Consumer Responses to Complex Advertisements: The Moderating Role of Need for Cognition, Knowledge, and Gender

Abstract This research attempts to isolate variables responsible for moderating the effectiveness of complex print advertisements. In a controlled experiment, the complexity of the target print advertisements was manipulated along four dimensions: visual, technical, lexical, and information complexity. Responses to these ads were elicited from a sample of 244 undergraduate students. The results suggest that the effectiveness of such an advertising strategy (i.e., use of complex advertisements) is indeed moderated by individual-difference variables such as need for cognition, knowledge, and gender. However, the extent and type of such influence seems to differ along the four dimensions of advertising complexity.

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