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Ad Skepticism: The Consequences of Disbelief

Article in Journal of Advertising · March 2013

DOI: 10.1080/00913367.2005.10639199

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 Ad Skepticism : The Consequences of Disbelief

Carl OBERMILLER*
Seattle University

Eric SPANGENBERG
Washington State University

ABSTRACT

Three studies investigated the effects of consumer skepticism toward advertising on responses to
ads. Consumer skepticism, defined as the tendency toward disbelief of advertising claims, is
measured by each study and then related to various measures of advertising response, including
brand beliefs, ad attitudes, responses to informational and emotional appeals, efforts to avoid
advertising, attention to ads, and reliance on ads versus other information sources. The results
generally support they hypothesis that more skeptical consumers like advertising less, rely on it
less, attend to it less, and respond more positively to emotional appeals relative to informational
appeals.

*Corresponding author:
Albers School of Business
Seattle University
Seattle, WA 98122-4340
USA
tel : 206.296.5746
fax : 206.296.6410
carlo@seattleu.edu

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 Ad Skepticism: The Consequences of Disbelief

Advertising is a billions of dollars per year industry employing bright minds with access to state
of the art theory in human behavior. Despite its sophistication, subtlety, vast resources, and
ubiquity, advertising faces enormous challenges to the objective of influencing sales. Not least
of these is that many consumers simply do not believe it. Our aim is to examine the
consequences of disbelief—to discover what happens when people don’t believe the ads they
see.

Simple disbelief may be one way that consumers cope with the persuasive attempts of
advertising. Friestad and Wright (1994) describe how a person’s knowledge of persuasion
strategies influences his responses to persuasion attempts. Both individuals and marketing
agents have access to three categories of knowledge: The consumer has knowledge of the topic
(or product), knowledge of persuasion (beliefs about how persuasion occurs and what tactics are
used or are effective), and knowledge of the agent (advertiser or manufacturer). The marketing
agent, in turn, has knowledge of the topic, knowledge of persuasion, and knowledge of the target
(the consumer segment). The marketing agent relies on knowledge bases to develop a
persuasion attempt. The individual, relying on a set of knowledge, counters with a persuasion
coping response. Although the relationship between marketer and consumer is not always
adversarial, we suspect that the most frequent coping response may be to discount messages
recognized as ads. Empirical evidence suggests that advertising claims (in ads that are
processed) are frequently not accepted. Calfee and Ringold (1994) report the consistent
observation in public opinion polls that roughly two-thirds of consumers claim they doubt the
truthfulness of ads. Previous research (Obermiller and Spangenberg 1998; 2000) supports the
proposition that consumers are socialized to be skeptical toward advertising, and the extent of
their skepticism is a determinant of their responses to advertising.

Obermiller and Spangenberg (1998) defined skepticism toward advertising (ad skepticism) as the
tendency to disbelieve the informational claims of advertising. They developed and validated a
scale to measure it (SKEP) and demonstrated empirical support for an hypothesized nomological
network. They proposed that it is a marketplace belief, related to attitude-toward-advertising and
attitude-toward-marketing and consequent to certain personality characteristics, marketplace
experiences, consumer socialization (Obermiller and Spangenberg, 2000), and education. Ad
skepticism was shown to relate to global measures of evaluative responses to advertising.
Herein we extend that work, focusing on the consequences of ad skepticism on advertising.

We propose that ad skepticism influences a set of responses to advertising—one of which is to

bypass advertising and gather product information from other sources. Other moderated
responses include processing of the ads, formation of brand beliefs, attitude-toward-the-ad,
responsiveness to certain advertising tactics, and purchase intention. We expect that consumers
who are high in ad skepticism should show weaker brand beliefs consistent with advertising
claims, more negative attitudes toward ads, different responses to emotional versus informational

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appeals, and lower intentions to purchase the advertised products. Further, higher skepticism
should be related to less attention to advertising and greater attention to non-advertising sources
of information. We justify these hypothesized consequences as follows: Because ad skepticism
reflects a tendency not to believe advertising, the disbelief in specific ad claims follows directly.
Because virtually all ad claims are positive, less belief in those claims should lead to less
positive attitudes and purchase intentions. Because high ad skepticism is reflective of a general
distrust in the validity of advertising, high skeptics should be inclined to ignore ads and seek
product information from other sources. Finally, because ad skepticism reflects a disbelief in the
information content of ads, high skeptics should be less responsive to information-based appeals
(relative to low skeptics).

