• Ars Technica, Wednesday, September 19, 2007 11:01 AM

Direct marketers sometimes like to trick consumers with confusing sales pitches, but a new study says that ambiguous advertising adversely affects sales. However, instead of dropping the confusing message, the study urges marketers to boost sales by following up difficult-to-interpret pitches with the same offer, but using clearer language.

The Journal of Consumer Research report coins the sales technique "disrupt then reframe" (DTR). For example, first calling five dollars "five hundred pennies" and then following that message up with another one reading, "That's $5--a bargain!" The report says that in some cases, DTR nearly doubled sales compared to reframe alone. Why? Two-part DTR ad contains a follow-up message. For another, the second message disarms those who may dislike ambiguity but pay attention to confusing messages. Apparently, the subset of the population that has difficulty with ambiguity has a so-called "need for cognitive closure," which lowers their resistance to sales pitches.

The DTR research cited in the report came from an offline experiment, although its principles could easily be applied to the Web. The research team set up a candy sale at a supermarket in the Netherlands using such a pitch. The DTR technique actually scored a 65 percent success rate, compared to a 45 percent success rate for pitches without a disruption.

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