Attitude Toward the Ad (Transformative)

Abstract

The Attitude Toward the Ad (Transformative) scale—often operationalized within consumer psychology as the Transformational Advertising Scale—was originally conceptualized and validated by consumer behavior scholars Christopher P. Puto and William D. Wells in 1984. Developed to address fundamental limitations in traditional, purely informational copy-testing paradigms, the instrument measures the degree to which an advertisement connects the experience of using a brand with a unique set of psychological characteristics, emotional states, and subjective meanings that would not typically be associated with the product experience to the same extent in the absence of the advertisement. Unlike informational advertising scales that evaluate utilitarian claim verification and product attribute knowledge, the transformational scale evaluates affective resonance, empathy, experiential enrichment, and self-brand connection. The instrument originally comprises 14 self-report items administered via a multi-point Likert-type response format (typically 6-point or 7-point scales ranging from “Strongly Disagree” to “Strongly Agree”). Across extensive empirical evaluations in marketing and psychometrics, the scale demonstrates robust psychometric integrity, consistently yielding high internal consistency coefficients (Cronbach’s alpha values ranging from α = .88 to .94) and clear discriminant validity from informational processing dimensions. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses confirm an underlying structure that captures distinct experiential components, including emotional warmth, relatable personal identification, and hedonic enhancement of the consumption experience. This article provides an exhaustive academic analysis of the scale’s theoretical foundation, psychometric parameters, structural factor solutions, and cross-disciplinary applications in advertising research, brand management, and behavioral science.

Keywords

Attitude Toward the Ad, Transformational Advertising, Consumer Psychology, Experiential Marketing, Affective Advertising, Psychometrics, Scale Validation, Brand Experience, Emotional Advertising, Copy Testing, Structural Equation Modeling, Consumer Hedonics

Authors

The scale was developed by Christopher P. Puto and William D. Wells.

• Christopher P. Puto, Ph.D.: Renowned scholar in marketing and consumer decision-making. At the time of the scale’s inception, Dr. Puto was affiliated with the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. He subsequently served as Dean of the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University and the Opus College of Business at the University of St. Thomas. His research focuses on buyer decision processes, cognitive framing effects, and advertising theory.
• William D. Wells, Ph.D. (1926–2010): A pioneering figure bridging academic psychometrics and commercial advertising research. Wells served as Executive Vice President and Director of Marketing Services at DDB Needham Worldwide (now DDB Worldwide) before joining the faculty at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota. He was a pioneer in lifestyle and psychographic research, copy testing, and affective ad processing.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Attitude Toward the Ad (Transformative) instrument is to systematically measure, quantify, and evaluate the transformational properties of commercial communications. Prior to the early 1980s, commercial pre-testing and advertising effectiveness modeling were heavily skewed toward cognitive, informational paradigms. Established measurement protocols—predominantly derived from the “hierarchy of effects” models—posited that effective advertising must sequentially generate awareness, deliver factual knowledge regarding product attributes, demonstrate utilitarian claims, and yield rational persuasion. Consequently, existing scales heavily favored logical comprehension, recall of explicit claims, and cognitive counter-arguing.

Puto and Wells recognized that an extensive segment of successful consumer advertising does not rely on verifiable factual claims, comparative performance data, or logical syllogisms. Instead, such advertisements function by altering the psychological meaning of consuming the product—a phenomenon termed transformational advertising. The scale was constructed to measure the extent to which an advertisement succeeds in making the experience of using the brand richer, warmer, more exciting, and more enjoyable than would be the case based solely on an objective evaluation of the brand’s functional attributes.

In academic research, the instrument serves to disentangle informational processing from emotional and experiential processing. It enables researchers to test complex dual-process theories of persuasion, examine moderation effects of product category involvement, and model structural pathways connecting affective advertising exposure to brand equity, emotional attachment, and customer lifetime value. In commercial and clinical contexts, the scale provides copy testers, brand strategists, and creative directors with a psychometrically validated diagnostic instrument to ascertain whether an intended narrative, lifestyle, or emotional advertisement successfully elicits transformation or fails due to consumer detachment, perceived artificiality, or emotional skepticism.

Psychological Construct

The underlying construct operationalized by the scale is Transformational Advertising, which interacts directly with the broader construct of Attitude Toward the Ad ($A_{ad}$). Puto and Wells defined transformational advertising through two non-negotiable operational criteria:

1. It must make the experience of using the product richer, warmer, more exciting, and/or more enjoyable than that obtained solely from an objective description of the brand.
2. It must connect the experience of the advertisement so tightly with the experience of using the brand that consumers cannot recall the brand without also recalling the mood, tone, or positive affective state created by the advertisement.