Our investigation of the influences of ad skepticism is in accord with other research on individual
differences as moderators of responses to advertising. Many studies have examined immediate or
temporary antecedent variables, some of which may be influenced by the ad itself, such as mood or
ad-induced feelings (see Meuhling and McCann, 1993). Other studies have also examined effects
of more stable consumer dispositions, similar to ad skepticism, including attitude-toward-the-
ad/advertiser/advertising (Homer, 1990; Miniard, Bhatla, and Rose, 1990), beliefs about specific
ad elements (Moore, Harris, and Chen, 1995), prior brand attitudes (Chattopadhyay and Basu,
1990), brand-related beliefs (Mittal, 1990), demographics and lifestyles (Green, 1999; Grier and
Brumbaugh, 1999), product involvement (Rose, Miniard, and Bhatla, 1990) as well as various
personality traits (e.g., Schoenbachler and Wittler, 1996; Zhang, 1996). Generally, these studies
have found predictable relationships: In relative senses, responses to ads are less positive when ad
or advertiser attitudes or beliefs are negative, when prior brand attitudes or beliefs are negative,
when consumers are older or better educated (possibly a consequence of increased ad skepticism),
and when product involvement is lower (though the latter effect has been shown to be moderated
by a number of ad factors). We believe our hypothesized effects of ad skepticism are consistent
with this previous research, based largely on the nomological discussion in Obermiller and
Spangenberg (1998) of the relationship of ad skepticism with these other factors. In the current
research, moreover, we examine a much greater range of consequences than any previous study we
have noted.

1. Study 1 : Skepticism and Immediate Responses to Ads

Ad skepticism should influence specific, immediate responses to ads. In particular, we expect

more skeptical consumers should like ads less and find their claims less believable, less
influential, and less informative. To test these hypotheses, we assessed the ad skepticism of 140
students, (65 MBA's, 75 undergraduates) and, four weeks later, presented them with a series of
13 print ads. After each ad, the subjects rated the ad on several 5-point scales: “In general, I like
the ad very much,” “In general, I find the ad very believable,” “I think other people would be
very likely to be influenced favorably by this ad,” and “I found the ad informative.” Subjects
also indicated their interest in the product category (“very…/not at all interesting to me”) and the
relevance of the product category for them (“very…/not at all important to me personally”).
Finally, subjects identified any specific claims they believed were untrue.

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The ads were full-color, one-page print ads taken from popular magazines. The products were
Whirlpool appliances, gold jewelry, Kenmore dryer, Pony athletic shoes, Amoco Ultimate
gasoline, Land o' Lakes butter, Colt automobile, Mont Blanc pen, Murray lawnmower, Mazda
Miata automobile, Isuzu Truck service division, Dewars Scotch whiskey, and Invisible Fencing.
The ads were displayed as color slides for about one minute; subjects were instructed to view
them carefully and given a minute to respond to the first three scales (like, believe, and
influential). The ads were then presented again while subjects completed the remaining scales
(informative ad; interesting, important product; untrue claims). Two orders of exposure were
used to control for order effects.

Study 1 Results

Average responses to the series of ads were computed. SKEP scores were a sum of the items.
Correlations between SKEP and the three ad response measures were significant and negative
(higher scale values indicated greater skepticism and more positive responses to the ads), as
predicted. The pair-wise correlations were SKEP-Like, r = -.23; SKEP-Believable, r = -.37; and
SKEP-Influential, r = -.27 (all p’s < .01). Subjects who were more skeptical toward advertising
in general found the 13 ads, on average, less likable, less believable, and less likely to be
influential.1

The total number of claims identified as untruthful was summed for each subject across the 13
ads as an indication of the extent of perceived falseness of the collection of ads. This total
ranged from zero (for 67 subjects) to 15. The total number of perceived false claims was
correlated with SKEP at r = .50 (p < .01), indicating that more skeptical subjects identified more
ad claims as false than did less skeptical subjects.

Ad skepticism is a general characteristic, and these results support its relationship with
responses to ads in general (at least, across 13 ads). We should expect, however, that individual
respondent or ad variables, such as product involvement and perceived information content,
might moderate the responses—skeptical consumers might be more receptive to messages about
products they were interested in and more receptive to ads with less information (since the
information is disbelieved). We investigated these hypothesized moderating effects by
contrasting products identified as high and low in involvement and information content.

