Viewpoint: Visual puffery in advertising

Marc Fetscherin, Assistant Professor at the Crummer Graduate School of Business (Rollins College) and Mark Toncar, Professor of Marketing at Youngstown State University

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the US defines puffery as a ‘term frequently used to denote the exaggerations reasonably to be expected of a seller as to the degree of quality of his product, the truth or falsity of which cannot be precisely determined’ (FTC 2004). The concept and use of verbal puffery in advertising research has been discussed extensively in the past few decades (Preston 1967; Preston & Scharbach 1971; Richards 1990). Puffed claims, while obviously untrue, are typically not considered deceptive in the US. We know of no study that has investigated the use of visuals – pictures and symbols – as vehicles of puffery. This issue is especially important in light of the decision of the 2nd US District Court of Appeals in Manhattan, which ruled that puffery can include visual depictions (Neumeister 2007).

Market researchers and academics can use various methods to investigate the effects of images and symbols in advertising. The most often used are visual rhetoric analysis, semiotic analysis and text interpretative analysis. A few studies (Corbett 1990; McQuarrie& Mick 1999, 2003; Morgan & Reichert 1999; McQuarrie & Phillips 2005; Callister & Stern 2007) have used visual rhetoric and text interpretative analysis in advertising research. Other studies have used semiotic analysis, which enables the researcher to analyse the semiotic relations among
key elements of the ad and to assess their importance in an ad.

We used semiotic analysis to investigate the existence of visual puffery in magazine advertising of women’s fragrances. We gathered survey data from 75 young women, a sample that is representative of the target market for women’s fragrances, who viewed three different full-page advertisements of women’s fragrances ads from Vogue magazine. The survey consisted of three sections. In the first, the women were shown the ads for the fragrances and were asked to answer questions pertaining to them. The questions were designed to learn the women’s expectations about the actual fragrance in the ad based solely upon viewing it. The second section tested the women’s actual olfactory perceptions where they were exposed to the fragrances, by means of a blind olfactory test, and were asked to evaluate them. In the third section, they tried to match the three ads with the three fragrances.

Our results suggest that the ads generally resulted in unrealistically high product expectations among the respondents, expectations that were not met when they actually experienced the fragrances. This suggests that visual puffery does exist, and can generate expectations that in many cases exceed actual product evaluations. Across all three fragrance ads, the expectations generated by the ads that related to sensual, feminine, flirtatious, mysterious and exotic characteristics of the fragrances were all significantly greater than subsequent product evaluations.

Our results suggests that while verbal puffery is legal because it is presumed not to be effective, visual puffery may be quite effective and might help marketers, specifically in countries where verbal puffery is illegal, to use other means to reach consumers. This is both intriguing and perplexing, and suggests potential legal and ethical implications as well. With this article we want to encourage market researchers and academics to look further into the powerful effects that visuals in advertising can have in influencing consumers’ expectations of product performance. Future research should also investigate whether, and to what extent, the heightened expectations of consumers resulting from visual puffery influence their purchasing behaviour. We encourage advertising and marketing researchers and practitioners to further explore this issue and shed more light on this fascinating topic.

References

Callister, M. & Stern, L. (2007) The role of visual hyperbole in advertising effectiveness. Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising, 29, 2, p. 1–14.
Corbett, E. (1990) Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student. New York: Oxford University Press.
Federal Trade Commission (2004) Retrieved from www.ftc.gov/bcp/scofflaw/documents/annual_reilly.pdf Accessed 30 April 2008.
McQuarrie, E. & Mick, D. (1999) Visual rhetoric in advertising: text-interpretive, experimental, and reader-response
analyses. Journal of Consumer Research, 26, 1, pp. 37–54.
McQuarrie, E. & Mick, D. (2003) Visual and verbal rhetorical figures under directed processing versus incidental exposure to advertising. Journal of Consumer Research, 29, 4, pp. 579–588.
McQuarrie, E. & Phillips, B. (2005) Indirect persuasion in advertising: how consumers process metaphors presented in pictures and words. Journal of Advertising, 34, 2, pp. 7–21.
Morgan, S. & Reichert, T. (1999) The message is in the metaphor: assessing the comprehension of metaphors in advertisements. Journal of Advertising, 28, 4, pp. 1–12.
Neumeister, L. (2007) Appeals Court OKs ‘puffery defense’. Retrieved from www.commercialalert.org/news/archive/2007/08/appeals-court-oks-pufferydefense. Accessed 10 October 2008.
Preston, I. (1967) Theories of behavior and the concept of rationality in advertising. Journal of Communication, 17, September, pp. 211–222.
Preston, I. & Scharbach, S. (1971) Advertising: more than meets the eye? Journal of Advertising Research, 11, June, pp. 19–24.
Richards, J. (1990) A ‘new and improved’ view of puffery. Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, 9, pp. 73–84.

International Journal of Market Research 51(2), 2009

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