Comparative Magazine Advertisements Revisited: A Content Analysis Karen E. James, Louisiana State University at Shreveport John Fraedrich, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale Paul J. Hensel, University of New Orleans A content analysis of magazine advertising spanning a ten year time period was undertaken for the dual purpose of investigating the prevalence of negative advertising in a print format, and delineating the nature of comparative consumer goods and services magazine advertising. Several findings of note occurred. While only a single ad of the 3,800 plus analyzed was classified as being negative in nature, the proportion of comparative to non -comparative full page print ads declined significantly between 1980 and 1990 contrary to industry predictions. However, of those ads deemed to be comparative in nature, the proportion of ads making explicit comparisons to those using implicit comparisons remained constant between the years of 1980 and 1990. Overall, services were found to make significantly less usage of the comparative advertising format than either durable or non-durable goods. Finally, the use of a comparative advertising format was found to be significantly related to the size of the advertisement. Introduction Many scholars hail the support statements issued by the FTC between 1972 and 1977 as being the stimulus for comparative advertising as we know and it today (Bradshaw, 1974; Muehling and Kangun, 1985). Yet implicit comparative references to fictitious "brand X's" actually existed for many decades prior to the 1970's (Jackson, Brown and Harmon,1979). The sanctioning of comparative advertising by the FTC in the 1970's, and the subsequent usage of advertising which specifically named, showed, or implied comparisons to real-life brands, unleashed a flood of research interest which has yet to abate. Much of the academic research surrounding comparative advertising has studied the effectiveness of this technique given varying characteristics of the message, product, market, and competitor (Ash and Wee, 1983; Rogers and Williams, 1989; and Turgeon and Barnaby, 1988). Despite the wide-spread interest in comparative advertising among practitioners and scholars alike, little academic attention has been paid to the nature of comparative advertising as it exists in practice (type of comparison, number of brands compared, size of ad, type of good service, etc.). Muehling and Kangun (1985) note that "while comparative advertising constitutes a class of advertising, it has multiple dimensions and is essentially heterogeneous", and call for additional Page 1 of 14 Comparative Magazine Advertisements Revisited: A Content Analysis 5/21/04 file://C:\WINDOWS\Desktop\1995\SMA\95swa109.htm