Meta-Analyses of Attitudes Toward Advertising by Professionals

Meta-Analyses of Attitudes toward Advertising by ProfessionalsAuthor(s): Robert E. Hite and Cynthia FraserSource: Journal of Marketing, Vol. 52, No. 3 (Jul., 1988), pp. 95-103Published by: American Marketing AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1251453 .

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Robert E. Hite & Cynthia Fraser

Meta-Analyses of Attitudes Toward Advertising by

Professionals Two meta-analyses of attitudes toward advertising by professionals are presented, which allow formu- lation of generalizations from 10 years' research spanning the time since the relaxation of professional advertising restrictions first was discussed and subsequently implemented. Results suggest that differences in attitudes across professions may be attributable to the importance, heterogeneity, and assess- ability of quality levels; that exposure to professional advertising produces attitude changes in favor of increased advertising by professionals; and that consumers are more favorably disposed toward such advertising than are professionals.

FOR decades, advertising by professionals was re- stricted by professional associations in medicine,

dentistry, accounting, law, and other professions. In the late 1970s, key rulings by the Supreme Court forced relaxation of historic advertising bans by professional associations. In Goldfarb v. Virginia State Bar (1975), the Court held that the learned professions were subject to the Sherman Act antitrust guidelines, suggesting that the restriction of price advertising might be anticompetitive and, hence, illegal. Federal Trade Commission actions reinforced the Court's direction in 1975, when advertising restrictions by the Ameri- can Medical Association were deemed anticompetitive. In Bates v. State Bar of Arizona (1977), the Court held that attorneys have First Amendment freedom of speech rights to advertise fees for routine services in newspapers; the Court also argued that consumers have the right to receive such information. Broad generalizations of this ruling implied that advertising in- cluding other sorts of information (e.g., specialties, qualifications) or by other professions (e.g., medical,

Robert E. Hite and Cynthia Fraser are Associate Professors, Department of Marketing, College of Business, Kansas State University. The authors thank three anonymous JM reviewers for valuable comments and sug- gestions on a previous version of the manuscript.

dental, accounting) or in other media ought to be protected by First Amendment guarantees. After these important legal events, professional associations be- gan officially to authorize advertising. Relaxation of advertising restrictions occurred for the legal and medical professions in 1976, for dentists in 1977, and for accountants in 1978.

With the newly available option to advertise, professionals faced new decisions about whether or not they should advertise, which information ought to be included in advertising, and which media should be used. Clearly consumers were going to notice advertising by professionals, given the absence of such advertising for decades. Unclear were the likely responses of current and prospective clients: Would consumers consider advertising by professionals unethical and consequently avoid such advertisers? Or would consumers appreciate the availability of advertised information, select professionals with advertised differential advantages (special talents, reasonable prices, etc.), and be more satisfied given opportuni- ties to make more informed and presumably better choices? How many consumers are price elastic and potentially responsive to advertisements emphasizing fees?

Given the unique character of professional service markets, their growing importance in the national

Journal of Marketing Vol. 52 (July 1988), 95-105. Attitudes Toward Advertising by Professionals / 95



economy, and the radical relaxation of advertising restrictions, the attitudes and actions of both professionals and consumers toward professional advertising attracted the attention and curiosity of numerous researchers. The purpose of this study is to generalize and extend research findings on attitudes toward advertising by professionals that have accumulated in the past 10 years. From the large number of independent but related studies, quantitative generalizations about attitudes toward advertising by professionals are drawn. Additionally, comparisons are made between consumers' and professionals' attitudes and across professions by means of meta-analyses (Farley and Lehmann 1986; Glass, McGaw, and Smith 1981; Hedges and Olkin 1985; Hunter, Schmidt, and Jack- son 1982).

Two sets of analyses used here are patterned after meta-analyses reported recently in the marketing lit- erature (Assmus, Farley, and Lehmann 1984; Church- ill and Peter 1984; Churchill et al. 1985; Farley, How- ard, and Lehmann 1976; Farley, Lehmann, and Oliva 1985; Farley, Lehmann, and Ryan 1981, 1982; Mon- roe and Krishnan 1983; Peterson, Albaum, and Bel- tramini 1985; Ryan and Barclay 1983), but with two notable departures from earlier work. The first series of analyses is based on raw data from multiple studies, unlike prior studies in marketing that have been based, of necessity, on summary statistics. In addition, in both sets of analyses, principal components analyses are used to pool observations on multiple indicators of underlying attitudinal dimensions. Con- sequently, though meta-analytical methodology is not the primary focus of this article, the methodology used may suggest some alternative and useful ways to ana- lyze marketing data in future studies.

