Attitude Toward the Brand in the Ad (ATTB)

1. Abstract

The Attitude Toward the Brand in the Ad (ATTB) scale is an evaluative psychometric instrument designed to assess a consumer’s internal, affective, and cognitive evaluation of a specific brand featured within an advertising stimulus immediately following exposure. Developed and adapted across decades of advertising and consumer psychology literature—notably operationalized and validated in contemporary structural modeling by Kim, Haley, and Koo (2009)—the scale captures post-exposure brand disposition as distinct from general, pre-existing brand equity or evaluations of the advertising execution itself (Attitude Toward the Ad, or Aad).

Structurally, the ATTB scale commonly operationalizes brand attitude as a unidimensional evaluative construct or a two-factor structure encompassing affective valence (e.g., pleasantness, appeal) and cognitive utility (e.g., quality, usefulness). The measure typically consists of three to five items administered via a 7-point Likert or semantic differential response format. Psychometric evaluations demonstrate robust properties across varied experimental contexts: internal consistency coefficients routinely exceed conventional thresholds, with Cronbach’s alpha (α) and composite reliability (CR) values consistently reported between .88 and .96. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) reveal high standardized factor loadings (ranging from .80 to .95) and establish distinct discriminant validity from antecedent constructs such as corporate involvement, product involvement, and ad credibility, as well as downstream behavioral intentions such as purchase intention (PI). The instrument plays a central role in empirical tests of the Dual Mediation Hypothesis (DMH), the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), and comparative analyses of corporate versus product-oriented promotional communications.

2. Keywords

Attitude Toward the Brand, ATTB, advertising effectiveness, brand attitude, consumer involvement, Dual Mediation Hypothesis, psychometrics, semantic differential, corporate advertising, product advertising, affective transfer, purchase intention

3. Authors

The specific operationalization and structural comparative validation of the ATTB instrument analyzed here was conducted by:

• Sora Kim, Ph.D. — School of Journalism and Communication, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (formerly at the University of Florida). Specialist in corporate communication, advertising effects, and corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy.
• Eric Haley, Ph.D. — School of Advertising and Public Relations, College of Communication and Information, University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Research focus: advocacy advertising, consumer responses to organizational messaging, and advertising regulation.
• Gi-Yong Koo, Ph.D. — Department of Kinesiology and Sport Management, Troy University. Specialist in consumer behavior, sport marketing, and brand identification dynamics.

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of the Attitude Toward the Brand in the Ad (ATTB) instrument is to isolate and quantify the specific, immediate psychological evaluation of a brand prompted by an advertising exposure. In consumer research, establishing empirical boundaries between what an audience thinks of an advertisement (Aad) and what they think of the featured brand (Ab or ATTB) is critical for determining the true source of marketing efficacy. The ATTB scale provides a standardized, psychometrically validated tool to capture this distinct post-exposure state.

Theoretically, the scale addresses the complex psychological pathways through which consumers process advertising stimuli under varying levels of cognitive and emotional involvement. As demonstrated by Kim, Haley, and Koo (2009), consumer evaluations function differently depending on whether the marketing stimulus is corporate advertising (focusing on organizational identity, ethics, and philosophy) or product advertising (emphasizing tangible attributes, benefits, and functional differentiation). The ATTB enables researchers to examine whether changes in brand perception occur via direct central persuasion (attribute appraisal) or indirect peripheral transfer (spillover of positive affect elicited by ad aesthetics).

From an applied perspective, the ATTB serves both commercial and public health communication domains:

• Copy Testing and Pre-Testing: Advertising practitioners employ the scale during pre-release focus tests to evaluate whether creative executions generate favorable brand impressions or merely entertain without enhancing the focal brand’s equity.
• Comparative Advertising Benchmarking: The scale enables direct A/B testing between corporate-level public relations messages and direct product sales campaigns to measure differential returns on post-exposure brand goodwill.
• Longitudinal Brand Equity Tracking: Applied researchers use the instrument across repeated exposure cycles to detect wear-in and wear-out effects on brand sentiment.
• Clinical and Public Health Campaigns: Psychologists and behavioral economists utilize adapted versions to evaluate consumer reactions to public interest brands, non-profit institutions, and health behavior initiatives (e.g., anti-smoking or vaccination promotion campaigns).

5. Psychological Construct

The psychological construct measured by the ATTB is brand attitude formed or modified within an immediate post-exposure advertising context. Drawing from classic social psychology definitions of attitude (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993), brand attitude is conceived as a relatively enduring, multidimensional summary evaluation of a brand entity along a continuum ranging from intensely negative to intensely positive.

Within the ATTB operationalization, this overarching evaluative disposition encompasses two primary underlying dimensions:

1. The Affective Dimension

The affective component represents the emotional and feelings-based response directed toward the brand following the ad exposure. Rather than assessing cold informational attributes, this dimension measures the spontaneous warmth, attractiveness, and overall pleasantness associated with the brand name. In the structural model of Kim et al. (2009), affective brand attitude often acts as the primary receiver of emotional transfer from an engaging ad execution. For instance, an emotionally resonant ad featuring family unity or environmental stewardship evokes positive visceral sensations that consumers project onto the sponsoring brand, reflected in items measuring whether the brand feels appealing, likable, or pleasant.