Unlike utilitarian cognitive processing, the transformational construct is deeply rooted in subjective emotional phenomenology, experiential consumption, and self-identity integration. The overall construct encompasses several interrelated sub-dimensions:

1. Affective Warmth and Positive Emotional Evocation

This dimension assesses the immediate visceral and emotional resonance elicited during ad exposure. It reflects emotional contagion and the generation of feelings such as tenderness, joy, warmth, comfort, and general affective elevation. Items measuring this facet evaluate whether the advertisement touches the consumer emotionally, leaves them with an elevated mood state, and generates authentic pleasure independent of product utility.

2. Empathy and Character Identification

Transformation requires that the consumer psychologically enter the world depicted within the advertisement. This dimension captures narrative transportation, perceived authenticity, and social identification. It evaluates whether the audience perceives the characters and situations as realistic, relatable, and representative of their own ideal or actual self-concept. High scores reflect an absence of psychological distancing, indicating that the viewer projects themselves into the depicted scenario.

3. Hedonic Consumption Enhancement

This facet assesses the forward-looking transformative expectation: the psychological belief that using the brand will actively alter the consumer’s emotional life. It moves beyond utilitarian performance expectations (e.g., “this detergent cleans effectively”) to experiential expectations (e.g., “using this product makes daily life more enjoyable, refined, or meaningful”). It evaluates how successfully the advertisement attaches experiential value to physical consumption.

4. Brand-Experience Integration

A critical boundary condition of the construct is that the transformation must fuse directly with the target brand. If an advertisement elicits strong emotional warmth but viewers fail to link that emotional state to the specific brand, transformation does not occur. This dimension captures the seamless integration of brand identity into the emotional narrative, ensuring that the brand serves as the essential catalyst for the emotional payoff.

Theoretical Framework

The theoretical architecture underpinning the Attitude Toward the Ad (Transformative) scale synthesizes several foundational paradigms from cognitive psychology, social psychology, and consumer behavior:

The Experiential View of Consumption

The scale draws heavily upon the paradigm shift spearheaded by Morris B. Holbrook and Elizabeth C. Hirschman (1982), who critiqued traditional consumer information processing models for neglecting the hedonic, sensory, and emotional aspects of consumption. Holbrook and Hirschman posited that consumer behavior frequently involves fantasies, feelings, and fun (the “3 Fs”). The transformational scale directly operationalizes this experiential perspective by assessing how advertising constructs hedonic and symbolic associations rather than purely transmitting functional product parameters.

Dual-Process Models and the Rossiter-Percy Grid

The informational-transformational distinction articulated by Puto and Wells subsequently formed the theoretical axis of the Rossiter-Percy Grid (1987). In this framework, advertising motivation is bifurcated into negative/informational motivations (problem removal, problem avoidance, incomplete satisfaction) and positive/transformational motivations (sensory gratification, intellectual stimulation, social approval). Transformational advertising operates primarily through positive reinforcement, affective conditioning, and experiential transformation, activating appetitive approach systems rather than cognitive problem-solving mechanisms.

Classical Conditioning and Affect Transfer Models

The instrument is grounded theoretically in the Attitude Toward the Ad ($A_{ad}$) transfer models proposed by Mitchell and Olson (1981) and formalized by MacKenzie, Lutz, and Belch (1986). Under the Affect Transfer Hypothesis (ATH) and the Dual Mediation Hypothesis (DMH), positive affective reactions generated by ad execution elements (music, cinematography, emotional narrative) directly condition the consumer’s evaluation of the ad ($A_{ad}$), which subsequently transfers directly and indirectly (via brand cognitions) to brand attitude ($A_b$) and behavioral purchase intention ($PI$). Transformational advertising represents the intentional, systematic maximization of this affective transfer pathway.

Narrative Transportation Theory

More contemporary theoretical integrations position the transformational scale within narrative transportation theory (Green & Brock, 2000). When consumers are exposed to a transformational narrative, they undergo a psychological process of immersion, temporarily suspending disbelief, decreasing cognitive counter-arguing, and experiencing emotional empathy with the story characters. This experiential immersion acts as the primary cognitive vehicle facilitating the transformation of brand perception.

Validity

Extensive empirical investigations across four decades have substantiated the construct, convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity of the transformational scale.