Advertising of Professional Services

Markets for professional services present particularly interesting challenges to marketers. As is true of other services, quality levels vary both across and within individual providers because quality levels typically depend to some degree on customer characteristics. Also, as with other services and many consumer goods, the quality levels of professional services are difficult to demonstrate; testimonials and other sorts of hearsay must be used to assert that particular quality levels are available.

It is the general haziness of quality levels of services that creates challenges to advertisers. Profes- sional services pose greater than average challenges, because quality levels are both difficult to assess, even after multiple purchases, and relatively important. One can easily assess the quality of a haircut, a typing as-

signment, or the drycleaning of a suit and low quality performance in those cases is fairly inconsequential. It is much more difficult to assess the quality of a surgical procedure, legal representation, or accounting assistance, though quality performance is relatively important. Professional services are complex, their effects are often delayed, and the times between repeated uses are generally long. In many cases (e.g., surgery, personal liability representation), usage is so infrequent that a consumer might not collect enough observations in a lifetime to form an adequate assess- ment of the quality of a professional service. Finally, professional service markets tend to be characterized by the absence of price signals. In many markets, prices convey quality levels; however, in most professional service markets, prices are not known before purchase (Kwoka 1984). Consumers can neither search to de- termine available price/quality combinations nor ac- cumulate experience to assess quality levels (Nelson 1970, 1974, 1978).

Meta-Analyses of Attitudes Toward Advertising by

Professionals To assess level and stability of attitudes toward professional advertising by consumers and professionals in diverse service sectors, several independent but related empirical studies are examined. Two sets of analyses are used to pool the extant data and generalize.

Raw data containing measures of 24 comparable items are available from three studies that surveyed consumers' attitudes toward advertising by attorneys, accountants, physicians, and dentists, as well as professionals' attitudes in the dental and medical professions, permitting a pooled multivariate analysis of variance. Farley and Lehmann (1986) suggest that pooled analysis across studies based on raw data is the ideal situation for meta-analysis and one that has not been encountered previously in marketing. Sum- mary data containing comparable measures are available from an additional set of 13 studies, allowing multivariate analysis of variance of mean attitudinal responses across professions.

Meta-Analysis of Raw Data

Raw data from three studies (Hite and Bellizzi 1986; Hite, Bellizzi, and Andrus 1988a,b) contain the 24 attitudinal items listed in Table 1, all measured on a 5-point Likert-type scale of agreement/disagreement. Covariate measures of price elasticity and exposure to professional advertising are also available. The for- mer consist of degree of agreement that "it is good [for consumers] to deal with a professional firm that

96 / Journal of Marketing, July 1988



TABLE 1 Indicators of Attitudes Toward Advertising by Ptofessionals and Covariates

Potential Negative Impacts of Professional Advertising 1. CRED If a advertises, his credibility is lowered. 2. IMAG In general, my image of professionals would be lower as a result of advertising. 3. QUAK Advertising by professionals would benefit only quacks and incompetents. 4. SUSP I would be suspicious of professionals who advertise. 5. PBIM The advertising of services would lower the public's image of 6. PBCF Public confidence in professionals would be lowered by professional advertising. 7. DECV Professional advertising would be more deceptive than other forms of advertising. 8. DIGN Advertising by would tend to lower the dignity of their profession. 9. CONF Professional advertising would be more confusing than enlightening.

10. PRMG It is appropriate for to advertise in professional magazines. 11. NEWS It is appropriate for to advertise in newspapers.

Appropriateness of Professional Advertising 12. INFO The public would be provided useful information through advertising professional services. 13. PROP It is proper for to advertise. 14. TAST Advertising can be used tastefully by professionals.

Potential Consumer Benefits From Professional Advertising 15. PRIC When professionals advertise, prices are lowered due to more competition. 16. AWAR Advertising makes the public more aware of the qualifications of professionals. 17. QUAL Advertising will increase the quality of professional services. 18. INTL Advertising would help consumers make more intelligent choices betwen

Appropriateness of Popular Media Vehicles 19. BILB It is appropriate for to advertise on billboards. 20. TV It is appropriate for to advertise on television. 21. RADO It is appropriate for to advertise on radio. 22. POPM It is appropriate for to advertise in popular magazines. 23. PHON It is appropriate for to advertise by telephone. 24. MAIL It is appropriate for to advertise by mail.

