Abstract
In this paper we explore the effects of advertising substantiation information on consumers' attribute beliefs and judgments of product quality. We provide a brief background on the Federal Trade Commission's Advertising Substantiation Program. Secondly, we describe an experiment designed to examine the effects of a level of advertising substantiation information made available over the Internet on consumer evaluations of advertised products. This included testing the effects of varying levels of advertising substantiation information for two products on: 1) a claim-related belief (attribute discussed explicitly within the ad), 2) an inferred belief (attribute not discussed within the ad), and 3) overall judgments of brand quality. In all cases, consumer beliefs and judgments were measured in comparison to a major rival brand. We found that the series of attribute beliefs and judgments of quality differed significantly between the information-level treatments. Finally, we discuss implications for facilitating usage of advertising substantiation information via the Internet. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]