ON THE NEED FOR RELATIVE MEASURES WHEN ASSESSING COMPARATIVE ADVERTISING EFFECTS

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