Covariates PRCE It's good to deal with a professional firm EXPO Have seen professional advertising.

offers the lowest price," measured along a 5-point Likert-type scale. Exposure is a zero-one indicator variable operationalized by asking respondents to in- dicate whether or not they recall exposure to professional advertising. Study differences thought likely to affect attitudes include (1) type of profession (legal, accounting, medical, or dental) and (2) type of re-

spondents (consumers or professionals). These two dimensions constitute the two meta-analytic factors examined.

Because the 24 items seem likely to represent a smaller number of attitudinal dimensions, principal components analysis was used to identify those dimensions. Three primary dimensions emerged, re-

flecting (1) agreement that advertising by professionals would damage professionals' images, (2) agreement that potential benefits to consumers would accrue from

advertising by professionals, and (3) agreement that

popular media vehicles are appropriate for advertising by professionals. Varimax-rotated principal component loadings are reported in Table 2.

To assess the impact of type of respondent (consumer or professional) and type of profession (medical, dental, legal, or accounting) on attitudes toward

that offers the lowest price for routine services.

advertising by professionals, regression analyses of the three principal component scores were performed. Table 3 lists coefficient estimates and significance levels from those analyses and Table 4 shows average principal component scores by factor levels. All three models are significant, as are multivariate tests of re-

spondent type, profession, and exposure to professional advertising.

Impact of differences between respondent sam-

ples. Scores along all three components are significantly different between consumers and professionals. In all cases, significant differences are in direction of

agreement and not merely in magnitude of agreement or disagreement.

Generally, consumers' ratings reflect optimism about potential benefits that may be associated with

advertising by professionals and a lack of pessimism about potential detrimental impacts, whereas the

professionals' ratings reflect reservations. Consumers

disagree that advertising by professionals will damage the credibility, image, or dignity of professionals, confuse or deceive consumers or arouse their suspi- cions, or benefit quacks and incompetents. In con-

Attitudes Toward Advertising by Professionals / 97



TABLE 2 Rotated Principal Component Loadings

Rotated Principal Components 1 2 3

Adverse Effects on

Professional Consumer Media Vehicle Item Image Benefits Appropriateness

1. CRED .77 -.33 -.21 2. IMAGE .76 -.42 -.22 3. QUAK .76 -.22 -.14 4. SUSP .75 -.35 -.19 5. PBIM .75 -.38 -.25 6. PBCF .72 -.34 -.17 7. DECV .71 -.02 -.10 8. DIGN .71 -.38 -.23 9. CONF .69 -.45 -.15

10. PFMG -.37 .31 .31 11. NEWS -.51 .44 .42 12. INFO -.59 .54 .15 13. PROP -.65 .39 .27 14. TAST -.67 .26 .16

15. PRIC -.29 .74 .06 16. AWAR -.37 .71 .15 17. QUAL -.33 .68 .18 18. INTL -.45 .67 .20

19. BILB -.04 .18 .78 20. TV -.23 .34 .75 21. RADO -.28 .35 .73 22. POPM -.25 .33 .66 23. PHON -.02 .19 .64 24. MAIL -.31 .00 .61

% var 31 18 16

trast, professionals tend outcomes are likely.

to agree strongly that those

Consumers agree (and professionals strongly dis-

agree) that advertising by professionals will increase awareness of the differences between professionals, reduce prices, increase quality levels, and help consumers make more intelligent choices. Consumers further agree (and professionals disagree) that popular media vehicles are appropriate for use by professionals and that advertising is an important source of consumer benefits.

Differences by type of profession. Scores along the first dimension reflecting agreement that advertising would adversely affect professionals' images are significantly different across professions, though the differences are in degree of agreement or disagreement and not in direction. Respondents agree most stongly that advertising by accountants or attorneys will ad-

versely affect the images of those professions. Among professional respondents, physicians are less concerned about potential negative consequences from

advertising; physicians agree least strongly of the four

professional groups that advertising would damage images in their profession.

