On the Need for Relative Measures When Assessing Comparative Advertising Effects

Abstract Although comparative advertising is often intended to affect how the advertised brand is perceived in relation to the comparison brand, research in this area has typically tested for effects using nonrelative measures that require judgments about the advertised brand alone. As a result, such tests are rather uninformative about comparative advertising's ability to influence perceived differentiation. We propose in this article that nonrelative measures are unlikely to yield as sensitive an assessment of comparative advertising effects as are relative measures. The results from three studies involving both known and unknown advertised brands support the superior sensitivity of relative measures. Implications for copy testing methods are drawn.