Are Product Attribute Beliefs the Only Mediator of Advertising Effects on Brand Attitude?

Author(s): Andrew A. Mitchell and Jerry C. Olson

Source: Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Aug., 1981), pp. 318-332
Published by: American Marketing Association
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 I ?

ANDREW A. MITCHELLand JERRYC. OLSON*

Fishbein's attitude theory posits that beliefs are the only mediators of attitude
formation and change. The validity of this proposition for consumers' beliefs
about product attributes and brand attitudes was exmained in the context
of an advertising effects study. To manipulate product attribute beliefs and
to create settings in which other mediation processes might occur, the authors
exposed subjects to simple advertisements that contained either a verbal claim
or visual information. Level of repetition also was varied. As expected, product
attribute beliefs mediated attitude formation. However, another variable,
termed attitude toward the advertisement, also mediated brand attitudes and
purchase intentions. The authors discuss alternative explanations for the results
and offer suggestions for future research.

Are Product Attribute Beliefs the Only

Mediator of Advertising Effects on Brand
Attitude?
I

Attitude, defined here as an individual's internal
evaluation of an object such as a branded product, has
been an important concept in marketing research for
the past 20 years. There are at least two major reasons
for this long-term interest. First, attitudes often are
considered relatively stable and enduring predisposi-
tions to behave. Consequently, they should be useful
predictors of consumers' behavior toward a product
or service. Second, social psychology has provided
several theoretical models of the attitude construct
(e.g., Fishbein 1963; McGuire 1968; Rosenberg 1956;
Triandis 1971; Wyer 1974). These conceptual frame-
works, especially Fishbein's, have stimulated much
of the attitude research in marketing. Most of this
work, however, has been descriptive and pragmatic
in orientation; theoretical issues have been relatively
neglected.
To increase the usefulness of the attitude construct,
*Andrew A. Mitchell is Associate Professor of Marketing, Carne-
gie-Mellon University. Jerry C. Olson is Associate Professor of
Marketing, The Pennsylvania State University. The research was
funded by a Research Initiation grant to both authors from The
Pennsylvania State University and an NSF grant to the first author.
The authors thank Meryl Gardner and S. P. Raj for their assistance
in data analysis and three reviewers for their constructive comments.
318
marketers must develop a clearer understanding of
the causal determinants of attitude formation and
change (Olson and Mitchell 1975; also see Lutz 1977;
Lutz and Bettman 1977). These causal influences are
of critical importance because they mediate the effects
of marketing decision variables such as advertising
or price on consumer attitudes. Thus, a better under-
standing of the causal dynamics of attitude formation
would not only aid marketing researchers in measuring
the attitudinal impact of marketing variables, but also
help managers develop more effective marketing strat-
egy.
ATTITUDE THEORY
Fishbein (1963, 1967; Fishbein and Ajzen 1975)
presented perhaps the clearest theoretical exposition
of the causal basis of attitudes. According to Fishbein
and Ajzen (1975, p. 222), "A person's attitude is a
function of his salient beliefs at a given point in time."
Beliefs are the subjective associations between any
two discriminable concepts. Salient beliefs are those
activated from memory and "considered" by the
person in a given situation (Fishbein and Ajzen 1975;
Olson, Kanwar, and Muderrisoglu 1979). As these
ideas are operationalized in the typical marketing
research study, the attitude concept of interest is a
brand and the related concepts are product attributes.

