Short-form infomercial and Attitudes toward Advertising

Infomercial can be categorized as an established hybrid type of hybrid messages, combining advertising and publicity concepts. There is a trend of introducing the short-version one in order to reduce cost. Short-form infomercials are produced as one type of advertisements. One question is that where short-form infomercials are effectiveness compared with other forms of advertisements. A short-form infomercial is a type of TV advertisement which begins with providing knowledge to the audience and the sponsor’s name is shown only at the end of the advertisement. It is different from a typical TV commercial which includes slight information or focuses on the product’s own information. Self-referencing is a reason that infomercials may have more positive attitudes toward the advertisement and thus the product. We operated 2x2x2 experiments, 2 products (facial masks vs card debt consolidation loans) 2 media (TV vs print) and 2 types of advertisements (i.e. short-form infomercial vs non-infomercial). The results suggested that the short-form infomercial TV ads do have positive effects on the audience’s attitudes toward the advertisement and product. However, the effects are not significant for print ads.