Ad Authenticity: An Alternative Explanation of Advertising's Effect on Established Brand Attitudes

Authenticity is a potentially powerful yet elusive concept in the field of marketing. Recent research has determined that there are various forms of authenticity that can be communicated via contextual cues in advertising. This research builds on previous work by creating a measure of ad authenticity and assessing its influence on important advertising effectiveness measures. The results of two exploratory studies and one confirmatory study suggest that authenticity can be defined and measured at the individual ad level to quantitatively distinguish between high and low authenticity advertising. In addition, ad authenticity has a direct effect on ad credibility and attitude toward the brand.