Journal of Marketing Research

Vol. XVIII (August 1981), 318-32

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PRODUCT
ATTRIBUTE AND BRANDATTITUDE
BELIEFS
That is, marketing researchers have been mainly
concerned with consumers' beliefs about attributes
of a brand.
Fishbein's now-familiar attitude model specifies the
relationship between the set of salient beliefs about
a concept (often termed cognitive structure) and an
overall evaluation of, or attitude toward, the concept.
n attitudes. Stated in its strongest sense, the presumption
( is that beliefs mediate all effects on attitude formation
(1) b,e, = A,
i=l
where:
b, = the strengthof the associationbetween the attitude
concept, o, and the ithsalient concept,
e, = the evaluationof the ithsalient concept,
Ao = the overall evaluationof, or attitudetoward, con-
cept o, and
n = the numberof salient beliefs.
Fishbein clearly intended the attitude model in equa-
tion 1 to describe only the predicted relationship
between measures of the theoretical constructs (e.g.,
see Fishbein and Ajzen 1975, p. 222-3). That is, the
algebraic model provides a means of estimating the
belief-attitude relationship that was formed as a result
of causal mechanisms. The model itself does not
"state" the causal proposition nor does it specify the
causal mechanisms.
Fishbein also proposed that the attitude-belief rela-
tionship specified in equation 1 holds for attitudes
toward a specific behavior such as buying a product,
Aact. However, the set of salient beliefs may not be
the same as for Ao (Fishbein and Ajzen 1975). In
turn, attitude, especially Aact, is presumed to have
a causal influence on behavioral intentions (BI).' In
sum, Fishbein proposed a causal flow among three
cognitive variables-beliefs, evaluations or attitudes,
and intentions (see Lutz 1977). According to this view,
a marketing stimulus such as an advertisement affects
consumers' beliefs first. Then the influenced salient
beliefs mediate the marketing variable's effect on
attitude, and attitude in turn mediates subsequent
effects on behavioral intention.
The basic theoretical proposition of Fishbein's atti-
tude theory is that beliefs cause attitude. Because
attitude is determined by a set of salient beliefs,
changes in attitude must be mediated by changes in
those beliefs. Therefore, to change a person's attitude
toward a concept, one must modify the salient beliefs
about that concept (Fishbein and Ajzen 1975, Ch.
'Actually, Fishbein'sextended attitudemodel assumes that be-
havioralintentions are a function of both A^,c and a social norm
construct (Fishbein and Ajzen 1975). Recent research findings,
however, raise the question of whether the social norm element
is really a separateconstruct(Miniardand Cohen 1979). Because
of these operationaland conceptual problems, the social norm
constructis not includedin our research.
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319
6). Beliefs can be modified by changing the strength
of a salient belief (be), changing the evaluation of
a belief (e,), creating a new salient belief, or making
a salient belief nonsalient (Lutz 1975, 1977). Fishbein's
algebraic model (equation 1) then can be used to
estimate the subsequent effect on overall attitude. Our
key concern is with the proposition that beliefs cause
or attitude change.
Developing an empirical test of this causal relation-
ship is straightforward, at least logically. Assume that
a persuasive message has a significant effect on
attitudes. Assume further that we can identify and
measure all salient beliefs. If Fishbein's theory that
beliefs mediate effects on attitude is correct, we
should find that statistically removing the effect of
the message on beliefs (e.g., by analysis of covariance
procedures) also removes the significant message
effect on attitude. To the extent that the message
still has significant effects on attitude, other causal
processes must have occurred (or else measurement
errors, etc., are present). In reality, problems arise
because empirical data cannot always be interpreted
as rigorous tests of the theory (cf. Carnegie-Mellon
University Marketing Seminar 1978; Dickson and
Miniard 1978; Lutz 1978a, b). Perhaps the most diffi-
cult problem is demonstrating that all of the salient
beliefs, and only the salient beliefs, were measured.
Another problem is unambiguously demonstrating the
temporal ordering of the effects. Perhaps because of
these difficulties, very few studies in either psychology
or marketing have addressed the validity of the basic
proposition that beliefs are the sole determinant of
attitudes. That issue motivated the research reported
here.
PAST A TTITUDE RESEARCH IN MARKETING
Much of the marketing research based on the Fish-
bein model has focused on demonstrating statistically
significant correlations between a "direct" measure
of brand attitude (e.g., A,) and the cognitive structure
index of attitude (Ebiei) based on product attribute
beliefs (see Wilkie and Pessemier 1973). Most of the
studies obtained statistically significant correlations.
Moreover, when the model constructs were measured
correctly (Cohen, Fishbein, and Ahtola 1972), the
resulting correlations were reasonably high, ranging
from .40 to .70 (e.g., Lutz 1977). Considerable research
effort has been directed at determining whether various
modifications of the basic model are empirically "bet-
ter" than the Fishbein formulation, even though the
appropriate criteria for selecting one model over an-
other are somewhat ambiguous. In general, this re-
search has emphasized measurement issues and pre-
dictive validity (Lutz and Bettman 1977).
Recently, other interests related to Fishbein's atti-
tude model have begun to emerge. Several researchers
320
have suggested that this model provides a theoretically
integrated set of measures of the cognitive effects
of marketing variables, particularly advertising (Lutz
1975; Mazis and Adkinson 1976; Olson and Mitchell
1975). In applying this approach, beliefs about attri-
butes of the advertised brand, brand attitudes, and
purchase intentions are measured to indicate the mul-
tiple effects of a particular communication message
on cognitive structure variables (e.g., Olson and Dover
1978b). The measures of brand attribute beliefs seem
particularly useful in providing diagnostic information
about the effectiveness of a message strategy.
A second emerging interest of a few researchers
is the theoretical basis for attitude (cf. Calder 1975,
1978; Holbrook 1978; Lutz 1975; Lutz and Swasy 1977;
Mitchell, in press; Olson and Dover 1978a; Olson and
Mitchell 1975). Although massive correlational evi-
dence supports the static relationship between beliefs
and attitudes (cf. Fishbein and Ajzen 1975; Wilkie
and Pessemier 1973), experimental evidence support-
ing the causal, mediating effect of beliefs in attitude
formation and change is meager (Lutz and Bettman
1977). Lutz (1975), for instance, demonstrated that
manipulations of product attribute belief strength were
mirrored by corresponding shifts in Ao. Olson and
Dover (1976) created changes in the strength of product
attribute beliefs that were consistent with changes in
brand attitudes. However, few other studies have
examined the causal influence of product attribute
beliefs on brand attitudes. In fact, relatively few
marketing researchers have even included beliefs,
attitudes, and intentions as multiple dependent vari-
ables in the same study.
RESEA R CH PURPOSE
The purpose of our study was to examine the validity
of the basic theoretical proposition of the Fishbein
attitude theory in a marketing research context. Spe-
cifically, we were interested in whether beliefs about
product attributes are the only mediator of brand
attitude. The experiment involved exposing subjects
to different advertisements intended to create different
brand attitudes. Because the brands were fictitious,
consumers had no prior brand beliefs or attitudes.
Thus, the research concerned only belief and attitude
formation, not change. If Fishbein's theory is correct,
the advertisements should also create differences in
brand attribute beliefs. Moreover, the variation in
these beliefs should account for (i.e., mediate) all the
experimentally produced variation in brand attitudes.
To enhance the inferential logic of the study (Platt
1964), we also examined two alternatives to the be-
liefs-cause-attitude model. Both imply that an attitude
toward a concept may be formed (or changed) without
the corresponding formation of salient beliefs about
the concept (or changes in those beliefs). One alterna-
tive proposition suggests that sheer repetition of a
stimulus may cause changes in an individual's attitude
toward that stimulus. Since Zajonc's (1968) original
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JOURNALOF MARKETINGRESEARCH,AUGUST 1981
research suggested that repeated exposure enhances
attitudes, there has been considerable controversy
about the necessary conditions for these effects (e.g.,
Matlin 1970; Stang 1975) and their theoretical basis
(e.g., Berlyne 1970; Harrison 1968; Sawyer 1977).
However, substantial evidence supports their exis-
tence (Harrison 1977). Recently, Wilson (1979) dem-
onstrated that repetition affects attitude even when
subjects are unaware of being exposed to the stimulus.
On the basis of such evidence, Zajonc (1980) suggested
that attitudes may precede beliefs in certain situations;
that is, the causal flow may be reversed. Briefly stated,
the notion is that attitude formation apparently can
occur without belief formation under certain condi-
tions of repeated exposure.
The other alternative proposition investigated is
derived from the classical conditioning approach to
attitude formation (e.g., Staats and Staats 1967). Ac-
cording to this perspective, attitudes may be formed
by repeatedly pairing a neutral (unconditioned) stimu-
lus with a positively or negatively evaluated (condi-
tioned) stimulus. For instance, an unknown brand
name (UCS) could be paired in an advertisement with
a picture (CS) that evokes positive feelings. The
association might cause the positive feelings evoked
by the picture to become conditioned to the brand
name.
Both alternative propositions identify conditions
under which attitudes may be formed or changed
without forming or changing beliefs. Our study was
designed to create the conditions necessary to test
whether brand attribute beliefs or the causal factors
suggested by the alternative propositions mediate
attitude formation. We manipulated two variables: (1)
repetition-the number of times a particular adver-
tisement was repeated, and (2) advertising content-
whether the information presented in each ad was
a verbal claim about a product attribute or merely
a pairing of a brand name with one of three visual
stimuli. By repeatedly exposing subjects to different
types of information, we created conditions in which
attitudes could have been formed through mechanisms
other than belief formation. That is, we experimentally
created opportunities for a disconfirmation of the
proposition that beliefs are the sole mediator of atti-
tudes. For instance, if advertising content creates
brand attitudes without parallel effects on product
beliefs, such results would constitute a "strong"
disconfirmation of the beliefs-cause-attitudes proposi-
tion.
In another article based on this research (Mitchell
and Olson 1977), we presented a theoretical discussion
of repetition effects and the results of a preliminary
data analysis.2 The analysis reported here produced
In that analysis only the cell means were used as the dependent
variable. Because we used all the observations in each cell as
the dependent variable, our analysis is more complete.
PRODUCT
ATTRIBUTE
BELIEFS
AND BRANDATTITUDE 321