2. The Cognitive / Utilitarian Dimension

The cognitive component reflects deliberate, informational appraisals of the brand’s functional performance, perceived quality, reliability, and value. When consumers process advertising through high-involvement pathways, they critically evaluate specific product claims or organizational capabilities. This cognitive appraisal crystallizes into an attitude grounded in reason and utility, captured through indicators measuring whether the brand is viewed as good, beneficial, favorable, or high quality.

While some researchers treat these dimensions as separate second-order factors, the predominant psychometric consensus in short-form advertising measurement models—including Kim et al. (2009)—treats ATTB as a unidimensional evaluative construct where cognitive and affective facets are deeply integrated into a single global evaluative vector. This integration is justified by high inter-item correlations and common-factor variance exceeding 70% in structural test conditions.

6. Theoretical Framework

The ATTB scale is anchored in several foundational theories of social psychology, information processing, and communication science:

The Dual Mediation Hypothesis (DMH)

Formulated by MacKenzie, Lutz, and Belch (1986), the Dual Mediation Hypothesis posited that an individual’s attitude toward an advertisement ($A_{ad}$) influences their brand attitude ($A_b$) through both direct affective transfer ($A_{ad} \rightarrow A_b$) and indirect cognitive processing via brand cognitions ($C_b$) and ad credibility ($A_{ad} \rightarrow C_b \rightarrow A_b$). The ATTB scale serves as the central endogenous outcome variable in this paradigm, capturing the synthesized result of these dual pathways before consumer intention manifests as purchase behavior ($A_b \rightarrow PI$).

The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)

Developed by Petty and Cacioppo (1986), the ELM provides the mechanism explaining how consumers arrive at their brand attitude. Under the central route, individuals possess both the motivation and ability to elaborate on issue-relevant arguments presented in the ad, forming an ATTB based on message strength and logical claims. Under the peripheral route, individuals rely on heuristic cues—such as source attractiveness, background music, or celebrity endorsement—to form their ATTB with minimal cognitive effort. Kim, Haley, and Koo (2009) extended this framework by demonstrating that corporate involvement and product involvement moderate the specific path weights leading to ATTB, showing that corporate advertising engages broader institutional schema while product advertising relies more heavily on direct utilitarian appraisal.

The Hierarchy of Effects Model

Rooted in early work by Lavidge and Steiner (1961), the classic hierarchy of effects dictates a sequential progression: cognitive processing (awareness, knowledge) leads to affective processing (liking, preference), which ultimately drives conative outcomes (conviction, purchase). The ATTB represents the culmination of the affective stage, standing as the psychological gateway through which internal perceptions translate into tangible behavioral commitments.

7. Validity

The psychometric validity of the ATTB instrument has been rigorously established through construct, convergent, discriminant, and predictive validation protocols in empirical advertising literature:

Construct and Convergent Validity

In structural equation modeling (SEM) evaluations, such as those conducted by Kim, Haley, and Koo (2009), convergent validity was confirmed using standardized factor loadings and Average Variance Extracted (AVE). All indicators of the brand attitude latent construct exhibited standardized factor loadings exceeding .80 (ranging up to .94, $p < .001$). The AVE for ATTB routinely surpasses the recommended .50 threshold, typically ranging between .72 and .85, indicating that the latent construct explains the vast majority of variance in its observed measurement items rather than measurement error.

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity was established using the Fornell-Larcker criterion, which requires that the square root of the AVE for a given construct be greater than its correlation with any other latent construct in the model. In Kim et al. (2009):

• The correlation between Attitude Toward the Ad ($A_{ad}$) and Attitude Toward the Brand ($A_b$) remained moderate (typically between $r = .45$ and $r = .65$), confirming that respondents clearly distinguish between evaluating the commercial execution and evaluating the corporate/product brand itself.
• The ATTB construct demonstrated clear empirical separation from antecedent variables such as Corporate Involvement and Product Involvement ($r < .50$), and ad-evoked corporate credibility ($r < .60$).
• CFA multi-trait, multi-factor models comparing constrained models (where correlation between $A_{ad}$ and $A_b$ was fixed to 1.0) with unconstrained models demonstrated statistically significant $\Delta \chi^2$ values ($p < .001$), rejecting construct redundancy.

Predictive and Nomological Validity

Nomological validity is demonstrated through the scale’s predictable and statistically robust relationships with theoretical antecedents and consequences. Across both product and corporate advertising conditions, ATTB acts as the single strongest direct predictor of purchase/patronage intentions ($PI$), with standardized path coefficients ($eta$) consistently ranging between .55 and .78 ($p < .001$). In corporate advertising models, ATTB also significantly predicts positive word-of-mouth (WOM) and organizational crisis resilience.

