The Effect of Terminologies on Attitudes Toward Advertisements and Brands: Consumer Product Knowledge as a Moderator Shih-Chieh Chuang Æ Chia-Ching Tsai Æ Yin-Hui Cheng Æ Ya-Chung Sun Published online: 2 July 2009 Ó Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009 Abstract Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between advertisement terminology and con- sumer product knowledge in the attitudes toward adver- tisements and brands. Design/Methodology/Approach One hundred and twenty undergraduates participated in a 2 9 2 (terminologies are used versus terminologies are not used 9 high consumer product knowledge versus low consumer product knowl- edge) between-subjects design. Findings Low consumer product knowledge individuals form significantly more favorable advertisement attitudes and brand attitudes toward advertisements with terminol- ogies than toward advertisements without terminologies, but no differentially favorable advertisement attitudes and brand attitudes are formed for high consumer product knowledge individuals. Implications The interaction effects of message-level variables (such as terminology) and consumer-level variables (such as consumer product knowledge) are of importance. The effectiveness of advertisement terminol- ogies depends on the levels of consumer product knowl- edge. Understanding the consumer-level variables of target markets before making advertisement decision is very critical. Techniques of data-mining and psychographics benefit advertisement managers to better realize the tar- geted consumers. Originality/Value This is one of the pioneering studies to examine the relationship between advertisement terminol- ogy and consumer product knowledge in the attitudes toward advertisements and brands. Additionally, most of the prior studies on advertisement effects associated with the use of advertisement terminology ignored the influence of consumer product knowledge. The present study helps us to understand the influence of consumer product knowledge in advertisement effects and provides evidence for the relationship between advertisement terminology and consumer product knowledge in the attitudes toward advertisements and brands. Keywords Terminology Á Consumer product knowledge Á Attitudes toward advertisements Á Attitudes toward brands Introduction Terminologies refer to the advertising messages that are associated with the functions of products based on scientific specification and technology (Hong 2002). For instance, the GPRS system of a mobile phone, the ZPT ingredient of shampoos for anti-dandruff, and the ABS system of vehicles are popular terminologies used in advertisements. In recent years, terminologies have been used in large quantities in advertisements (Meeds 1998). Shibata (1983) Received and reviewed by former editor, George Neuman. S C. Chuang Department of Business Administration, National Chung Cheng University, 168, University Rd., Min-Hsiung, Chia-Yi, Taiwan e-mail: bmascc@ccu.edu.tw; chuang.teacher@msa.hinet.net C C. Tsai National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Yunlin, Taiwan Y H. Cheng (&) Department of International Business, National Taichung University, 140 Min-Shen Road, Taichung 40306, Taiwan e-mail: yinhui77@gmail.com Y C. Sun Vanung University, Chung-Li, Taiwan 123 J Bus Psychol (2009) 24:485–491 DOI 10.1007/s10869-009-9122-4 pointed out the use of monolingual messages, and English is increasingly important and is used more frequently in Japan. Mueller (1992) investigated the use of Western languages in Japanese advertisements in 1978 and 1989 and showed that the percentage of English (without trans- lating into Japanese) that was used in Japanese advertise- ments had been increasing. The main reasons for using terminologies in advertisements, even not in the native language, are that they serve to attract the attention of audiences, and audiences may process advertisements that contain terminologies by using the ‘‘peripheral routes’’ of elaboration likelihood model (ELM), which makes the advertisements persuasive (Petty and Cacioppo 1986). In addition, the use of terminologies may invoke professional recognitions and technology associations, and result in professional images, which in turn have an impact on the purchasing behavior of consumers. Previous studies have suggested that the use of termi- nologies in advertisements can increase the advertising effectiveness (Hong 2002). Hong examined the effects of using terminologies in advertisements for different product categories and showed that when the advertised products are less innovative, consumers adopt information searching of low involvement, and do not need to collect too much information. Therefore, consumers’ attitudes would not be favorable to the terminologies, and resultantly, the adver- tising effectiveness of terminologies is dramatically reduced. In contrast, when the advertised products are more innovative, a higher advertising effectiveness of terminol- ogies occurs because for such high involvement products, participants would employ more information searching, and advertisements that contain terminologies appeal to audiences for more cognition. In general, most consumers are ignorant of innovative products while they