the same results for repetition as reported previously; Table 1

that is, there were no effects of repetition on any
of the cognitive variables. Thus, the data cannot be
used to address the question of whether sheer repeti-
tion might "directly" affect attitudes but not beliefs,
because repetition had no effect on brand attitudes
or beliefs. Therefore, in this article we are concerned
only with the effects of the visual-verbal information
manipulation of advertising content.
METHOD
Subjects
Subjects were 71 junior and senior undergraduate
students of both sexes who were recruited from an
introductory marketing course. Subjects volunteered
to attend one of four 45-minute experimental sessions
in return for a $2.00 payment. As there is no reason
to suspect that subjects' choices of an experimental
session were biased, this procedure is assumed to
have produced a random assignment of subjects to
groups.
Experimental Design
To avoid the demand characteristics that might be
created by requiring subjects to rate the same stimulus
repeatedly, we used an experimental design in which
reactions were measured only once, after all exposures
to the four different advertisements. The resulting
design was a 4 x 4 Latin square with four groups
of subjects and repeated measures over both treatment
factors (Table 1). Advertising content was manipulated
by four different advertisements, each for a different
"brand" of facial tissue. Three advertisements were
nonverbal "image ads," each containing a different
picture, and the fourth contained a verbal product
claim but no picture. Repetition was manipulated at
four levels-2, 4, 6, and 8 exposures. As illustrated
in Table 1, subjects in the four groups were exposed
to all four advertisements, each advertisement under
a different level of repetition. In total, each subject
received 20 exposures divided among four different
advertisements.
This design does not allow an ideal examination
of the belief and attitude formation processes as they
occur for each individual subject, over time, with
successive repetitions. However, it does eliminate the
potential reactivity of within-subject designs that re-
quire repeated responses to the same measures. The
design provides complete information about the main
effects of group, advertising content, and repetition
level, but only partial information on the interaction
between advertising content and repetition. Finally,
this design requires the assumption that interactions
involving the group factor are negligible. There was
no a priori reason to expect treatment x group
interactions because subjects were presumed to have
been assigned randomly to groups.
EXPERIMENTAL
DESIGNSHOWINGNUMBER
OF
REPETITIONS
Brand name/advertising content
Brand I, Brand R,
Experi- explicit Brand J, Brand L, picture of
mental claim of picture of picture of abstract
group softness kitten sunset painting
A (n = 21) 4 8 6 2
B (n = 19) 2 6 8 4
C (n = 17) 6 2 4 8
D(n= 14) 8 4 2 6
Product
For several reasons, facial tissue was selected as
the product to be advertised. First, the salient product
attributes of the product category were well known
to the subjects and thus could be determined relatively
easily. Second, subjects' knowledge structures for
facial tissues seemed rather simple, involving a rea-
sonably small number of salient product attributes.
Unstructured interviews with several secretaries and
students indicated six salient attributes for the facial
tissue product class: softness, price, absorbency, tear-
ing ease, scent, and color. Finally, it appeared likely
that the softness attribute could be communicated in
a pictorial, nonverbal manner as well as through an
explicit verbal claim.
Brand Advertisements
For each of the four "brands" of facial tissue,
advertisements were designed to look like mockup,
partially completed print advertisements. To eliminate
the influence of prior brand learning on the measured
effects of repetition and advertising content, we used
unfamiliar brand names. The letters I, J, L, and R
were selected as the "brand names" on the basis
of pilot research indicating that individuals made
relatively few associations with these letters. Each
advertisement contained a headline and about the same
amount of simulated copy in the form of drawn lines
representing rows of words arranged in paragraph form
below the headline. The headlines were set in the
same type face and size (e.g., "Brand J Facial Tis-
sues"). The artwork, simulated copy, and reproduction
of the finished advertisements on 35-mm slides were
of professional quality.
Of the four advertisements, only one contained an
explicit product claim but no picture. Each of the
three nonverbal "image" advertisements contained
only a brand name headline and a half-page color
photograph but no product claim. The verbal claim
advertisement and one of the nonverbal advertise-
ments were intentionally designed to communicate that
the brand had the specific attribute of softness. That
nonverbal advertisement contained a picture of a fluffy
kitten, assumed to be a positively evaluated stimulus

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322 JOURNALOF MARKETINGRESEARCH,AUGUST 1981

and to connote "softness," photographed against a
dark background. Below the picture was the headline,
"Brand J Facial Tissues," and the simulated copy.
The verbal claim ad contained only the headline,
"Brand I Facial Tissues are Soft," below a half-page
blank space where a picture might have been. The
other two nonverbal advertisements contained pictures
considered to be essentially irrelevant to the product.
The advertisement for Brand L included a picture
of a spectacular sunset over an ocean, which was
assumed to be a positively evaluated stimulus. The
advertisement for Brand R contained a presumably
neutral picture of an abstract painting.
Experimental Procedures
After being seated at tables in a large room, subjects
in each group were told that they would see partially
completed advertisements for four different brands
of facial tissues. Then, to meet university regulations,
subjects signed an informed consent form. As a
rationale for the experiment, subjects were told that
the basic purpose of the study was to investigate
whether different advertisements affected their ability
to remember brand names. Subjects were told to
concentrate on remembering the brand names and the
advertisement for each brand. This was done to ensure
that subjects could associate each "brand name" with
the appropriate advertising content, because all post-
exposure measures of cognitive structure were brand
specific.
Then subjects were shown 20 advertisements (4
brand advertisements with either 2, 4, 6 or 8 repeti-
tions), timed so each remained on the screen for 10
seconds. The ordering of the advertisements was
randomly determined for each group, except for the
stipulation that the same ad not appear consecutively.
After the 20 exposures, subjects responded to the
dependent variable measures contained in a question-

Table 2
MAIN EFFECTSOF ADVERTISINGCONTENTON BELIEFSTRENGTH,ATTITUDES,AND INTENTIONS

Brand name/advertising content

marginal means
F-ratio' for Brand I, Brand R,
advertising explicit Brand J, Brand L, picture of
content claim of picture of picture of abstract
Dependent variables main effect softness kitten sunset painting
Belief levels (main e,)
Not at all soft (-2.82) 27.30' 2.49 2.32 2.59 [3.96]
Slightly soft (-0.74) 3.82 4.83 4.51 4.25 4.46
Fairly soft (1.11) 16.58' 5.42 5.31 4.99 [4.45]
Very soft (2.86) 25.83' (4.80) 5.45 4.89 [3.59]
Tears easierb (-1.88) 4.30d 3.99 4.08 3.68 3.46
Tears about as easilyb (0.07) 2.80 5.18 5.06 4.92 4.73
Does not tear as easily (1.58) 5.42d 3.34 3.30 3.68 (3.90)
More absorbentb (2.21) 3.98d 3.87 4.17 3.90 (3.48)
About as absorbentb (0.47) 4.99d 5.21 5.17 4.96 (4.70)
Less absorbentb (-1.56) 1.95 3.49 3.25 3.39 3.68

More economicalb (1.83) 9.35' 3.82 3.28 3.31 (4.18)

About as economicalb (0.56) 2.34 4.79 4.76 4.45 4.82
Less economicalb (-1.25) 4.86d 3.70 4.04 4.25 (3.51)
Comes in more attractive colorsb (0.90) 30.92c [3.04] 4.51 5.11 4.79
Comes in the same colorsb (0.35) 6.46c (5.04) 4.93 4.37 4.34

Attitudes and intentions

Attitude toward brand (A,) 27.43c [3.03] 3.65 3.68 [2.82]
Attitude toward act of purchasing (Aa,,) 14.54c 3.36 3.61 3.61 [2.95]
Behavioral intention to purchase (BI) 15.62c 4.08 4.66 4.81 [3.20]
"d.f. = 3 and 204.
bTo complete description read "than (or as) most other brands."
< .001.
p < .01.
Notes: Interpretation of the Newman-Keuls pairwise comparisons of advertising content means is: (a) means enclosed by [ ] are
significantly different (p < .01) from each of the other three means, (b) means enclosed by ( ) are significantly different
means
(p < .05) from underlined means, (c) underlined means are not significantly different (p > .05) from nonunderlined
or other underlined means.