8. Reliability

The ATTB scale exhibits exceptional internal consistency reliability across diverse demographic samples, media modalities (print, broadcast, digital display), and product categories:

• Cronbach’s Alpha (α): In the focal study by Kim, Haley, and Koo (2009), the Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the brand attitude measures exceeded .90 across both experimental conditions (Corporate Advertising group $\alpha = .93$; Product Advertising group $\alpha = .91$). These values comfortably exceed the standard psychometric cutoff of .70 for research instruments and .80 for applied diagnostics.
• Composite Reliability (CR): Calculated within structural equation modeling to account for varying item factor loadings, composite reliability indices for ATTB consistently range between .92 and .96, demonstrating that the measurement items possess minimal indicator error and high internal coherence.
• Test-Retest Stability: While designed primarily to capture situational, post-exposure evaluations, longitudinal stability tests across 48-hour delay intervals in laboratory settings reveal test-retest correlation coefficients ($r_{tt}$) between .74 and .83, indicating that while immediate attitudes experience slight decay, the underlying evaluative trajectory remains stable.

9. Factor Analysis

Psychometric evaluations employing Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) confirm the structural integrity of the ATTB instrument:

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

When subjected to principal components or maximum likelihood extraction with oblique (Promax or Oblimin) rotation alongside related advertising constructs ($A_{ad}$, credibility, involvement), ATTB items consistently load on a distinct, clean factor:

• Eigenvalues for the ATTB factor consistently exceed 3.50, accounting for 65% to 82% of the total variance among evaluative items.
• Cross-loadings on non-target factors (such as ad execution evaluation or message clarity) remain uniformly low (typically $< .25$).

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Model Fit

In the measurement models tested by Kim et al. (2009) using covariance-based SEM (e.g., AMOS or LISREL), the full measurement model encompassing ATTB demonstrated excellent goodness-of-fit indices:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): Values regularly exceed .95 (Kim et al. reported fit indices exceeding .94 to .97 across conditions).
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI / NNFI): Consistently recorded $ge .93$.
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): Values fall between .042 and .068, satisfying the threshold for close structural fit ($< .08$).
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): Values consistently remain below .050.
• Standardized Factor Loadings: Individual items exhibit loadings ranging from .82 to .94, confirming strong parameter convergence.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Construct Measured: Consumer’s immediate post-exposure attitude toward the brand featured in an advertisement.
• Administration Type: Self-report questionnaire; paper-and-pencil, computer-assisted, or mobile digital survey.
• Target Population: Adolescent and adult consumers exposed to print, video, social media, or outdoor marketing communications.
• Time Required: Approximately 1 to 2 minutes for administration.
• Format / Response Scale: Typically administered as a 7-point bipolar semantic differential scale (ranging from 1 to 7) or a 7-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly Disagree to 7 = Strongly Agree).
• Number of Items: Commonly 3 to 5 bipolar adjective pairs or statements.
• Scoring Protocol:
  • Ensure all negative poles are consistently oriented on the left (coded as 1) and positive poles on the right (coded as 7); if reverse-coded items are used, invert values ($Score = 8 – Original$).
  • Calculate a composite ATTB score by computing the arithmetic mean across all items: $ATTB = \frac{\sum Item_i}{N}$.
  • Scores range from 1.00 to 7.00. Higher mean values represent an increasingly favorable post-exposure brand evaluation.
  • For structural equation modeling, observed items serve as continuous indicators for a single latent variable ($A_b$).

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The ATTB operationalization discussed herein was formally validated and published in 2009 by Sora Kim, Eric Haley, and Gi-Yong Koo in the Journal of Advertising (Volume 38, Issue 3). The theoretical scales from which these items descend originated in the classic marketing literature of the late 1970s and 1980s (e.g., Mitchell & Olson, 1981; MacKenzie, Lutz, & Belch, 1986).

Licensing and Accessibility: The scale items as published in academic peer-reviewed literature are generally accessible for non-profit, academic, and educational research purposes under standard academic fair-use guidelines, provided appropriate attribution is granted to the original authors and journal. Commercial applications, syndicated copy testing, or inclusion in commercial software platforms may require permissions from the copyright holder of the journal, the American Academy of Advertising, and publisher Taylor & Francis Group.

12. References

• Eagly, A. H., & Chaiken, S. (1993). The psychology of attitudes. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers.
• Fornell, C., & Larcker, D. F. (1981). Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. Journal of Marketing Research, 18(1), 39–50. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224378101800104
• Kim, S., Haley, E., & Koo, G.-Y. (2009). Comparison of the paths from consumer involvement types to ad responses between corporate advertising and product advertising. Journal of Advertising, 38(3), 67–80. https://doi.org/10.1080/00913367.2009.10639344
• Lavidge, R. J., & Steiner, G. A. (1961). A model for predictive measurements of advertising effectiveness. Journal of Marketing, 25(6), 59–62. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224296102500611
• MacKenzie, S. B., & Lutz, R. J. (1989). An empirical examination of the structural antecedents of attitude toward the ad in an advertising pretesting context. Journal of Marketing, 53(2), 48–65. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224298905300204
• 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
• 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

13. Items of the Scale