Consumers tend to agree that popular media vehicles are appropriate for professionals' use in advertising. An exception to that sentiment arises when advertising by physicians is considered. Consumers express disagreement that popular media vehicles are appropriate for physician advertising.

Impact of exposure to professional advertising. Respondents who report exposure are less pessimistic about possible detrimental impacts, though they are also less optimistic about potential consumer benefits of advertising by professionals. These findings suggest that initial professional advertising has served to reduce apprehension and that it has not damaged professional images overall, though it may not have conveyed useful information effectively in some cases.

Professionals appear to have had a greater level of attitude change as a result of exposure to professional advertising than consumers. After exposure, professionals' attitudes toward advertising become more significantly less pessimistic about the potentially damaging impacts on images. After exposure, professionals are also significantly less optimistic about the

potential benefits consumers might derive from ad-

vertising. Though consumers are accustomed to reli- ance on advertising, practitioners have had little fa-

miliarity with professional advertising until very recently. Ethical reasons and associated reservations that were long responsible for advertising bans were

undoubtedly strongly internalized and high in cen-

trality among professionals, producing greater initial

skepticism (in comparison with consumers), as well as interest and curiosity. Exposure to professional ad-

vertising seems to have shown professionals that ad-

vertising is not likely to be as damaging as they ini-

tially suspected. Respondents who agree that consumers ought to

choose professionals who charge the lowest prices for routine services alter attitudes the most after exposure. After exposure, those price-elastic respondents agree less strongly that advertising would produce benefits to consumers.

Impact of price elasticity on attitudes. Respon- dents who agree that consumers ought to select providers offering the lowest prices for routine services

agree more strongly that consumers will gain benefits from advertising by professionals. Those price-elastic respondents are more optimistic about the informa- tional value of advertising by professionals, undoubt-

edly because price information is easily conveyed through such advertising. This is true whether re-

spondents are consumers or professionals and regard- less of the profession; all interactions between price




TABLE 3 Coefficient Estimates and Significance Levels from Regression Analyses of Attitudes Toward

Advertising by Professionals

Rotated Principal Component Scores 1 2 3

Adverse Effects Media Vehicle on Image Consumer Benefits Appropriateness

Predictor b Prob. b Prob. b Prob.

Respondent (R)a Consumers -1.57 .0001 .78 .0001 .38 .01

Profession (p)b

Physicians -.42 .004 .12 ns -.01 ns Accountants .39 .0003 -.02 ns .11 ns Attorneys .46 .0001 .04 ns -.09 ns

Exposure (E) -.50 .0005 -.32 .01 -.01 ns Price elasticity (PE) .00 ns .32 .0001 .01 ns RxP

Consumers x physicians .73 .0001 -.20 ns -.38 .005 RxE

Consumers x E .34 .007 .22 .05 -.07 ns R x PE

Consumers x PE -.02 ns -.06 ns .05 ns Px E

Physicians x E .11 ns .16 ns -.01 ns Accountants x E -.02 ns .06 ns -.02 ns Attorneys x E -.08 ns .00 ns -.03 ns

P x PE Physicians x PE -.02 ns -.03 ns .09 ns Accountants x PE -.03 ns -.04 ns .09 ns Attorneys x PE -.05 ns -.01 ns .11 ns

E x PE .01 ns -.09 .02 .03 ns Intercept 1.12 .0001 -.41 .002 -.12 ns

"Indicator variable equal to zero when respondents were professionals and equal to one when respondents were consumers. blndicator variables equal to zero when profession was dentistry.

TABLE 4 Average Scores of Attitudes Toward Advertising

by Professionals

Average Rotated Principal Component Scores

1 2 3 Adverse Media

Effects on Vehicle Professional Consumer Appropri-

Image Benefits ateness

Respondent Consumers -.21 .31 .07 Professionals .61 -.90 -.21

Profession Physicians .04 .04 -.19 Accountants -.16 .34 .32 Attorneys -.16 .35 .10 Dentists .18 -.56 -.04

Exposure Not exposed .00 .18 .02 Exposed .00 -.15 -.02

elasticity and type of respondent or profession are in-

significant.