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PRODUCT
ATTRIBUTE AND BRANDATTITUDE
BELIEFS
naire booklet, then they were debriefed, paid, and
dismissed.
Dependent Variables
The major dependent variables were the various
cognitive elements defined by Fishbein and Ajzen
(1975) that are commonly measured in consumer
research (e.g., Gardner, Mitchell, and Staelin 1977;
Lutz 1977; Mazis and Adkinson 1976; Olson and Dover
1978b). These included belief strength for the salient
brand attributes (b,), evaluations of each attribute
belief (e,), attitude toward each brand Ao), attitude
toward the act of purchasing and using each brand
Aact), and behavioral intention to purchase each brand
(BI).
Because of the importance of precisely measuring
subjects' attribute beliefs about facial tissues, Ahtola's
(1975) vector model modification of Fishbein's basic
attitude model was adapted as the belief measurement
procedure. In terms of attitude formation, Ahtola's
vector model is theoretically identical to Fishbein's.
However, the Ahtola approach seems to capture more
subtle aspects of consumers' belief structures (Ahtola
1975; Olson and Dover 1978b). To operationalize
Ahtola's model one must know not only the salient
attributes for a product, but also the levels, categories,
or amounts of each attribute dimension that consumers
use to discriminate objects in terms of that attribute.
In the Ahtola model beliefs are measured for each
discriminable attribute level, and the set of beliefs
about the various levels of an attribute constitutes
a belief vector. The discriminable belief levels for
each salient attribute (listed in Table 2) were derived
from subjects' comments in the pilot interviews and
the authors' intuition.
Following Ahtola, we measured belief strength for
each attribute level, although our measurement proce-
dure differed from the constant sum method suggested
by Ahtola (1975). For each of the four brands, re-
spondents rated each of the 15 attribute levels as to
how likely that level was to be associated with the
brand (1-7 scale, very unlikely-very likely). The
evaluation (ei) of each attribute level was measured
on a bipolar scale labeled good-bad (+3 to -3).
Because e, values for particular attribute levels are
generally assumed to be the same for all brands within
a product category, these measures were not brand
specific.
Attitude toward the brand (A ) was measured by
the mean of four five-point evaluative scales (good-
bad, dislike very much-like very much, pleasant-
unpleasant, poor quality-high quality). The mean of
three five-point evaluative scales (good-bad, foolish-
wise, beneficial-harmful) was used as a measure of
attitude toward the act of purchasing and using the
brand (A.,t). Multiple scales were used to enhance
the reliability of the important attitude measures.
Coefficient alpha scores for the Ao and Aat measures
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323
were 0.88 and 0.85, respectively, indicating acceptable
levels of internal consistency. Behavioral (purchase)
intention toward each brand (BI) was measured on
a single seven-point bipolar scale anchored by the
phrases "not at all likely to buy" and "very likely
to buy."
Consumer evaluations of each advertisement and
the two pictorial symbols were also measured. Near
the beginning of the post-exposure questionnaire and
before the cognitive structure measures, subjects rated
each advertisement on seven five-point bipolar scales.
A factor analysis of these measures yielded two factors
with eigenvalues greater than 1, which together ac-
counted for 68% of the variance. A varimax rotation
of these factors identified four variables (good-bad,
like-dislike, irritating-not irritating, interesting-unin-
teresting) that loaded highly on the first, clearly
evaluative, factor. The mean of the four evaluative
measures was interpreted as attitude toward the ad
(Aad, coefficient alpha = .87). Later in the question-
naire, after the belief and attitude measures, subjects
rated the concepts of kittens and sunsets on four
five-point scales (good-bad, like-dislike, pleasant-
unpleasant, and nice-awful; coefficient alpha = .85).
The mean of these evaluative measures was interpreted
as indicating attitude toward the pictorial symbols
(Apic) portrayed in the nonverbal advertisements.
RESULTS
Demand Characteristics
Immediately after completing the questionnaire,
subjects wrote a brief paragraph describing their
perceptions of the purpose of the experiment. These
comments indicated that virtually all of the subjects
accepted the explanation given to them. No subjects
mentioned that the experiment might pertain to the
effects of conditioning or of different types of adver-
tising content on the formation of beliefs, attitudes,
or intentions. Thus, although demand characteristic
influences cannot be completely ruled out by this rough
check, at least the basic purposes of the experiment
were not apparent.
Brand Name Learning
To ensure that the measures of beliefs, attitudes,
and intentions for each brand were interpretable, we
first had to determine that all subjects had accurately
learned the correct association between the advertising
content and the four brand names. Therefore, the
first question in the post-experimental questionnaire
asked subjects to match each brand name with the
correct written description of its advertisement. Four
subjects were unable to answer this question correctly
and were dropped from the analysis along with two
other subjects who failed to complete substantial parts
of the questionnaire. The resultant sample sizes were
21, 19, 17, and 14 for groups A, B, C, and D,
respectively.
324
Analyses
An ANOVA for a 4 x 4 Latin square design with
repeated measures on both the advertising content
and repetition factors was used to analyze each of
the cognitive variables. Following Winer (1971) and
Kirk (1968), we used an estimate of the mean square
due to subjects within groups to test the between-sub-
jects group factor. Advertising content, repetition, and
their interaction are within-subject factors which were
tested against the residual error after the sum of
squares due to subjects within groups was removed.
Because the cell sizes were unequal, the advertising
content and repetition factors are not orthogonal.
However, the group factor is orthogonal to these two.
As Perreault and Darden (1975) point out, nonorthog-
onality creates problems in testing the significance
of the nonorthogonal effects, because a portion of
the total sum of squares will be common to the
nonorthogonal factors. Perreault and Darden suggest
a procedure for hypothesis testing that sequentially
adds the common variance to each nonorthogonal
factor. However, this procedure may produce a signif-
icant effect for a particular factor when the common
variance is included and a nonsignificant effect when
it is not included. A more conservative procedure
is to test the significance of each nonorthogonal factor
using the sum of squares unique only to that factor
(Timm and Carlson 1975). A preliminary analysis of
the mean scores of each cell had indicated that only
the advertising content factor was significant (Mitchell
and Olson 1977). Therefore, only the unique sum of
squares due to advertising content was used to test
that effect, and the sum of squares common to both
nonorthogonal effects was included with the sum of
squares unique to repetition to test that effect. In
essence, this procedure "stacked the deck" against
finding an advertising content effect and for finding
a repetition effect.
Effects on Belief Strength
Using these procedures, we ran ANOVAs on the
belief strength scores for each of the salient beliefs
about facial tissue (i.e., the 15 attribute levels for
the five belief vectors, as shown in Table 2). Neither
the group nor repetition factors had significant main
effects on any of these beliefs (p < .05). However,
significant main effects due to advertising content were
obtained for 11 (73%) of the 15 belief strength scores
(p < .01). Only one (7%) of the 15 possible interaction
effects between repetition and advertising content was
significant (p < .05), an event possibly due to chance.
Thus, only the main effects of advertising content
on belief strength are of interest.
As can be seen in Table 2, the advertising content
effects were most pronounced for the beliefs about