Our measures of “interest in the product” and “perceived personal relevance of the product”
were highly correlated (across the 13 ads, average r = .72, p < .01). Based on this close
association, the two were combined into a measure we called “product category involvement”
(PCI), with an average rating across product categories of 4.03 (on a 2-10 point scale). We
identified the ads with the highest and lowest average PCI. The ads for gold jewelry, Isuzu truck
service, Dewars Scotch, and invisible Fencing were all rated below 3.50. Ads for Pony athletic

1
These three correlations were previously reported in Obermiller and Spangenberg 1998.

312
shoes, Colt automobile, and Mazda Miata automobile all rated above 4.80. The relationships of
SKEP with ad responses for these two sets of ads are compared in Table 1.

We conducted a similar breakdown of the ads according to the ratings of informativeness (“very
informative/not at all informative”). The 13 ads had an average informativeness rating of 3.24.
Three ads had distinctly high ratings (all above 4.00)—Kenmore dryer, Colt automobile, and
Isuzu truck service; and four ads had distinctly low ratings (all below 2.40)—gold jewelry, Land
o' Lakes butter, Mont Blanc pen, and Dewars Scotch. The relationships of SKEP with ad
responses were examined for these two sets of ads, with the results also presented in Table 1.

Table 1: Relationship between SKEP and Advertising Responses for Low and High PCI and Ad
Informativeness

Correlations Low PCI High PCI Low Ad Info High Ad Info

SKEP-Likeable -.09a -.18 a -.11 -.14

SKEP-Believable -.27 -.29 -.26 -.29
SKEP-Influential -.17 b -.26 b -.14 c -.30 c
SKEP-False Claims .47 .42 .44 .44
a, b
Z = 2.00, p < .05.
c
Z = 2.68, p < .01.

Product category involvement appears to have had some effect on the relationship of ad
skepticism with responses to ads. Skepticism had slightly more explanatory power for liking of
the ad and perceived influence of the ad when PCI was highest.

These results suggest less effect of perceived informativeness on the moderating effect of ad
skepticism on responses to the ads. It is noteworthy that perceived presence of information in
the ads does not result in more positive responses by highly skeptical subjects—even for high
information ads, SKEP is negatively correlated with positive responses. To the extent that
skepticism measures a tendency to disbelieve the information claims in ads, we might expect that
SKEP would be a better predictor of responses to ads for the most informative ads, but we
observed a significant difference only on perceived influence, where high skeptics rated the more
informative ads as less influential.

We further investigated the moderating effects of PCI and perceived informativeness by

analyzing responses for individual ads. For each ad, we examined the following equation :

ARi = α(PCIi ) + β(SKEP) + δ(PCIi × SKEP)

where, ARi is a measure of ad response for ad i; PCIi is the measure of the subject’s product
category involvement; and, SKEP is the subject’s ad skepticism score. A statistically significant
contribution of the interaction term (δ) would indicate a moderating effect of PCI on the
influence of ad skepticism.

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Across the 13 ads, the liking, believable, and influential measures were highly inter-correlated;
the 39 bivariate r’s were all between .50 and .79. For efficiency, we created a single measure of
ad response (sum of like, believable, and influential items; analyses of separate measures yielded
essentially the same results). Regression analysis of the equation resulted in statistically
significant models for 12 of the 13 ads. The interaction term was statistically significant for two
ads. The statistically significant interactions are illustrated in Figure 1, which shows ad response
as a function of ad skepticism and product category involvement, split at their mean values. In
both cases, PCI had little effect for low skeptics. For high skeptics, however, ad response was
relatively negative if product category involvement was low, but it was relatively positive when
PCI was high. Thus, for some products, high skeptics had as positive responses as low skeptics
to ads, provided the products were important or interesting to them.

Figure 1
The Moderating Effect of PCI on the Skepticism-Ad Response Relationship

(Land ‘o’ Lakes Butter)

11

10
Ad Response

Low PCI
9
High PCI

7
Low SKEP High SKEP

ANOVA results: Overall model F = 2.93, p < .04; SKEP effect ns; PCI effect F = 4.03, p < .05; SKEP × PCI, F =
3.77, p < .05.

