A Comment on ''Relationship Between Source Expertise and Source Similarity in an Advertising Context''/Response

Bone, Ellen, Easley, and McNeely criticize a study by Swartz (1984) examining the relationship between consumer perceptions of advertising source expertise and similarity. In the study, female college students viewed advertisements for 3 different products, varied by level of endorsement source expertise and similarity to subjects based on specification of source occupation. Subjects subsequently completed measures of perceived source expertise and similarity. It is contended that Swartz failed to: 1. conceptually justify the study, 2. define expertise-similarity constructs, 3. control the research design sufficiently, 4. study a dependent variable, and 5. use an appropriate statistical analysis. Swartz claims that her study was exploratory and designed to test for a relationship between source expertise and similarity. No dependent variable was warranted by the study, and the use of a measure of statistical interdependence was appropriate. She further argues that construct definition and experimental control were apparent within the context of the study.