Comparative advertising and counterargument

One of the primary objectives of a comparative advertisement should be to convince users of competing brands to switch to the sponsored brand, or at least to get them to consider the sponsored brand as an acceptable alternative when they repurchase that type of product. The purpose of this research was to determine whether or not levels of counterargument differ (1) between readers of comparative and noncomparative advertisements, (2) among readers exposed to different types of comparative advertisements, and (3) among owners and nonowners of the competing brand. Findings indicate that comparative ads may have the potential to elicit more counter-arguments than noncomparative ads, and that owners of the competing brand engaged in higher levels of counterargument that nonowners.