Ambiguity, Processing Strategy, and Advertising-Evidence Interactions

Although advertising persuades through overt appeals to reason or emotion, we focus on the indirect process by which advertising influences the interpretation of objective product evidence. We investigate how two factors moderate advertising-evidence interactions: the ambiguity of the evidence and consumer information processing strategies. We provide a theoretical account of ambiguity, identifying structural characteristics that render evidence about product quality open to either one or multiple interpretations. In our first experiment, the ambiguity of a decision environment played a key role in determining the effect of advertising on product quality perception. In our second experiment, different information processing strategies influence advertising's effects on interpretation of the evidence. Copyright 1989 by the University of Chicago.