softness. Significant effects of advertising content
were obtained for three of the four levels of the
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JOURNALOF MARKETINGRESEARCH,AUGUST 1981
softness attribute (not at all soft, fairly soft, and very
soft, all p < 0.001). Pairwise tests indicated that for
all three of these attribute levels the beliefs created
by the abstract painting advertisement for Brand R
were significantly different from the beliefs created
by the other three advertisements (Newman-Keuls
tests, p < .01). In addition, the advertisement pairing
the J brand name with the kitten picture created a
stronger belief that the tissues were very soft (the
most positively evaluated attribute level) than did the
explicit verbal claim advertisement (5.45 vs. 4.80;
Newman-Keuls test, p < .01), perhaps because the
verbal claim stated that Brand I tissues were soft,
not very soft.
The advertising content factor also had strong main
effects on both belief levels for the color attribute
(p < 0.001). For Brand I in the explicit verbal claim
advertisement, the strength of the positively evaluated
belief, comes in more attractive colors than other
brands, was significantly lower than that for the three
visually advertised brands (Newman-Keuls test, p <
.01). For the essentially neutral comes-in-the-same-
color attribute level, stronger beliefs were created for
the verbal-claim brand than for the brands paired with
the sunset and abstract paintings.
Finally, scattered, somewhat weaker effects of
advertising content were found for six of the remaining
nine brand attribute beliefs (p < .01). These advertis-
ing content effects were due primarily to differences
between the advertisement containing the abstract
painting and one or more of the other brand advertise-
ments. Thus, Brand R paired with the abstract painting
was perceived to be less absorbent, to not tear as
easily, and to be more economical than the other
brands. In summary, the advertising content
manipulation had substantial multiple effects on prod-
uct attribute beliefs.
Effects on Attribute Evaluations
Fishbein's attitude theory proposes that attitudes
are a function of belief strength and evaluation. Thus,
whether or not the advertising content manipulation
had any effects on the 15 attribute evaluation (ei)
scores is of interest. Our design, however, is not
capable of detecting specific effects of advertising
content (or repetition) on attribute evaluations. Be-
cause advertising content was a within-subject
manipulation and the ei's were stated in terms of the
generic product category (i.e., they were not brand
specific), the ei's were measured only once for each
subject, after multiple exposures to the varied contents
of the four advertisements. Therefore, the best that
can be done is to examine the ei scores as a function
of the four groups to determine whether different
confoundings of the advertising content and repetition
factors (or a nonrandom assignment of subjects to
experimental groups) influenced the e,'s (see Table
1). One-way ANOVAs for each of the 15 ei scores
 BELIEFSAND BRAND ATTITUDE
PRODUCTATTRIBUTE
indicated a significant effect of groups for only one
belief, fairly soft, which is close to the chance level.
On the basis of this evidence, and because the adver-
tising content of the four test advertisements does
not seem relevant to. attribute evaluations, we have
assumed that any observed mediation effect of beliefs
on attitudes is probably due to the impact of advertising
content on belief strengths, not belief evaluations.
Effects on Attitudes and Intentions
The ANOVA procedure used for the belief strength
measures was also used to examine the effects of
advertising content on the more global cognitive vari-
ables, Ao, Aa,, and BI. Again, neither the main effects
due to groups or repetition nor any of the interactions
were statistically significant (all p > .05). However,
as is consistent with the belief strength results, signifi-
cant main effects due to advertising content were
obtained for the Ao, Aact, and BI variables (p < .01).
The marginal means and main effect F-ratios for these
effects are reported in Table 2. Specifically, the two
brands associated with the positively evaluated visual
stimuli (Brands J kitten and L sunset) had significantly
more positive brand attitudes (3.65 and 3.68) than did
the brand associated with the neutral abstract painting
(2.82) or the brand in the explicit verbal claim adver-
tisement (3.03; Newman-Keuls test, p < .01). The Aact
and BI scores followed the same pattern, except that
the two brands associated with the kitten and sunset
pictures were not significantly different from the
verbal-claim brand. However, all three of the latter
brands were significantly more positive than the brand
associated with the presumably neutral abstract paint-
ing (Newman-Keuls tests, p < .01).
The preceding results show that the manipulation
of advertising content had significant effects on the
strength of beliefs about several product attributes,
attitudes toward both the brand and the act of buying
the brand, and purchase intentions. Now let us con-
sider the mediation processes by which the attitude
and intention effects may have occurred.
Table 3
ALTERNATIVE
MODELSFOR PREDICTINGBRAND ATTITUDES
(beta coefficients and t-statistics)
Criterion
variable Model bie,
Ao 1 0.40 (7.33)b
2 0.31 (6.10)"
3 0.22 (5.37)"
4 0.20 (4.71)b
A^t 1 0.39 (7.12)b
2 0.31 (5.65)b
3 0.28 (5.45)"
4 0.24 (4.47)"
aEvaluationbased on softness belief vector.
bp < 0.005.
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325
Alternative Mediators of Attitude Formation
Fishbein proposed that attitudes toward either the
act or the object are a function only of the strength
of the respective salient beliefs and the evaluations
of those beliefs. Alternatively, classical conditioning
principles suggest that if a brand is repeatedly paired
with a positively evaluated stimulus a "direct transfer"
of that evaluation to the brand might occur (Olson
and Mitchell 1975). In terms our study, an individual's
attitude toward an advertised brand might be affected
by that person's evaluation of the advertisement as
a whole (Aad), or of a visual stimulus in the ad (Ap,).
Presumably, such attitudinal impact would be
independent of the semantic meanings that might be
acquired from an advertisement, as represented here
by the product attribute beliefs. The relative validity
of these two alternative explanations for the mediation
of attitude formation was examined by using regression
analysis and analysis of covariance.
Regression analysis. First, AOand A act were treated
as separate criterion variables in four multiple regres-
sion models. The independent variables included the
evaluation index for the softness belief vector (. b,e,),3
Aad, and Api, as well as dummy variables for three
of the four brands when A ,, was included in the
regression. The results of these alternative prediction
models, summarized in Table 3, indicate that either
Aad or Aic, but not both, contributes significantly
3Thepredictedattitudetowardthe brandwas computedby using
the Ahtola/Fishbein formulafor all the attributevectors (X:b,ei)
and for only the softness vector (bi ei). Correlationswere then
computedbetween the respondents'ratedbrandattitude(Ao) and
these two variables.The softness vector score alone predictedA,
better(r = .42)thandid the evaluationscorebasedon allthe attribute
vectors (r = .28). One possible reason for these results is that
becausesoftness was the only attributeemphasizedin the advertise-
ments, it representedthe most stable and salient component of
cognitive structure for these brands. Olson and Dover (1978a)
suggestedthat the predictivevalidityof a Fishbein-typemodel may
depend on the stabilityof the salient beliefs in cognitive structure.
Predictor variables
A A pic R2
-.16
0.31 (3.37)b .35
0.65 (15.74) - .56
0.61 (11.73)" 0.11 (1.35) .57
- .16
0.14 (1.40) .23
0.41 (7.99) .31
0.42 (6.54)b -0.001 (0.01) .34
326
EFFECTOF COVARIATESON THE F-RATIOFOR THE MAIN EFFECTOF ADVERTISINGCONTENT
Dependent No
variable covariate Ib, eia
A. 27.43b 16.03b
Aact 14.54b 3.18'
BI 15.62-
aEvaluation based on softness belief vector.
bp < 0.001.
cp < 0.05.
to the prediction of Ao beyond that provided by the
evaluation (5 b,ei) associated with the softness beliefs