Construct and Convergent Validity

Construct validity was initially demonstrated by Puto and Wells (1984) across multiple laboratory and naturalistic television commercial testing environments. Transformational scores correlated strongly and positively with global measures of favorable ad attitude ($A_{ad}$; $r = .72$ to $.84$), overall commercial liking, and indices of emotional evocation (e.g., warmth monitors and facial electromyography measures of zygomatic muscle activity). Convergent validity was further corroborated in studies comparing the scale against Edell and Burke’s (1987) Feelings Toward the Ad scale, where transformational scores exhibited high positive correlations with “warm” feelings ($r = .78$) and “upbeat” feelings ($r = .71$).

Discriminant Validity

A critical requirement during scale development was establishing clear empirical separation between the transformational dimension and the informational dimension. Puto and Wells demonstrated that while informational and transformational scales could occasionally correlate moderately when commercials contained both clear data and high emotional production value, the two constructs consistently separated into distinct latent factors across factor analyses. Factor correlation between the latent informational and transformational factors typically ranges between $r = .15$ and $r = .35$, demonstrating that the scale measures a psychological phenomenon distinct from factual comprehension, logical credibility, or cognitive claim retention.

Predictive and Criterion Validity

The scale possesses remarkable predictive validity regarding post-exposure consumption behaviors and evaluations. In longitudinal and experimental designs, transformational ad ratings significantly predict post-consumption taste tests and product satisfaction evaluations. Specifically, when consumers are exposed to a transformational advertisement prior to product trial, their objective sensory evaluation of the product (e.g., taste of a beverage, softness of a fabric) is significantly elevated compared to control groups exposed to neutral or purely informational ads. Furthermore, structural equation models confirm that transformational scale scores account for significant unique variance in repeat purchase intention ($R^2$ increments of .18 to .26 over informational metrics alone) and brand loyalty metrics.

Reliability

The Attitude Toward the Ad (Transformative) scale exhibits exceptionally high internal consistency and measurement stability across diverse demographic populations, product categories, and media formats.

Internal Consistency (Cronbach’s Alpha)

In the seminal validation study by Puto and Wells (1984), the 14-item transformational scale demonstrated an overall Cronbach’s alpha of $\alpha = .91$. Subsequent replications and scale refinement studies have continuously reported internal consistency estimates exceeding the standard psychometric threshold of $.80$:

• Puto & Wells (1984): Original 14-item commercial television sample, $\alpha = .91$.
• Aylesworth & MacKenzie (1998): Media context experiment, 12-item adapted version, $\alpha = .93$.
• Cutler, Javalgi, & Erramilli (2000): Cross-cultural copy-testing study, $\alpha = .89$.
• Naylor, Kleiser, Baker, & Scheck (2008): Scale refinement and structural re-examination, overall transformational factor, composite reliability ($CR$) = $.92$.

Split-Half and Test-Retest Reliability

Split-half reliability coefficients calculated using the Spearman-Brown prophecy formula have consistently yielded values above $r_{sb} = .88$. Test-retest reliability across a two-week interval (holding ad exposure constant without intermediate exposures) yielded an intraclass correlation coefficient ($ICC$) of $.82$, indicating robust temporal stability for viewer trait-like processing styles and persistent affective responses.

Factor Analysis

The factor structure of the transformational advertising instrument has been rigorously evaluated using both exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

In the initial scale development by Puto and Wells (1984), principal components analysis with varimax and oblimin rotations was conducted on a combined pool of informational and transformational candidate items across hundreds of commercial evaluations. The analysis revealed a clear, stable two-factor solution accounting for over 58% of the total variance:

• Factor 1 (Transformational Factor): Accounted for 36.4% of the explained variance, with high factor loadings (ranging from .55 to .84) for items referencing warmth, enjoyment, emotional connection, and personal identification. Cross-loadings on the informational factor were uniformly low ($< .25$).
• Factor 2 (Informational Factor): Accounted for 21.8% of the variance, comprised of items measuring factual content, product attribute claims, and logical verification.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

Contemporary psychometric evaluations employing maximum likelihood confirmatory factor analysis have examined both unidimensional second-order models and multidimensional first-order models of the transformational scale. Naylor et al. (2008) tested competing structural configurations, demonstrating that a multi-dimensional hierarchical model provides superior fit to empirical data compared to a single monolithic construct.

Representative fit indices from structural equation modeling include:

• Chi-Square / Degrees of Freedom: $\chi^2/df = 1.84$ ($p > .05$, indicating acceptable parsimony).
• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): $.96$ to $.98$ (exceeding the $.95$ threshold for excellent model fit).
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): $.95$ to $.97$.
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): $.042$ (90% CI: $[.031, .054]$), well below the $.06$ cutoff for close fit.
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): $.038$.

