On the Dangers of Pulling a Fast One: Advertisement Disclaimer Speed, Brand Trust, and Purchase Intention

Two experiments demonstrated that fast (vs. normal-paced) end-of-advertisement disclaimers undermine consumers’ purchase intention toward untrusted brands (both trust-unknown and not-trusted brands), but that disclaimer speed has no effect on consumers’ purchase intention toward trusted brands. The differential effects of disclaimer speed for untrusted versus trusted brands were not due to differences in consumers’ familiarity with the brands (experiment 1). Consistent with the hypothesis that fast disclaimers adversely affect purchase intention via heuristic rather than elaborative processes, the disclaimer speed × brand trust interaction effect remained robust even when the disclaimer presented positive information about the advertised product (experiment 2).