(R = .74 or .59 vs. r = .40, respectively). Because the
correlation between Aad and A pi was
multicollinearity probably did not account for this
result. Much the same pattern of results was obtained
for the prediction of A at, except that only
A ic) contributed significantly to the prediction of Aact
in addition to lbiei. Empirically, Aad is a stronger
predictor of brand attitudes than Apic. Conceptually,
Aad seems to be the more general construct because
it may incorporate the evaluation associated with the
picture symbol.
Covariance analysis. Next, using analysis of co-
variance, we examined the mediating roles of product
attribute beliefs and Aad in explaining the obtained
differences in Ao and Aact (e.g., Osterhouse and Brock
1970). If product attribute beliefs are the only mediator
of brand attitudes, including the presumed mediator
(represented by the evaluative belief index, lbie,) as
a covariate should reduce the main effect of advertising
content on Ao to a nonsignificant level. However,
if a significant Ao effect remains after statistical
removal of the presumed mediating effect of brand
attribute beliefs, these beliefs may not be the only
mediator of attitude formation. The ANCOV results
are summarized in Table 4 in terms of the changing
F-ratios for the main effects of advertising content
given different mediators/covariates. The results
indicate that including the evaluation associated with
the softness belief vector (bi,ei) as a covariate did
not completely remove the effects of advertising
content on either Ao or A at. However, using both
.biei and Aad as covariates eliminated any reliable
effects on attitude due to advertising content. When
these analyses were repeated using the combined
evaluations associated with all the attribute belief
vectors (5zbiei) as a covariate, the results were
identical.
In summary, the results of both the regression and
ANCOV analyses suggest that brand attitudes are not
solely a function of the attribute beliefs that are formed
about the brand, but may also be influenced by
consumers' general liking for the ad itself or the visual
stimulus presented in the advertisement.
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JOURNALOF MARKETINGRESEARCH,AUGUST 1981
Table 4
Covariate(s)
?bie,a & Aad Aac, Aact & .bie,I Aac, & Aad
0.13 -
0.86
3.61b 2.52 2.47
Mediators of Behavioral Intentions
For completeness, the BI scores were analyzed
similarly (see Table 4). As specified by the Fishbein
only 0.34, extended model (cf. Lutz 1977), Aact is the critical
mediator of BI. Including Aact as a covariate reduced
the magnitude of the advertising content main effect
Aad (not on BI considerably, but not quite to nonsignificant
levels. When either Xbie, or Aad was included as a
second covariate, the advertising content effect on
BI became marginally significant (F = 2.52 and 2.47,
both p = .06). These results suggest that Aad had its
major mediating effect on attitudes, either Ao or Aac,,
and had only a weak mediating influence on BI. Thus,
as predicted by the Fishbein theory, Aactwas the major
mediator of BI.
DISCUSSION
We tested the basic theoretical proposition of Fish-
bein's attitude theory in a marketing research context.
Specifically, we examined whether product attribute
beliefs were the only mediator of advertising effects
on brand attitudes. The beliefs-cause-attitudes propo-
sition was contrasted with two alternative models of
attitude formation, sheer repetition and classical
conditioning, neither of which treats beliefs as a causal
mediator. Thus the study was designed to provide
conditions in which either beliefs or the alternative
causal processes could have mediated the effects of
advertising on attitude formation.
The experiment involved two manipulations: (1) the
number of times a subject saw a particular advertise-
ment (repetition) and (2) the type of visual or verbal
information contained in the advertisement (advertis-
ing content). Repetition had no reliable effects on
attitude formation or any other cognitive variable.
Therefore, we could not test the proposition that
multiple exposures to a stimulus can directly affect
attitude without influencing beliefs.4 In contrast, the
4However, the lack of repetition effects on both beliefs and
attitudes is consistent with, although only weak evidence for, the
beliefs-cause-attitude proposition. The Fishbein proposition would
have been disconfirmed only if repetition had affected either beliefs
or attitudes, but not the other.
PRODUCTATTRIBUTE
BELIEFSAND BRANDATTITUDE
advertising content factor produced significant effects
on three cognitive variables-product attribute beliefs,
attitudes, and purchase intentions.
Given these main effects of advertising content,
the critical question was whether product attribute
beliefs were the only mediator of the variation in
brand attitude produced by the advertisements, or
whether another process such as classical conditioning
was operating. The obtained mediation relationships
are summarized in Figure 1. They indicate that beliefs
about product attributes were a major mediator of
the advertising content effect on attitudes, but not
behavioral intentions, as predicted by the causal flow
of the Fishbein extended model. These results are
consistent with those obtained by Lutz (1977).
However, the mediation analyses also suggest that
product attribute beliefs were not the sole mediator
of attitudes. The Aadmeasure also seemed to mediate
attitude formation. In fact, together, the Aad scores
and the evaluative belief indices (X bie,) totally mediat-
ed the effects of advertising content on brand attitudes.
These results are similar to the mediation effects of
product attribute beliefs and advertising evaluations
reported by Holbrook (1978).
Do the results obtained confirm or disconfirm Fish-
bein's basic proposition that beliefs cause attitude?
They seem to do both. Although product attribute
beliefs did mediate message effects on attitude as
specified by Fishbein's attitude theory, such beliefs
do not appear to be the only mediator. Another
potential mediator, represented by the Ad measure,
may be operating. To understand better the meaning
of these results, we must examine the Aad concept
more closely.
Attitude Toward the Advertisement
A straightforward interpretation of the Aadmeasure
is that it accurately reflects subjects' evaluations of
the overall advertising stimulus. Accordingly, Aad
should be treated as a construct that is conceptually
distinct from brand attribute beliefs and brand attitude.
Thus the mediation effect of Aad can be interpreted
as capturing the classical conditioning effect of pairing
an unknown brand name (unconditioned stimulus) with
Figure 1
OBSERVEDMEDIATORSOF ADVERTISINGCONTENTON
COGNITIVEVARIABLES
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327
a highly valenced visual stimulus (conditioned stimu-
lus). In this interpretation, the conditioning process
due to contiguous presentation caused the evaluation
associated with the advertisement in general (Aad),
or with a prominent part of the advertisement such
as a picture (Api), to become associated with the
brand name (see Staats and Staats 1967). Presumably,
this "direct" influence on attitude is independent of
the message's effect on the formation of or change
in product attribute beliefs. If this classical condition-
ing interpretation is accepted, our results are partially
inconsistent with the information processing perspec-
tive of Fishbein.
Alternatively, one might argue that A ad is a surrogate
indicator of unmeasured salient beliefs about product
attributes not included in the experimental question-
naire. Hence, processing the advertised information,
impoverished as it was, may have created beliefs about
unmeasured product attributes that somehow are re-
flected by the Aad measure. The idea is that if we
had measured all the salient attribute beliefs for each
subject, the Aadmediation effect would not have been
obtained. However, as it is not obvious how the
four-item Aad score could represent beliefs about
unmeasured product attributes, this explanation seems
somewhat strained. In any case, this explanation
cannot be addressed by our data. Because we used
a structured questionnaire to measure b, and e,, all
subjects rated a fixed set of presumably salient attri-
butes. To examine this issue we must identify and