might be knowledgeable about less innovative products. Therefore, that consumers’ product knowledge would affect the advertising effectiveness of terminologies was assumed. This study focuses on the advertising effectiveness of terminologies for consumers who possess a high and low level of product knowledge. Literature Review Terminology Terminologies are the advertising messages that are con- nected with the functions of products based on scientific specification and technology (Hong 2002). According to Stewart and Koslow (1989), the messages in print adver- tisements can be served to distinguish from other com- peting brands so that the products can be recalled by consumers, and consumers will be persuaded to buy the products. The messages will form the so-called advertising value in the mind of consumers and will have an impact on consumers’ purchasing behavior. It is the reason why ter- minologies are used in advertisements. The Effect of the Terminology on Attitudes Toward Advertisements and Brands ELM (Petty and Cacioppo 1986) can be applied to explain the effect of terminologies. In ELM, the central route is presumed to produce more enduring judgments that are based on the extensive and critical elaboration of adver- tising messages while the peripheral route results in rela- tively ephemeral judgments that are grounded in simple and intuitive inferences. If consumers adopt the ‘‘peripheral cues’’ of the ELM to elaborate the messages of advertise- ments, they will associate terminologies with a high level of technology and professionalism and thus pay more attention to the advertisements. Consumers devote more resources to noticing and processing the contents of advertisements with terminologies, and consequently, the advertisements are more persuasive. Empirically, advertisements that include terminologies cause preferences for the advertisements and brands and increase the desires of consumers to purchase the advertised products. Such advertisements can make deeper impres- sions of consumers especially when the advertised products are innovative, and consumers would attach a high-tech- nology image to the advertised products, which results in better attitudes toward the advertisements (Hong 2002). Terminologies represent professionalism for consumers and can serve to attract consumers’ attention. Consumers tend to associate brands that are promoted by advertisements containing terminologies with uniqueness and superiority compared to advertisements that does not contain terminol- ogies. Thus, the presence of terminologies in advertisements can create a better brand attitude of consumers. Thus, Hypothesis 1 and Hypothesis 2 are proposed as follows: Hypothesis 1 Advertisements that contain terminologies will cause better attitudes toward advertisements than those without terminologies. Hypothesis 2 Advertisements that contain terminologies will cause better attitudes toward brands than those without terminologies. Consumer Product Knowledge Consumer knowledge is one of the important constructs in consumer behavior and can affect information searching (Brucks 1985; Rao and Sieben 1992) and information pro- cessing (Alba and Hutchinson 1987; Bettman and Park 1980; Johnson and Russo 1980 ; Rao and Monroe 1988). Bieha and 486 J Bus Psychol (2009) 24:485–491 123 Chakravarti (1983) discovered that consumers make choices after they acquire information and also pointed out that consumers recall different information based on different patterns of decision making. Lynch et al. (1988) proved that consumers make decisions based on the information in their memories. Rao and Monroe (1988) found that product knowledge can influence how consumers assess products. Consumers with varying levels of knowledge in specific product category respond differently to advertisements. For example, MacInnis and Jaworski (1989) evidenced that there is a variation in the processing of advertisements because of the different consumer knowledge levels. Toncar and Munch (2001) showed that when advertising agencies adopt incomplete product advocacy, the information consumers could not fully understand, they may lose the control over the information and have to take the risk of misunderstanding the information. However, the incomplete product advocacy can significantly increase the effectiveness of print advertising, making advertisements more persuasive and recallable. Notably, the effectiveness is limited to consumers with low product knowledge. Consumers with low product knowledge are more motivated to pay attention to advertisements that contain product-related information. In addition, they adopt the peripheral route to elaborate such advertisements and devote more resources to processing the advertisements. It is expected to have a positive effect on the persuasiveness of the advertisement and brand awareness. In contrast, a knowledgeable consumer is less motivated to devote the resources to judge and elaborate the messages in such advertisements, and thus the advertising effectiveness is lessened. Therefore, we presume when consumers have low product knowledge, advertisements that contain terminolo- gies have a more positive effect on the attitudes toward advertising and brand than those without