ABSTRACT

and tangible cue

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of service advertisements by service types that were classified by the relative intangibility of services and presence of tangible cue.

This study investigates how different the service advertisements influence on attitude toward the advertisement, attitude toward the service, and purchase intention according to the service types classified by intangibility and the presence of tangible cue.

Experimental treatments were assigned conveniently to 180 undergraduate students for four experimental groups. The research design manipulated the service types classified by intangibility and the presence of tangible cue(2 by 2 : experiential vs. credential, existence vs. nonexistence).

The main results of this research are summarized as follows.

First, experiential service advertisements that the degree of intangibility was low was more effective in attitude toward the service and purchase intention than credential service advertisements that the degree of intangibility was high.

Second, service advertisements that tangible cue was presented was more effective in attitude toward the advertisements, attitude toward the service, and purchase intention than service advertisements that tangible cue was not presented.

Finally, there were interaction effects between the service types and the presence of tangible cue in attitude toward the advertisements and attitude toward the service. In other words, when the degree of intangibility was low, experiential service advertisements and was high, credential service advertisements that tangible cue was presented were more effective than tangible cue was not presented.