measure the set of beliefs that are salient for each
subject. Lutz and Swazy (1977) proposed such a
procedure, and Olson and Muderrisoglu (1979) de-
scribed free-elicitation procedures by which it could
be accomplished. To date, however, no marketing-
oriented study has investigated how subjects' idio-
syncratic attribute beliefs are influenced by advertising
messages.
Along similar lines, the advertising content
manipulation could have created beliefs about con-
cepts other than product attributes (Calder 1978). For
example, a consumer could have a belief that X Facial
Tissue is manufactured by a particular company, or
a person may associate a visual image with Brand
Z. Because in a general sense beliefs are the subjective
associations between cognitive representations, con-
sumers presumably can have beliefs about any concept
that they have represented cognitively. However,
beliefs about the nonattribute concepts that may be
associated with a brand are not measured by the typical
marketing-oriented multiattribute questionnaire. The
point is that we know relatively little about the types
of cognitive representations consumers may associate
with a brand. Possibly at least some of these salient
beliefs do not concern traditional product attributes.
If semantic memory is conceptualized as a network
of associations between cognitive representations (cf.
Anderson 1976), a set of product beliefs is a semantic
328
memory structure. A semantic memory concept pro-
vides the basis for another explanation of the Aad
mediation effect. Assume that a visual image of each
advertisement is associated with the brand name
representation in a consumer's memory. Although
marketing researchers usually would not treat the
"connection" between a brand name and the remem-
bered advertisement as a belief, such an association
is conceptually equivalent to a belief. Thus, if the
consumer is asked to evaluate the brand, the related
visual image might be activated from memory along
with other beliefs about the brand, perhaps including
product attribute beliefs. If so, the evaluation of the
visual image, indicated by Aad in our study, should
influence the overall brand attitude, Ao. By this
interpretation the Aad concept is absorbed into the
semantic memory structure of beliefs that are asso-
ciated with the attitude concept. Thus, Aad is not a
separate construct, bttt rather is a surrogate measure
of biei; that is, Aad is the evaluation of the advertise-
ment "attribute" of the brand. If this explanation
is accepted, our results are totally consistent with
Fishbein's proposition that beliefs cause attitude,
because Aadis considered to be another belief mediator
of Ao.
In sum, the interpretation of our results hinges on
the conceptual meaning of the Aad construct. At
minimum, Fishbein's theoretical proposition is partial-
ly supported. However, other processes may be
operating that are not captured by the belief structure
model, at least as typically operationalized by market-
ing researchers in terms of product attribute beliefs.
Although empirical data will probably be valuable in
reaching an accepted interpretation, the decision about
how to treat Aad ultimately may hinge on more prag-
matic considerations. In advertising effects research,
for example, it may be useful to consider Aad as a
separate construct that can provide separate diagnostic
information about an advertisement's attitudinal
impact on consumers. In contrast, if the researcher
is interested in memory structure, it may be more
useful to consider A adas the evaluation of an image-like
cognitive representation that has become associated
with the brand name representation. Fishbein's atti-
tude theory can incorporate the latter approach, but
not the former (see Zajonc 1980).
Future research. Our research design is not capable
of distinguishing between these alternative explana-
tions for the Aad effect. In fact, designing an empirical
test of these causal explanations will be difficult.
Researchers might begin by reviewing past research
on how consumers' reactions to the advertisement
per se are related to other responses (e.g., March
and Swinbourne 1974; Schlinger 1979; Silk and Vavra
1974; Wells, Leavitt, and McConville 1971). As our
results and those of Holbrook (1978) indicate, such
evaluations of the advertisement seem to have an
independent impact on brand-related responses. More
research is needed, however, to explicate consumers'
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JOURNALOF MARKETINGRESEARCH,AUGUST 1981
reactions to advertisements and to differentiate those
effects from advertising impacts on brand attribute
beliefs, attitudes, and intentions.
How can these ideas be explored in future research?
If Aad is a direct mediator of attitude formation, the
Aadscore might be expected to have a greater mediation
effect on brand attitudes for advertisements that
arouse more intense evaluative or affective reactions,
whether positive or negative. Such responses might
be due to vivid visual content or strong symbols used
in the advertisement. Also, the verbal (written or
spoken) content of the advertisement might evoke
intense affective feelings, perhaps by stimulating visu-
al imagery (cf. Kosslyn 1975; Pavio 1977). Thus, we
might "test" the Aadmediation hypothesis by examin-
ing the magnitude of its effect for advertisements that
differ greatly in evaluative appeal but contain about
the same verbal content.
Another way in which the evaluation associated with
an advertisement may become conditioned to a brand
occurs when an individual pays general attention to
an advertisement, but does not actively process the
brand-relevant information in the advertisement
(Krugman 1965; Mitchell, Russo, and Gardner 1980)-
for instance, when a consumer attends to an advertise-
ment only for its entertainment value. Under such
conditions, a consumer may achieve only limited
comprehension of the brand-related information in the
message. However, when considering the advertised
brand at some later time (say, during the purchase
decision process), the individual might recall charac-
teristics of the advertisement from memory. Then the
Aad that is also retrieved might influence the formation
of a brand attitude (Mitchell, in press).
Future research could examine the relative media-
tion effects of beliefs (Eb,ie) and advertising evalua-
tions (e.g., Aad) for advertisements of widely differing
semantic and affective content, in conditions involving
different purchase deliberation goals, and for varied
time intervals after exposure. Such research would
help to clarify the construct of Aad by determining
the specific conditions under which Aad seems to
mediate attitude formation and change.
Visual Versus Verbal Information in Advertising
Relatively few studies of advertising effects have
examined the influence of visual versus verbal in-
formation content. Exceptions include Wright's (1979)
study of the efficacy of different visual content for
inducing certain desired behaviors, Rossiter and
Percy's (1978, in press) examinations of the attitudinal
impact of visual information, and Holbrook's (1978)
research on the effects of more and less affective
verbal advertising copy on brand attitudes. In our
study we examined four ads, only one of which
contained verbal information about a product charac-
teristic. The other three advertisements contained only
visual information (except for the brand and product
names). Despite the relative lack of specific informa-
 BELIEFSAND BRAND ATTITUDE
PRODUCTATTRIBUTE
tion, the belief strength measures indicate that subjects
formed rather different perceptions of the four brands
(see Table 2).
These results are of interest for several reasons.
At a descriptive level they suggest that subjects,
apparently by some inferential process, develop beliefs
about brand attributes based on minimal brand-specific
information. In addition, they show that the measures
used in our study are sensitive enough to detect these
effects. The results also suggest that subjects convert-
ed visual information that was not directly related
to the product into meaningful semantic information.
This process is indicated by the obtained differences
between brands in the strength of beliefs about brand
attributes, particularly the softness beliefs. For in-
stance, the picture of a fluffy kitten produced the