terminologies. Therefore, Hypothesis 3 and Hypothesis 4 were generated. Hypothesis 3 Advertisements that contain terminologies will cause more favorable attitudes toward advertising than those that do not contain terminologies for participants with low product knowledge, but will not for those subjects with high product knowledge. Hypothesis 4 Advertisements that contain terminologies will cause better attitudes toward brand than those that do not contain terminologies for participants with low product knowledge, but will not for those subjects with high product knowledge. Method The study primarily examines how the use of terminologies influences attitudes toward advertisements and brands for consumers with different levels of product knowledge. The experimental design is as follows. Experimental Design One hundred and twenty undergraduate students were recruited in this experiment as a part of the requirements of a marketing management course. The experiment was a 2 9 2 (terminologies are used versus terminologies are not used 9 high consumer knowledge versus low consumer knowledge) between-subjects experimental design. The participants were randomly divided into the four experi- mental conditions: terminologies are used and low con- sumer knowledge, terminologies are not used and low consumer knowledge, terminologies are used and high consumer knowledge, and terminologies are not used and high consumer knowledge. Manipulation of Terminology The participants under the conditions in which terminolo- gies were used were asked to read a leaflet that contained terminologies, and those under the conditions in which terminologies were not used were asked to read a leaflet that did not contain terminologies. The leaflets were about an e- play cell phone, and the contents included the photographs of e-play cell phones and the descriptions of cell phone function with or without terminology. The six terminologies including TFT, GSM, WAP, MMS, CMOS, and infrared transmission are selected and used in the study according to Hong (2002). We designed an advertisement with a verbal description that did not use terminologies and was close in meaning to the aforementioned terminologies as the advertisements for the conditions without using terminol- ogies. For example, MMS was used in the advertisements with terminologies, whereas multimedia messaging service was used in the advertisements without terminology. The fundamental difference between the advertisements with and without terminologies was that the terminologies that were used in the leaflet about e-play cell phones were printed in red and boldface font. A questionnaire, using the question ‘‘How many terminologies do you think there is in this advertisement?’’ on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 5 (a lot) to rate the participants’ feelings about the terminologies, was also administered. Manipulation of Consumer Product Knowledge To divide the participants into two groups, high and low consumer product knowledge groups, the study designed a ‘‘Cell Phone Terminology-Related Instructions’’ document. The document covered six terminologies including TFT, GSM, WAP, MMS, CMOS, and infrared transmission. For J Bus Psychol (2009) 24:485–491 487 123 example, the document contained the information that a TFT (Thin Film Transistor) is made of amorphous silicon (a-Si) and the combination of TFT technology with LCD technology is called TFT-LCD. When this technology is applied to the screen of a cell phone, the display of text and graphics is enhanced and the cell phone becomes slimmer, more compact, and energy saving. The high-knowledge group was asked to read the ‘‘Cell Phone Terminology-Related Instruction,’’ but this step was omitted for the low-knowledge group. Both groups were then asked to take a ‘‘Cell Phone Product Knowledge Test’’ to investigate if consumer product knowledge were suc- cessfully manipulated. Procedure The experiment started with giving the participants instruc- tions concerning the experiment, such as not to talk and to read the product information carefully. The subjects in the high-knowledge treatment were given the ‘‘Cell Phone Terminology-Related Instruction’’ document to read for 5 min, whereas the ones in the low-knowledge treatment were not given anything to read. In addition, the subjects in the treatment terminologies were used got the ‘‘E-play Cell Phone Leaflet with Terminology’’ to read, while the ones in the treatment terminologies were not used had the ‘‘E-play Cell Phone Leaflet without Terminology’’ to read for 30 s. Finally, the participants were asked to complete scales to assess their feelings about the terminologies, the levels of consumer product knowledge, and attitudes toward advertisements and brands. The experiment took *15 min. Measurement of Attitudes Toward Advertisement and Brand According to Muehling and Laczniak (1988), this study used eight 5-point scales ranging from 1 to 5 to measure adver- tisement attitude. The larger numbers indicated more posi- tive responses to the advertisements. The participants were asked to indicate their attitude toward advertisements by completing the statement, ‘‘The advertisement was…’’ not