Meta-Analyses of Summary Statistics

Sixteen studies, spanning the same four professions, are available for broader analyses of attitudes toward

advertising by professionals. Each involves some subset of the 24 items examined before, though most studies involve only a subset. To make the most efficient use of the data from all 16 studies, three primary attitudinal dimensions (adverse effects on

professional image, consumer benefits, and media vehicle appropriateness) are examined. Measures of each of the 24 items are treated as measures of one of the three dimensions to allow efficient pooling of com-

parable, but not identical, data. Table 5 is a summary of the number of observations provided by each of the 16 studies. If a study included one (24) item(s) that loads high along component 1 (agreement that adver-

tising by professionals will have an adverse impact on

professionals' images), that study contributed one (24) observation(s) to the pooled dataset.

All studies used Likert-type scales of agreement- disagreement. The major differences distinguishing




TABLE 5 Key Features of Data Collection for Research on Attitudes Toward Advertising by Professionals

Study Carver, King, and Label (1979) Darling and Hackett (1978)

Hite and Bellizzi (1986)

Hite, Bellizzi, and Andrus (1988a)

Hite, Bellizzi, and Andrus (1988b)

Kviz (1984) LaBarbera and Reddy (1987) Meskin (1978)

Miller and Waller (1979)

Oliver and Posey (1980) Shapiro and Majewski (1983)

Shimp and Dyer (1978) Swerdlow and Staples (1980) Vanier and Sciglimpaglia (1981) Wilson (1984)

Young (1983)

Profession Accountants Attorneys Accountants Physicians Dentists Attorneys Accountants Physicians Physicians

Dentists

Physicians Physicians Dentists

Physicians

Accountants Dentists

Attorneys Dentists Physicians Physicians

Physicians

Respondents Consumers Professionals

Consumers

Consumers Professionals Consumers Professionals Consumers Professionals Consumers Professionals Consumers Professionals Professionals Consumers Professionals Professionals Professionals Consumers Consumers Professionals Consumers Professionals

Year of Data

Collection' 1979 1976

1981

1985

1986

1978 1987 1978

1978

1980 1982

1976 1980 1981 1984

1982

Number of Observations of

Principal Component 1 2 3

1 12 12 12 12 14 14 14 14 14 14 14 2 2 2 2 5 5 2 1 1 4 1 6 1 1 1 2

4 9 9 9 9 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 4 4 4 1 1 4 3 3 5 3 4 0 0 0 0

"The year shown is the year of data collection when it was available. When such information was not available, the year of pub- lication is given.

studies are (1) type of respondent (consumer vs.

professional), (2) type of profession (medical, dental, accounting, or legal), and (3) date of data collection. Date of data collection is important because the var- ious professions relaxed advertising restrictions at different times; consequently, there has been differential

opportunity for exposure to advertising across professions. To capture this difference in opportunity, the difference between time of relaxation of restrictions and date of data collection is used as a third meta-

analytic factor in addition to respondent and profession type.

Because a differential number of observations is available for each of the three attitudinal dimensions,

parallel regression analyses were conducted. Results are reported in Tables 6 and 7.

Type of respondent. As in the analyses of pooled raw data, analyses of summary data reveal that the attitudes of consumers are distinct from the attitudes of professionals toward (1) potential adverse impacts and (2) potential benefits to consumers that might re-

suit from advertising by professionals. Consumers are significantly less pessimistic about

potential negative impacts of advertising on professional images than are professionals. Consumers dis-

agree (-.63) that professional advertising will dam-

age the credibility, image, or dignity of professionals, confuse or deceive consumers or arouse their suspi- cions, or benefit quacks and incompetents. Con-

versely, professionals tend to agree (.49) that such outcomes are likely to be associated with professional advertising.

Consumers are also more optimistic about the potential benefits of professional advertising. Along the second component, the mean consumer rating is .27, indicating agreement that professional advertising will increase awareness of the differences between professionals, reduce prices, increase quality levels, and help consumers make more intelligent choices. Profession- als' mean rating, in comparison, is -.88, indicating strong disagreement that those positive impacts will result from professional advertising.

Also, as revealed in the pooled analyses of raw


0 0 0 0 0 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 3 3 0 2



TABLE 6 Coefficient Estimates from Regression Analyses of Attitudes Toward Advertising by Professionals

Dependent Variable: Rotated Principal Component Scores

1 2 3 Adverse Effects on Media Vehicle Professional Image Consumer Benefits Appropriateness

Predictor b Prob. b Prob. b Prob.

