When Consumers Tune Out Advertising Messages

Consumers can get disengaged from advertisements, but there is scarce research that examines advertising disengagement. Extant research lacks a clear, comprehensive definition of advertising disengagement or a scale that measures it. Accordingly, this study focused on developing the construct of advertising disengagement and developing a scale for measurement. The scale development process encompasses six steps, with a total sample size of 1,252. The outcome of this research is an 18-item unidimensional scale for advertising disengagement that measures the individual’s passivity and detachment from advertisements. The insights from this work indicate that consumer skepticism about advertisements increases advertising disengagement, which, in turn, reduces word of mouth about the advertisements.