(Pony Athletic Shoes)

10

9
Ad Response

Low PCI
8
High PCI

6
Low SKEP High SKEP

ANOVA results: Overall model F = 6.74, p < .01; SKEP effect, F = 3.11, p < .08; PCI effect, F
= 12.72, p < .01; SKEP × PCI, F = 5.00, p < .03.

314
We repeated the regression analysis, using perceived information content in the ad as the moderating
variable, testing for an interaction between SKEP and perceived information. The interaction term
was statistically significant for three of the ads at p < .05 and another at p < .06; these interactions
were not, however, consistent. For two of the products, low skeptics responded better to high
information and for the other two, high skeptics responded better to high information.

Study 1 Conclusions

Skepticism toward advertising related as expected to important responses to advertising—

attitude toward the ad, believability of ad claims, perceived influence of the ads, and perceived
untruths in the ads. Evidence of a moderating effect of product category involvement or
perceived information level was mixed. The influence of skepticism on ad responses was
slightly stronger for more involving products; and, for some of those ads, involvement with the
product tended to mitigate against the negative effects of higher skepticism. The effect of
perceived information content was less clear; although the moderating effect of skepticism on the
perceived influence of ads, as a group, was stronger when more information was perceived, it
had inconsistent effects on individual ads.

2. Study 2 : Skepticism as a Moderator of Ad Appeal

The ambiguity of Study 1’s results with respect to the perceived information content of ads was
part of the motivation for a second study in which we examined the relationship between ad
skepticism and informational versus emotional appeal. We characterized these two appeals
according to Puto and Wells (1984). Informational ads predominantly provide relevant brand
data, clearly and logically. Emotional (Puto and Wells use the term “transformational.”)
predominantly provide an emotional experience during the ad that is relevant to the use of the
brand. According to Puto and Wells, successful ads must be effective on either the emotional or
informational dimensions (possibly both).

We hypothesized that ad skepticism would more strongly affect responses to informational

(relative to emotional) appeals. Since ad skepticism is defined in terms of believability and
several of SKEP's items refer specifically to the information content of ads, we expected more
skeptical consumers to respond more negatively to and be less persuaded by informational ad
appeals. Our expectation is consistent with Friestad and Wright (1994), who proposed that
emotional appeals are developed by marketers specifically to circumvent consumers’ skeptical
resistance to informational arguments. Thus, we hypothesized that ad skepticism should
moderate the effectiveness of ad appeals, such that higher skepticism should be associated with
less positive responses to informational ads (relative to emotional).

Stimuli were eight television commercials selected to represent informational and emotional
appeals. The advertised products were Allstate Life Insurance, Ernest and Julio Gallo Wine,
Goodyear Tires, Hallmark Cards, Joy Dishwashing Liquid, Puffs Tissues, Sudafed Cold
Medicine, and Vaseline Petroleum Jelly. The first four were selected as emotional appeals

315
(death of father leads to loss of home, “family” atmosphere at the winery, brothers reunited after
many years, and big brother returns home for Christmas). The latter four represented
informational appeals (how Joy removes baked-on foods, most people prefer Puffs for colds,
Sudafed works faster, and Vaseline has many uses.) As a check on the face validity of the
appeals, a pre-test group of 27 subjects viewed the ads and rated them on the Puto and Wells
Information and Transformation Scale. The results supported the categorization. All eight ads
rated higher on the expected dimension. Further, all four of the “emotional” ads rated lower in
average information than the four “informational” ads. [For the four “emotional” ads, the mean
of the 8 information dimension items was 2.75 versus 3.13 (on 7-point scales) for the
“informational” ads (p < .05).] Three of the four “emotional” ads rated higher on the
transformation dimension than all four informational ads. (For the four “emotional” ads, the
mean of the 15 transformation dimensions was 2.97 versus 2.83 (7-point scales) for the
“informational” ads (p < .05). The Allstate ad was rated near the mid-point of the range of
transformation dimension scores of the four informational ads. Thus, pretest results supported
face validity of our categorization—four predominantly informational and four predominantly
emotional ads.

