Comparative Advertising in India: A Content Analysis of English Print Advertisements

TLDR: The authors conducted a content analysis on 203 comparative print advertisements in India and found that direct comparative advertisements were used more (vis-a-vis indirect ones), differentiative claims are used more, maximal claims were higher than minimal claims, multibrand comparisons were greater in number, positive valence is preferred to negative valence, and underdog brands used more comparative advertisements than top-dog brands Contrary to expectations, hedonic and utilitarian products used comparative advertisements equally.

Abstract: We conducted a content analysis on 203 comparative print advertisements in India We found that as hypothesized, direct comparative advertisements were used more (vis-a-vis indirect ones), differentiative claims were used more (vis-a-vis associative ones), maximal claims were higher than minimal claims, multibrand comparisons were greater in number (vis-a-vis single-brand comparisons), positive valence is preferred to negative valence, and underdog brands used more comparative advertisements than top-dog brands Contrary to expectations, we found that hedonic and utilitarian products used comparative advertisements equally We offer a snapshot of the state of comparative advertisements in India that would be useful to managers and researchers