attractive–attractive, bad–good, unpleasant–pleasant, unfa- vorable–favorable, dislike–like, dull–dynamic, depressing– refreshing, and unenjoyable–enjoyable. The endpoints were coded 1–5, with larger numbers indicating more positive responses. Cronbach’s alpha is 0.91. Brand attitude (a = 0.88) was measured by using the six 5-point scales ranging from 1 to 5, with larger numbers indicating more positive attitudes toward the brands. The participants were asked to complete the statement, ‘‘My attitude toward the e-play cell phone was…’’ bad–good, unfavorable–favorable, negative–positive, unlikable–like- able, unattractive–attractive, and unpleasant–pleasant. Results Manipulation Checks The t test is used to investigate if terminologies and con- sumer product knowledge were successfully manipulated. The t test results were depicted in Tables 1 and 2. According to Tables 1 and 2, the mean for the treatment terminologies were used is 3.63 and that for the treatment terminologies were not used is 2.88. The mean for the high- knowledge treatment is 16.2 and that for the low-knowl- edge treatment is 12.3. The p-values were 0.005 and 0.000, respectively, indicating that the manipulations of termi- nologies and consumer product knowledge were successful. Effects of Terminologies and Consumer Product Knowledge on Attitudes Toward Advertisements Two-way ANOVA was used to examine the effects of ter- minologies and consumer knowledge on attitudes toward advertisements. The results are shown in Tables 3, 4, and Fig. 1. The study showed that the use of terminologies caused significantly better advertisement attitude (M = 3.5; SD = 0.87) than the absence of terminologies (M = 3.11; SD = 0.88) (F (1,133) = 5.894, p \0.05), but consumer product knowledge had no significant impact on advertise- ment attitude (F(1,133) = 1.88, p [0.1). Thus, Hypothesis 1 was supported. In addition, the experiment found that terminologies and consumer product knowledge had a sig- nificant interaction on advertisement attitude (F(1,133) = 4.02, p \ 0.05). The use of terminologies made better advertisement attitude (M = 3.76; SD = 0.82) than the absence of terminologies (M = 3.27; SD = 0.74) for the participants with low product knowledge (t(58) = 3.47, p \0.01). However, the use of terminologies does not result in a significantly more favorable advertisement attitude (M = 3.23; SD = 0.86) than the absence of terminologies Table 1 Results of terminologies manipulation check Mean tp Terminologies were used 3.63 2.58 0.005 Terminologies were not used 2.88 Table 2 Results of consumer product knowledge manipulation check Mean tp High consumer product knowledge 16.2 6.92 0.000 Low consumer product knowledge 12.3 488 J Bus Psychol (2009) 24:485–491 123 (M = 3.06; SD = 1.01) for the participants with high product knowledge (t(58) = 0.27, p [ 0.5). As a result, Hypothesis 3 was supported. Effects of Terminologies and Consumer Product Knowledge on Attitudes Toward Brands A29 2 ANOVA was used to examine the effects of ter- minologies and consumer knowledge on attitudes toward brands. The results are depicted in Tables 5, 6, and Fig. 2. The study showed that the use of terminologies caused significantly better brand attitude (M = 3.4; SD = 0.97) than the absence of terminologies (M = 3.08; SD = 0.96) (F(1,133) = 3.31, p \0.1), but consumer product knowl- edge had no significant impact on brand attitude (F(1,133) = 2.06, p [0.1). Therefore, Hypothesis 2 was supported. Moreover, the results also showed that termi- nologies and consumer product knowledge had a signifi- cant interaction on brand attitude (F(1,133) = 4.04, p \0.05). The use of terminology made better brand atti- tude (M = 3.7; SD = 0.95) than the absence of terminol- ogy for the participants with low product knowledge (M = 3.03, SD = 0.76; t(58) = 2.98, p \ 0.05). However, the use of terminologies (M = 3.13; SD = 0.92) did not result in a significantly more favorable brand attitude than Table 3 Results of two-way ANOVA—attitudes toward advertisements * p \ 0.1; ** p \0.05; *** p \ 0.01 Source SS DF MS F Intercept 1,313.41 1 1,313.41 1,755.92 Terminologies*** 4.408 1 4.408 5.89 Consumer product knowledge 1.408 1 1.408 1.88 Terminologies 9 consumer product knowledge** 3.008 1 3.008 4.02 Error 86.76 116 0.74 Total 1,409 119 Table 4 Means of the attitudes toward advertisements of each treatment Terminologies were used Terminologies were not used Average Low consumer Product knowledge 3.76 (n = 30) 3.27 (n = 30) 3.52 High consumer Product knowledge 3.23 (n = 30) 3.06 (n = 30) 3.15 Average 3.5 3.11 3 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 Terminologies were used Terminologies were not used Attitude toward Ad Low Consumer Product Knowledge High Consumer Product Knowledge Fig. 1 Interaction of terminologies and consumer product knowledge on advertisement attitude Table 5 Results of two-way ANOVA—attitudes toward brands * p \ 0.1; ** p \0.05 Source SS DF MS F Intercept 1,261 1 1,261 1,387.39 Terminologies* 3 1 3 3.31 Consumer product knowledge 1.85 1 1.85 2.06 Terminologies 9 consumer product knowledge** 3.67 1 3.67 4.04 Error 105.43 116 0.909 Total 1,375 119 Table 6 Means of the attitudes toward brands of each treatment Terminologies were used Terminologies were not used Average Low consumer Product knowledge 3.70 (n = 30) 3.03 (n = 30) 3.37 High consumer Product knowledge 3.13 (n = 30) 3.10 (n = 30) 3.13 Average 3.4 3.08 J Bus Psychol (2009) 24:485–491 489 123 the absence of terminology (M = 3.1; SD = 1.13) for the participants with high product knowledge (t(58) = 0.125, p [0.05). Consequently, Hypothesis 4 was supported. Discussion The study shows that the use of terminologies in adver- tisement has significant impact on advertisement and brand attitudes. However, if consumer product knowledge was used in the experiment as a moderator, an interaction occurs between terminology and consumer product knowledge. When consumer product knowledge is low, the use of terminologies creates better advertisement and brand attitudes than not using terminologies. In contrast, when consumer product knowledge is high, no significant effect because of including terminologies in advertisement is observed. We gauge that when consumers are low in product knowledge, i.e., they are less familiar with spe- cialized information that is relevant to an advertised product, consumers’ attitude toward brands would be enhanced by using terminologies in advertisements. How- ever, when consumers are high in product knowledge, i.e., they have already possessed certain product knowledge, and therefore the use of terminologies in advertisements does not improve advertisement or brand attitudes. The use of terminologies has become popular across varied product categories, such as the GPRS system of mobile phones, the ABS system of vehicles, the ZPT ingredient of anti-dandruff shampoos, and PITERA in facial care products. Hong (2002) investigated the effects of terminologies across different levels of innovative products and indicated that terminologies caused better advertising effectiveness for the less innovative products compared with the more innovative ones. According to Petty and Cacioppo (1986), consumers in low involvement would not devote many resources to process the message, but consumers in high involvement would. When consumers dedicate more resources to noticing and processing the advertising messages, resul- tantly the advertisements would be more persuasive. Generally, consumers are low involved when shopping commodities. They consume commodities very often and even purchase them habitually. They would not dedicate to process messages of advertisements with terminologies. Besides, commodities are fairly simple and easily under- stood by most people, and most consumers might be knowledgeable about commodities. In this study, we found that terminologies do not cause better attitudes toward advertisements and brands in the case of low consumer product knowledge. Thus, for commodities, we suggest that there would be no significant effects of terminologies on advertising effectiveness. However, it deserves further research across varied product categories. This study has a specific implication for practitioners. The interactive effects of message-level variables, such as terminology, and consumer-level variables, like consumer knowledge, are of prime importance. The effectiveness of using terminologies depends on the levels of consumer product knowledge. Understanding consumer-level vari- ables of target market before making any advertising decision is very significant. As data-mining and psycho- graphic profiling techniques improve, it is conducive to realize the target consumers better for advertising managers. Limitations and Future Research One of this study’s limitations is that the participants were asked to read leaflets and answer the questionnaire in a limited period of time. Thus, it is not easy to accurately measure their attitudes toward advertisements and brands in real-life situation. Moreover, the sample size was small and there was only one experiment object; future research should improve on these two aspects and continue to build the theory. In addition to consumer product knowledge, consumer lifestyle and personal traits could serve as moderators to explore a wider range of possible variables. Furthermore, this study used only print media as a means of advertising, and future studies could use dynamic advertisements that contain sound and images to ascertain whether the effects of terminology and consumer product knowledge would be different. Acknowledgments The authors like to thank George A. Neuman as well as the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. Terminologies were used Terminologies were not used Attitude toward Brand Low Consumer Product Knowledge High Consumer Product Knowledge 3 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 Fig. 2 Interaction of terminologies and consumer product knowledge on brand attitude 490 J Bus Psychol (2009) 24:485–491 123 References Alba, J. W., & Hutchinson, W. (1987). Dimension of consumer expertise. Journal of Consumer Research, 13, 411–454. 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It is the reason why ter- minologies are used in advertisements. The Effect of the Terminology on Attitudes Toward Advertisements and Brands ELM (Petty and. were successful. Effects of Terminologies and Consumer Product Knowledge on Attitudes Toward Advertisements Two-way ANOVA was used to examine the effects of ter- minologies and consumer knowledge on attitudes