strongest beliefs that the facial tissue was very soft.
A possible explanation for the softness belief
strength effects is that seeing the advertisement con-
taining the verbal claim about softness primed subjects
to think about softness during exposure to the other
three visual advertisements. This alternative hypothe-
sis was examined by taking written cognitive responses
(thought protocols) from two additional groups of
student subjects (n = 18 and 16) immediately after
exposure to each of the four advertisements. We found
that when the verbal claim preceded the kitten adver-
tisement, about as many subjects mentioned softness
in their protocols for the kitten advertisement (72.2%)
as when the kitten advertisement preceded the verbal
claim (75.0%). Very few mentions of softness were
made in response to the advertisements portraying
the sunset and the abstract painting. Thus, these data
provide additional support for the idea that the kitten
picture independently connoted the semantic concept
of softness.
For the other product attribute beliefs, the connec-
tions between the pictorial stimuli and the inferentially
derived beliefs about facial tissue are somewhat less
obvious. For instance, subjects seem to have inter-
preted the picture of the sunset as meaning that the
advertised brand comes in more attractive colors (than
other brands). Subjects also seemed to make in-
ferences about other characteristics of the four brands
(e.g., absorbency) even though no relevant information
was provided. Such inferences were especially evident
for the brand paired with the abstract painting, which
was perceived as more negative on nearly every
attribute. Inferences are clearly important in attitude
formation (cf. Fishbein and Ajzen 1975), and more
research on consumer inference processes is needed
(Lutz 1976; Olson 1978). To stimulate that research,
we offer the following comments on inferential belief
formation.
Inferential Belief Formation
Inferences may be formed in at least three ways.
First, as suggested by Wyer (1974), individuals may
believe a product having a particular level of one
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329
attribute is likely to have a certain level of another
attribute. For instance, if consumers believe a brand
of facial tissue is very soft, they may also consider
it likely the brand will tear easily or be more absorbent.
Such inferences could be based on previously learned
associations about the generic product category which
enable a person to form numerous beliefs based on
only one piece of information (cf. Olson 1978). Second,
memory structures for generic product categories may
provide default values which enable a person to make
inferences about specific attributes when information
is missing (e.g., Cantor and Mischel 1977; Rosch 1978).
For instance, individuals may have generic knowledge
structures for different categories of facial tissue
which provide typical values for the absorbency and
tearing ease of brands in that category. Basically, both
of these explanations derive from semantic memory
theory. That is, people have structures of knowledge
or memory schemata which may be activated and used
as a basis for interpreting new information and for
making inferences (cf. Olson 1978, 1980).
A third explanation for the observed "inferences"
was suggested by Mitchell (1979). The overall brand
attitude may influence specific ratings of belief
strength through a "halo effect" process. The process
seems especially likely to occur when subjects are
forced to rate beliefs about nonsalient attributes. This
explanation cannot be ruled out for some of our belief
strength results. Our procedures for establishing the
saliency of the attribute dimensions were admittedly
intuitive, and all subjects had to rate every attribute.
Thus, some subjects probably rated some nonsalient
beliefs. The ideal situation would be for each subject
to rate only those beliefs that are salient for him or
her. Although difficult, a procedure of eliciting the
salient beliefs of each individual is not impossible
(cf. Lutz and Swazy 1977; Olson and Muderrisoglu
1979). In fact, such an approach is probably necessary
in future research if we are to develop clearer answers
to these theoretical questions about the basis for
inferential belief formation.
Finally, like most studies of attitude formation, our
design cannot rigorously establish when the measured
attribute beliefs were formed. Possibly some of the
brand beliefs were formed during completion of the
questionnaire, rather than during or immediately after
exposure to the advertisements. Cognitive response
protocols taken during exposure could be used in future
research to provide evidence of the extent of belief
and attitude formation at exposure.
Limitations
Certain characteristics of our research were included
to enhance internal validity, but obviously limit exter-
nal validity-that is, the generalizability of the results
to natural advertising settings. Certainly the test ad-
vertisements contained much less information than
actual print advertisements. Unraveling the relative
effects of verbal and visual content in real, complex
330
advertisements will be difficult because most contain
substantial amounts of both verbal and visual content
designed to be complimentary. Another limitation of
our research is the artifical exposure environment.
For instance, the advertisements were not embedded
in editorial material, exposure was forced and timed,
and the repetitions occurred within a short time period.
The last feature, in fact, may account for the nonsig-
nificant effect of repetition. Multiple exposures to
an advertisement over more natural intervals (e.g.,
weeks) might produce measurable changes in beliefs,
attitudes, and intentions. Also, effects measured
in our study were taken almost immediately after
exposure. Whether similar mediation effects would
be obtained after post-exposure delays of days or
weeks is not known. Finally, by using fictitious "brand
names," we avoided the effects of previously acquired
brand knowledge. In natural settings, however, peo-
ples' stored knowledge will interact with the advertised
information. In sum, moving to more natural research
settings and advertising stimuli will complicate the
research design problems and will require rigorous
controls and measurements.
SUMMARY
Our results indicate that product attribute beliefs
had a major mediating effect on brand attitudes,
whereas attitudes substantially mediated behavioral
intentions. These findings are consistent with Fish-
bein's attitude theory. However, contrary to Fish-
bein's major assumption as it is operationally inter-
preted in most marketing research, the product attri-
bute belief index, lbiei, was not the sole mediator
of attitude formation. Rather, a measure of attitude
toward the advertisement, Aad, partially mediated
advertising effects on brand attitudes. Because these
results can be accounted for within the beliefs-cause-
attitudes theoretical framework, however, our data
cannot be interpreted as strongly disconfirming the
basic proposition of Fishbein's attitude model. Addi-
tional research is needed to develop a better under-
standing of the Aad construct, its measures, and its
causal dynamics, as well as to identify the specific
conditions under which it may have separate mediation
effects on attitudes and intentions relative to belief
measures.
Our results also indicate that individuals can develop
different perceptions of brands based only on visual
information that provides no explicit brand informa-
tion. That is, consumers seem able to convert visual
information into semantic knowledge or beliefs about
attributes of the advertised brand. The process seems
to occur even for visual stimuli that are seemingly
irrelevant to the product. These phenomena may be
considered in terms of people's memory structures
for the generic product categories and the inference
processes that are guided by these cognitive structures.
As these theoretical issues also have implications for
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JOURNALOF MARKETINGRESEARCH,AUGUST 1981
advertising and marketing practice, they warrant
further research attention.
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AG-CHEM MARKETING CONFERENCE

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