Subjects were 54 MBA students who responded to the SKEP scale during class time. Four
weeks later, the subjects were shown the eight ads. Two presentation orders were used, each of
which mixed the informational with emotional ads. After each ad, subjects responded to two 7-
point brand attitude items (“very bad/very good” and “very undesirable/very desirable”) and to a
thoughts-listing question. (The number and valence of thoughts were coded by two people who
were blind to the hypotheses, with disagreements resolved by one of the authors. Valence for
each thought was coded on a 1-3 scale with 1 = negative and 3 = positive.)

Study 2 Results

For each separate ad, the two items (bad/good and undesirable/desirable) were highly correlated;
r's ranged from .70 to .93 across the eight ads, with an average of .81. On this basis, the two
scales were combined. After finding no statistically significant differences, the data were pooled
across presentation orders.

To test the hypothesis that skepticism would moderate ad responses, we examined the
correlations between SKEP and brand attitudes for the two appeals. In order to minimize
idiosyncratic differences across ads, the dependent measures were the average brand attitudes for
the four informational and four emotional ads. The correlation between SKEP and the average
brand attitude for the four informational ads was r = -.53; whereas, for the four emotional ads, r
= +.48 (both p’s < .01). Thus, consistent with our hypothesis, ad skepticism was related to less
positive brand attitudes in response to informational ads and more positive responses to
emotional appeals. Correlational analysis of the valence of thoughts listed showed a similar
effect: r = -.52 for the average thought evaluation of information appeal ads, and r = +.42 for the
emotional appeal ads (both the latter p’s < .01). (The number of thoughts listed was unrelated to
ad skepticism, either across all ads or categorized by type of appeal.)

316
The correlational analyses were supported by ANOVA, using individual brand attitudes as
dependent measures. The eight average brand attitudes were included in a model with two
repeated measures factors, the two types of appeal, with four ads in each. A split (at SKEP
median) of the sample into high and low skeptics produced groups of 25 and 29. Results showed
a significant skepticism × appeal interaction (F(1,52) = 10.29, p < .01). For emotional ads, the
high and low skeptic groups had average attitudes, respectively, of 5.1 and 4.5. For
informational ads, on the other hand, those respective attitudes were 4.1 and 4.8. Contrast tests
indicated that informational ads evoked different responses from high and low skeptics (4.1 vs.
4.8; t(52) = 3.41, p < .01), and high skeptics differed in response to informational versus
emotional ads (4.1 vs. 5.1; t(52) = 3.68, p < .01). Other contrasts were not statistically significant.

Study 2 Conclusions

Results conformed to the hypothesis that ad skepticism would moderate responses to ad appeals,
such that high skeptics would be less responsive to informational appeals. In general, low skeptics
did not differ across ad appeals. Further, high skeptics did not differ from low skeptics in response
to emotional appeals. The significant interaction was driven by the poor response of high skeptics to
informational appeals. Our hypothesis was based on the expectation that high skeptics would reject
the informational claims, leaving the informational appeals with little persuasive power. The results
suggest that high skeptics are not only persuaded by informational ads than are low skeptics, but
they are also less persuaded by informational ads than they are by emotional ads.

3. Study 3 : Skepticism and Behavioral Responses to Advertising

The first two studies indicated that ad skepticism influenced thoughts and feelings about ads and
advertised products. Study 3 extends the investigation to more distant and behavioral responses.
Given above findings, it seems reasonable that high skeptics, because they expect less information
value from advertising, should pay less attention to ads, rely less on ads in decision making, make
more efforts to confirm ad claims when they do process them, and buy fewer products in response to
ads. Study 3 tested the relationship between SKEP and these consequences of advertising.

Subjects were 104 adult professionals aged 26 to 53 who responded to an initial questionnaire
containing the SKEP scale and demographic information. Three to six weeks later, the same
subjects were contacted with a second questionnaire with the items shown in Table 2.
We hypothesized that high skepticism toward advertising would be related to avoiding
advertising (more zipping and zapping (items 1 and 2) and less attention (item 6), less reliance
on ads in decision making (item 3), more reliance on Consumer Reports and specialty magazines
(items 4 and 5), more reliance on friends for confirmation of ad claims (item 7), and less
purchasing prompted by advertising (items 11 and 12). Despite Study 2 results, finding high
skeptics less persuaded by information, we expected them to prefer more informative and more
straightforward ad executions (items 8-10). Given our findings above, this expectation is more
tentative than the others, and it is based an observed correlation between need for cognition and

317
 high ad skepticism (Obermiller and Spangenberg 1998) and the implication of the Friestad and
Wright (1994) model that consumers are wary of advertising and regard marketers as
adversaries. If highly skeptical consumers are disposed toward processing the information
content of ads, we should expect that even though they may not believe the claims of ads, they
prefer ads with information appeals—perhaps they feel they are best equipped to deal with this
type of ad.