Respondent (R)a Consumers -1.25 .0001 1.38 .0001 .26 ns

Profession (p)b Physicians -.29 .02 .07 ns .07 ns Accountants -.61 .0007 .42 .005 .01 ns Attorneys -.42 .008 .39 .007 -.16 ns

Years of exposure (Y) -.05 .0001 .03 .02 -.06 ns Rx P

Consumers, physicians .51 .006 -.07 ns -.24 ns Consumers, accountants .29 ns -.38 ns .00 Consumers, attorneys .20 ns -.37 ns .00

RxY Consumers x Y -.03 ns -.01 ns .06 ns

Intercept 1.04 .0001 -1.19 .0001 -.34 ns

"Indicator variable equal to zero when respondents were professionals. blndicator variables equal to zero when profession was dentistry.

TABLE 7 Average Scores of Attitudes Toward Advertising

by Professionals

Average Rotated Principal Component Scores

1 2 3 Adverse Media

Effects on Vehicle Professional Consumer Appropri-

Image Benefits ateness

Respondent Consumers -.61 .30 -.21 Professionals .61 -.95 -.83

Profession Physicians -.04 -.37 -.46 Accountants -.23 -.39 -.08 Attorneys -.03 -.54 -.25 Dentists .18 -.70 -.51

data, the interaction between type of respondent and

type of profession is a significant influence on attitudes toward potential negative impacts (principal component 1). Consumers are more concerned about

negative impacts on professionals' images from ad-

vertising in the medical profession.

Differences across professions. Significant differences appear across professions along the first and

second attitudinal dimensions that were not observed in the pooled analyses of raw data. Advertising by accountants and attorneys is rated as less potentially damaging and more potentially beneficial in these

broader analyses of summary data. Across the pooled

raw and summary analyses, little difference is found in agreement about advertising by physicians or dentists.

Opportunity for exposure to advertising by professionals. Exposure to advertising by professionals, operationalized through the time elapsed between relaxation of restrictions and date of data collection, has a

significant impact on attitudes toward potentially damaging impacts and toward potential consumer benefits (the first and second principal components), as does actual reported exposure in the pooled raw data.

With each additional year of opportunity for ex-

posure to professional advertising, agreement that

negative impacts will arise from professional adver-

tising decreases by .05 scale points. This finding is consistent with the pooled raw data results, in which

reported exposure produced a difference of .50 scale

points in agreement. Agreement that consumer benefits will accrue from

professional advertising increases by .03 scale points for each additional year of opportunity for exposure. In contrast, in the pooled raw data analyses, reported exposure reduced agreement (by .32 scale points) that

advertising by professionals would be beneficial to consumers.

Consumers and professionals in this broader sam-

ple appear to alter attitudes at similar rates with elapsed opportunity for exposure. The interactions between type of respondent and elapsed time are insignificant in all three equations.




Discussion Meta-analyses of attitudes of both consumers and professionals across four professions allow comparisons not possible in prior research examining either a single type of respondent or a single profession. Sev- eral generalizations are supported by both the analyses of raw data and the analyses of summary data from 16 studies.

With each additional year of opportunity for exposure to advertising by professionals, the attitudes of both consumers and professionals toward such advertising have become more favorable, reservations about

potential negative impacts have become weaker, and

expectations about potential consumer benefits have become stronger. Increased familiarity with advertis-

ing by professionals appears to be associated with fewer reservations. Unfortunately, actual remembered ex-

posure reduces agreement that advertising by professionals is beneficial to consumers. Together, these results imply that advertising by professionals has been

neither offensive nor distasteful, yet not as informa- tive as it possibly could be.

A rather large schism separates consumers and

professionals attitudinally. Consumers favor increased use of professional advertising, but professionals con- tinue to report reservations about its use, beliefs that

negative impacts on image, credibility, and dignity are

likely consequences, and that benefits to consumers are unlikely.

Results further suggest that price-elastic consumers are more optimistic about consumer benefits from advertising by professionals. In comparison with inelastic consumers, price-elastic consumers are more

likely to agree that prices are reduced, quality levels are enhanced, and advertising by professionals con-

veys information that helps consumers make better choices. The level of optimism is lower among those

price-elastic consumers who have been exposed to ad-

vertising by professionals, suggesting that it may have

conveyed less information than is potentially possible.

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Documents

Meta-Analyses of Attitudes Toward Advertising by Professionals