The effects of openness on attitude toward the ad, attitude toward the brand, and brand beliefs in Dutch magazine ads

In recent decades, magazine advertisers have used an increasing number of open ads. Open ads do not guide consumers towards a specific interpretation as traditional ads do, and they require more effort to decipher. An experiment was carried out to determine the effects of ad openness on the attitude towards the ad, brand beliefs, the attitude towards the brand, and the moderating role of ease of comprehension on the attitude towards the ad. We also assessed the effects of openness in relation to an individual's need for cognition. As expected, openness was found to have an overall negative effect on the attitude towards the ad, brand beliefs, and the attitude towards the brand. The negative effect of openness was related to the difficulty participants experience searching for an interpretation. Contrary to expectations, however, need for cognition did not moderate the effects of openness on the attitude towards the ad and the ability to interpret open ads.