Is a No Ad the New Ad? A Comparative Study of Consumers' Perceptions of Non-Advertising and Advertising Brands

Sammanfattning: Consumers are today continuously exposed to advertising, which value is increasing to brands. The advertising amount has long been recognized as a major driving force to signaling effects, and thus revenues. However, several brands distinguish themselves by setting their advertising amount to zero. These non-advertising brands have challenged traditional advertising theory by their prevalence and success. This paper's purpose is to investigate if non-advertising brands gain stronger signaling effects among consumers, compared to advertising brands. Further it was hypothesized that creativity and the third-person effect have causal relations to differences in signaling effects. An experiment formed the basis for a comparison of consumer perceptions of non- advertising and advertising brands. The authors find evidence supporting that non-advertising brands take advantage of stronger signaling effects. Creativity was confirmed as an explanatory factor to these signaling effects, while the impact of the third-person effect was weak.