Persuasive Puffery
Forthcoming, Marketing Science
40 Pages Posted: 24 Oct 2012 Last revised: 13 May 2014
Date Written: October 24, 2012
Abstract
Sellers often make explicit or implicit product claims without providing evidence. We show that such "puffery" of product attributes through pure cheap talk can be credible and help buyers make a better decision. Puffing one attribute of a product leads buyers to positively update their impression of the product on that attribute, but also to negatively update their impression of the product on other attributes. Such updating pulls in buyers who value the puffed attribute, but pushes away other buyers who value other attributes. When the initial probability of a sale is low, there are more buyers to pull in than to push away, so the seller benefits from puffery. The legal distinction that permits puffery about subjective claims, but precludes puffery about objective facts, is shown to be consistent with the differences between cheap talk and persuasion models of communication.
Keywords: cheap talk, sales talk, comparative advertising, negative advertising, unique selling point, privacy
JEL Classification: D82, L15, C72, D72
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
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