The Influence of Comparative Advertising on Consumer Ethnocentrism in the American Automobile Market

This study explores the ability of comparative advertising featuring foreign and domestic automobile brands to influence consumer ethnocentric reactions as the advertisement is being processed. Consumer ethnocentrism is inherently comparative (e.g., American automobiles versus those imported from Japan), so lack of published research testing this influence on consumer decision making is surprising. Two major findings resulted: (1) theoretically, Shimp and Sharma's (1987) CETSCALE can be modeled as one component of a Hierarchy-of-Effects dependent vector score using MANOVA, and (2) practically, advertising where a foreign sponsor names a domestic brand can result in an ethnocentric stimulus significantly influencing automobile brand Purchase Intentions.