Table 2: Measuresa of Behavioral and Distant Responses to Advertising and Simple Correlationsb with
SKEP

Item Correlation with SKEP Interpretation

1. When I watch television that has been recorded on Higher skepticism related to more zipping through
VCR, if I am able, I fast-forward through the r = .61 taped commercials.
commercials.
2. When I watch television and I have a remote Higher skepticism related to more zapping
control, I switch channels to avoid the commercials. r = .48 commercials with a remote.
3. When I read a magazine, I look at the r = -.47 Higher skepticism related to lower tendency to note
advertisements as well as the stories. ads in magazines.
4. When I buy a new product or any product for the Higher skepticism related to less reliance on ads for
first time, I rely on advertising as a source of r = -.48 information.
information.
5. When I buy a new product or any product for the No relationship of skepticism with reliance on
first time, I rely on Consumer Reports as a source of r = .00 Consumer Reports for information.
information.
6. When I buy a new product or any product for the No relationship of skepticism with reliance on
first time, I rely on reviews from specialty magazines specialty magazines for information.
(for example, PC Magazine, Runners' World, r = .16
Northwest Gardener) as a source of information.
7. If a claim is made in an advertisement for a Higher skepticism related to greater tendency to
product that I am considering buying, I check out the check the truth of ad claims.
truth of the claim either by asking friends who have r = .40
used the product or by trying out the product myself.
8. After seeing a commercial for a new product, I Higher skepticism related to lower tendency to buy
have immediately decided to buy the product. r = -.58 new product after prompting from advertising.
9. List below as many products as you can remember Weak relationship between skepticism and recall of
buying for which the only source of information was r = -.18 fewer purchases based on advertising.
advertising. (p <.10)
10. I tend to distrust ads that use movie stars, famous No relationship between skepticism and distrust of
models, or sports celebrities as spokespeople. r = .01 celebrity spokespeople.
11. I tend to distrust ads that look like stories (in No relationship between skepticism and distrust of
print) or programs (on TV or radio) instead of r = .09 info-mercial ad appeals.
obviously looking like ads.
12. I prefer ads that have clear, simple information to No relationship between skepticism and preference
those that try to entertain me with mostly pictures, r = -.09 for clear, simple informative ads.
music, or humor.
a
Item 9 was coded as the number of products listed; all other items were Likert-type 7-point scales.
b
Correlations with absolute values above r = .28 were significant at p < .01.

318
Study 3 Results

Correlations between SKEP and the 12 dependent measures are shown in Table 2. The results
suggest that skepticism results in avoiding advertising; higher skepticism was related to zipping,
zapping, and ignoring ads (items 1-3). The results also supported the hypothesis that skeptics
were less likely to make purchases solely on the basis of advertising information (items 4, 8, and
9). On the other hand, the results were mixed regarding skeptics’ uses of non-advertising
information. No significant associations were found for use of Consumer Reports or other
specialty magazines (items 5 and 6); but skeptics did report they were more likely to check out
the truth of ad claims by asking friends or trying the product (item 7). Finally, there were no
significant associations between SKEP and trust in or preference for celebrity spokespeople,
info-mercial structure, or non-information appeals (items 10-12).

Study 3 Conclusions

Study 3 related SKEP scores to self-report measures of responses to advertising. The results
generally conformed to the hypothesis that skepticism leads to less attention to and reliance on
advertising. Evidence of an association between skepticism and preference for other sources of
information, however, was mixed, which may reflect different levels of measurement
specificity. The two items that showed non-significant correlations (items 5 and 6) referred to
specific sources, relative to the more general measure in item 7—checking out the truth through
friends or trial. Since previous evidence has shown no relationship between trust in advertising
and trust in Consumer Reports (Obermiller and Spangenberg 2000), it is unlikely that high
skeptics are also distrustful of objective, non-advertising information sources. It may be that
use of magazine reviews of products may be determined less by skepticism and more by product
interest and involvement. Asking a friend or trying the product are easier alternatives.

