Message Sidedness at the Brand and Product Form Levels: Overcoming the Shortcomings of Two-Sided Messages?

This paper investigates how messages that contain only positive information vary in their effectiveness from messages that portray both positive and negative arguments. The authors propose that, in a low price condition, a two-sided message with comparison at the product form level has the ability to simultaneously retain the benefits and overcome the weaknesses of two-sided communication, increased source credibility and decrease in purchase intention, respectively. Results from our experiment indicate a strong interaction between price and type of message. The two-sided comparative message at product form level outperforms both the one-sided message and the classical two-sided comparative message at brand level.