large and significant R2s and beta coefficients, suggest that a higher degree of expectation fulfilment helps build more favourable attitude towards, and intention to buy a product. The implication is that exaggeration in advertising claims resulting in disconfirmed expectancy does not help a marketer. It is recommended that the construct of ‘expectation fulfilment’, which captures the interaction between product experience and prior expectations, should be built into evaluative mechanisms for decisions concerning product concepts, product formulations and advertising campaigns.