The results did not support the hypothesis that skeptics have a preference for any type of ad
appeal (items 10-12). These results support the notion that SKEP is not a measure of consumer
cynicism. It has been suggested that cynical consumers may be especially vigilant against
overtly manipulative attempts (Campbell 1995; Kanter and Wortzel 1985). High skeptics
showed no disinclination toward celebrity spokespeople, info-mercial structure, or “soft sell” ads
(emphasis on pictures, music, or humor).2

4. General Discussion and Conclusions

The hypotheses we tested were motivated in large part by the nomological network proposed by
Obermiller and Spangenberg (1998) and their call for further investigation of the relation

2
In an unpublished study (authors 2002) that also investigated the question of skepticism and ad appeal, we tested
source effects (expert, attractive, similar) and argument type (case or base information) for moderating effects of
skepticism. As expected, high skeptics were generally less positive to all sources and both argument types, but we
found no moderating effects of skepticism on either of those variables.

319
between ad skepticism and advertising variables. Our results are generally consistent with their
work, providing further evidence of the construct validity of the SKEP scale and extending the
legitimacy of their nomological framework. Skeptics were shown to be generally less positive in
response to advertising. They like it less, believe it less, and believe it is less influential. They
avoid it when they can and claim less connection between advertising and purchasing. Although
skeptics reported more reliance on friends and trial, they showed no greater use of specific
objective sources of product information.

Our characterization of the advertising skeptic is one who regards advertising as not to be
believed and, therefore, not worth processing. That they tend not to believe the information
claims does not imply that they are predisposed toward informational approaches. Study 1 did
not provide evidence that subjects favored ads that were perceived to contain more information,
and Study 3 suggested that skeptics had no preference for or against non-informational appeals.
Moreover, Study 2 supported the hypothesis that informational appeals are less effective with
high skeptics than are emotional appeals. Thus, advertisers may be advised to avoid direct
informational approaches to skeptics in favor of emotional appeals, which were shown to work
equally well for high and low skeptics and no worse than informational appeals for low skeptics.

Skeptics are not immune to advertising. In addition to an openness to emotional appeals (Study
2), Study 1 provided limited evidence that high skeptics respond well to products for which they
are highly involved. Future research with better measures or manipulations of product
involvement may investigate this question further. The implications for advertisers, however,
may be limited, suggesting merely that marketers have special need to find ways to show how
their products are important and relevant to skeptical consumers. In general, our results
reinforce the need for advertisers to employ a variety of approaches in order to succeed with the
broad spectrum of consumer responses.

The evidence that skeptics were more persuaded by emotional than informational ad appeals may
appear inconsistent with the observation that skeptics do not prefer emotional appeals. On the
one hand, this may mean simply that asking people what they want is not a good way to predict
what will be effective. On the other hand, an additional possibility is that skepticism, for the
highly skeptical, is a salient aspect of the consumer self. When persons view themselves as
‘skeptical,’ perhaps they feel the need to respond in a manner consistent with that personality
characteristic and correspondingly manage external impressions (Tedeschi, Schlenker, and
Bonoma, 1971) or prefer to affirm a position that makes them feel best about themselves (Steele,
1988). For skeptics, that may mean that a general “No” to advertising is a common response to
any prompt, even though some ad appeals and ads for some products may, in fact, be effective.

One final comment pertains to the social implication of advertising skepticism. It has widely
been presumed that some level of consumer skepticism is “healthy” for the marketplace because
it encourages honesty from advertisers. The studies reported here made no attempt to establish
norms for skepticism, so we cannot draw conclusions about whether the levels of skepticism we
observed were “healthy.” We suggest, however, that skepticism is both a cause that encourages

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advertisers to be honest and an effect of consumer experience of dishonesty. In the latter case,
too much skepticism is an impediment to an efficient market. Useful information cannot succeed
in the marketplace if consumers do not believe it and act upon it. Future research might
investigate the public policy implications of skepticism by investigating its relation to negative
market behaviors, such as shopping inefficiency (Are skeptics worse shoppers?), complaining
(Do skeptics complain more, with less justification?), late adoption (Are skeptics late to switch
to improved products?), or processing of public service information (Do skeptics ignore product
warnings, recall notices, etc.?).

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