Society & Culture - Posted by Jan Dennis-Illinois on Wednesday, March 31, 2010 13:55 - 4 Comments 
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(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5) Loading ...Consumers don’t buy puffed-up claims
Though murky claims can sway less-informed consumers, they can alienate the knowledgeable buyers who provide the greatest sales potential. “Puffery can actually hurt in your target market,” says researcher Alison Jing Xu. “For instance, puffery in beer ads could influence women, but men are the primary buyers and may like a product less if ads include meaningless information they think is just there to persuade them.” (Courtesy: iStockphoto)
U. ILLINOIS (US)—Advertising that touts head-scratching scientific ingredients or other exotically technical details can turn consumers away instead of enticing them to buy.
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The text of this article by Futurity is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License.
That’s bad news for marketers who think glossy, obscure product claims will go far in wooing buyers.
“When consumers suspect that advertisers are just trying to manipulate them with useless information, they may react negatively and lose trust,” says Alison Jing Xu, a doctoral student in marketing at the University of Illinois, and coauthor of a new study. “And trust is very important in advertising.”
The study which will be published in the Journal of Consumer Research, gauged consumer reaction to ‘puffery’—technical, tough-to-decipher advertising claims that seek to give products a competitive edge.
Too technical to be true
A fictional cleansing gel ad used in the survey trumpeted ingredients such as “Sebopur Complex,” while another ad promoted a beer brewed through the “European Pilsen Method.”
How consumers responded to the technical-sounding claims varied based on their own personal knowledge of the product and where the ad appeared, according to findings by Xu and Robert Wyer Jr., professor of business administration.
Consumers who considered themselves less knowledgeable than the target audience rated products higher, assuming the puzzling references were useful but merely over their heads.
However, consumers who considered themselves well-informed about a product reacted negatively, viewing puffery as an effort to trick them with meaningless information.
Product placement
Consumers have differing reactions based on their personal product knowledge when ads appear in popular, mainstream media. But all consumers generally have a positive impression of ads in media geared toward industry professionals, concluding that the claims are meaningful to the experts they serve.
Xu says the findings show that puffery could be counterproductive for companies that rely on ads in the popular media. Though murky claims can sway less-informed consumers, they can alienate the knowledgeable buyers who provide the greatest sales potential.
“Puffery can actually hurt in your target market,” she explains. “For instance, puffery in beer ads could influence women, but men are the primary buyers and may like a product less if ads include meaningless information they think is just there to persuade them.”
The backlash could have long-term implications if consumers have a strong negative reaction to the claims, Xu says. “Positive impressions of products can change easily, but not negatives.”
Long history of puffery
Puffery in advertising has been around for at least a half-century as companies seek to carve a niche in an increasingly competitive marketplace, says Xu.
“Advertisers need to catch consumers’ attention and make products impressive,” she explains. “But attention only helps when it’s positive and this study says advertisers need to be careful as they try to set themselves apart. They can alienate the buyers they most seek.”
Xu says consumers filter ad claims, rather than accepting them blindly. As a result effective advertising should relate to consumers on a personal level, rather than talking down to them.
“When advertisers create campaigns, they should try to imagine that they’re engaging in a conversation with their target audience,” she says.
“So if using technical terms is important, they should explain them. It’s important that your audience knows what you’re talking about.”
University of Illinois news: www.news.illinois.edu/index.html
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4 Comments
Michele Hujber
I am shocked that you would include such a sexist quote as “puffery in beer ads could influence women, but men are the primary buyers and may like a product less if ads include meaningless information they think is just there to persuade them” in a university press release! This is expecially unforgivable in this context, where you are equating being uninformed with being female. This type of sexist portrayal of women has not been acceptable in professional writing in decades. Shame on you!
Mark Mason
Hahhahaa, too funny. So, they hand out doctorates for discovering that: 1) Capitalists employ lies and deception in advertising to sell products, and 2) Sometimes, the lying can result in a consumer backlash, thus hurting sales. Any ten-year-old knows this. Sean, you’ve got it right with respect to business higher education, but not the university as a whole. As long as “business” means capitalism, the business and marketing academic departments will churn out brain-dead academics. It’s dishonest to use the euphemism “puffery.” Puffery is intentional deception and lies. Lying to potential customers can get you into trouble–sometimes. Who doesn’t know this?
Eric
I have to agree with you Mark. I suppose that this isn’t necessarily just common sense, but it’s not more than a step away from it. The other issue with the study is that it sounds like it’s strictly self-reported. People like to feel smart, informed and independent. They don’t like to feel that they’re puppets of large corporations telling them what to buy. People will always respond by saying that they aren’t swayed by this kind of advertising–and they’ll usually say they aren’t swayed by advertising in general. My best friend says that he advertising has no effect on him–and yet he wears $90 Nikes.
It would have been more compelling to look at advertising versus sales. The Snuggie ads were ridiculous but millions of consumers bought them.
LOL…Boggles me…Been quitting sales jobs for 13 years, since age 16, largely because of puffery…Was a top performer at those jobs every time, by eliminating puffery and focusing on the facts most beneficial to my prospects…was almost foolish enough to get a degree in psychology but didn’t go back to school because it was too inefficient and too costly…ten years later, after the society around me has come to a 50/50 split on every major issue and WASTED BILLIONS of dollars on “higher education,” and “enlightened” research, a highlighted article on a “futurist” site is extolling the virtues of marketing without puffery, people are buzzing about “customer-centric” service, and, the fact remains that people like me, a self educated genius with something called integrity, is unemployed and “unemployable” largely because I disagreed with everything mainstream is disagreeing with now…LOL…good thing I believe in myself and the one simple lesson my mother taught me:
“Honesty is always the best policy.”
If only pop culture would have simply listened to their mothers, we would’ve evolved the wasteful education system that produces PUFFERY like this article back in the 80′s and saved ourselves BILLIONS of dollars…
Amazing what kind of common sense lessons need decades of foolish leadership in the wrong direction before they are, regretfully, POUNDED into our heads via unnecessary recessions….Just listen to mom kids, you don’t need an overpriced degree, you don’t even need a card to the public library or internet access to learn what this article is saying:
“Honesty is ALWAYS the best policy!”
Take Care Folkies!
Sean @ MetaKong