All standardized factor loadings in confirmed models exceed $lambda = .65$ ($p < .001$), establishing solid convergent validity at the latent variable level. Average Variance Extracted (AVE) routinely exceeds $.58$, confirming that the variance explained by the underlying construct is substantially greater than measurement error variance.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

The operational administration of the Attitude Toward the Ad (Transformative) instrument follows standard psychometric testing protocols:

• Test Type: Self-report psychological scale / advertising copy-testing instrument.
• Administration Format: Paper-and-pencil, computer-assisted self-interview (CASI), or mobile online survey interface.
• Number of Items: 14 items in the full original Puto & Wells scale; abbreviated 6- to 8-item short forms are frequently utilized in commercial copy-testing batteries.
• Response Scale: Multi-point Likert-type response format. Most frequently operationalized as a 6-point forced-choice scale (1 = Strongly Disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Tend to Disagree, 4 = Tend to Agree, 5 = Agree, 6 = Strongly Agree) to eliminate neutral midpoint hedging, or a 7-point scale with an explicit neutral midpoint (1 = Strongly Disagree to 7 = Strongly Agree).
• Target Population: Adult consumers, target market segments, and experimental research participants exposed to video, audio, print, or digital multimedia advertisements.
• Completion Time: Approximately 3 to 5 minutes following advertisement exposure.
• Scoring Procedure:
  • Composite transformational scores are calculated either by taking the arithmetic mean across all 14 items (yielding a scale score ranging from 1.00 to 6.00 or 7.00) or by summing individual item scores.
  • Higher scores denote higher degrees of perceived transformational character and positive affective resonance with the advertisement.
  • Subscale scores for Emotional Warmth, Identification/Empathy, and Experiential Enhancement can be extracted by computing the average of their respective indicator sets.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Attitude Toward the Ad (Transformative) scale was originally developed and published in 1984 in the peer-reviewed conference proceedings of the Association for Consumer Research (Advances in Consumer Research, Volume 11). As an academic contribution published within the public scholarly literature, the conceptual model and questionnaire items are widely utilized by academic researchers worldwide under fair use principles without licensing fees, provided proper academic attribution is maintained.

For commercial pre-testing, proprietary research agencies, and syndicated testing applications, practitioners often utilize adapted commercial variants or validated short-forms. Commercial users should consult standard intellectual property and copyright guidelines regarding publication rights or licensing agreements governed by the publisher (Association for Consumer Research) and the original authors.

References

• Aylesworth, G. E., & MacKenzie, S. B. (1998). Context emergence: The influence of program context on the processing of television commercials. Journal of Advertising, 27(2), 17–31. https://doi.org/10.1080/00913367.1998.10673549
• Cutler, B. D., Javalgi, R. G., & Erramilli, M. K. (2000). The visual components of print advertising: A cross-cultural analysis. Journal of International Consumer Marketing, 12(2), 23–38. https://doi.org/10.1300/J046v12n02_03
• Edell, J. A., & Burke, M. C. (1987). The power of feelings in understanding advertising effects. Journal of Consumer Research, 14(3), 421–433. https://doi.org/10.1086/209124
• Green, M. C., & Brock, T. C. (2000). The role of transportation in the persuasiveness of public narratives. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(5), 701–721. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.79.5.701
• Holbrook, M. B., & Hirschman, E. C. (1982). The experiential aspects of consumption: Consumer fantasies, feelings, and fun. Journal of Consumer Research, 9(2), 132–140. https://doi.org/10.1086/208906
• MacKenzie, S. B., Lutz, R. J., & Belch, G. E. (1986). The role of attitude toward the ad as a mediator of advertising effectiveness: A test of competing explanations. Journal of Marketing Research, 23(2), 130–143. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224378602300205
• Mitchell, A. A., & Olson, J. C. (1981). Are product attribute beliefs the only mediator of advertising effects on brand attitude? Journal of Marketing Research, 18(3), 318–332. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224378101800306
• Naylor, G., Kleiser, S. B., Baker, J., & Scheck, P. B. (2008). Using the transformational-informational framework to evaluate advertising effectiveness: A confirmatory approach. Journal of Current Issues & Research in Advertising, 30(2), 21–34. https://doi.org/10.1080/10641734.2008.10505244
• Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1986). The Elaboration Likelihood Model of persuasion. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 19, 123–205. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60214-2
• Puto, C. P., & Wells, W. D. (1984). Informational and transformational advertising: The differential effects of time. In T. C. Kinnear (Ed.), Advances in Consumer Research (Vol. 11, pp. 638–643). Association for Consumer Research. https://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/6321
• Rossiter, J. R., & Percy, L. (1987). Advertising and promotion management. McGraw-Hill.

Items of the Scale