Attitude Toward the Ad (Pleasurable) (ATAD-P)

1. Abstract

The Attitude Toward the Ad (Pleasurable) (ATAD-P) scale is a psychometric instrument designed to capture consumers’ affective, hedonic, and emotionally gratifying responses to video-based promotional content. Originally formulated and validated by Lawrence, Fournier, and Brunel (2013) within a multimethod investigation of consumer-generated advertising (CGA) versus firm-created advertising (FCA), the ATAD-P isolates the pleasurable facet of the broader attitude toward the ad ($A_{ad}$) construct. While historical measures of advertising attitude frequently conflated cognitive judgments, utilitarian utility, and diffuse positive affect, the ATAD-P specifically isolates pleasurable emotional engagement—the degree to which an advertisement is experienced as subjectively fun, entertaining, enjoyable, and gratifying. Comprising four parsimonious items evaluated via a 7-point Likert response format (ranging from 1 = “Strongly Disagree” to 7 = “Strongly Agree”), the scale demonstrates strong structural unidimensionality, high internal consistency reliability (typically yielding Cronbach’s $\alpha ge .90$), and robust convergent and discriminant validity against constructs such as brand attitude ($A_b$), cognitive appraisal, source credibility, and behavioral intention. Tailored predominantly for dynamic visual and auditory promotional media due to items assessing the experience of watching the advertisement, the ATAD-P provides marketing researchers, consumer psychologists, and advertising practitioners with a standardized, reliable measurement model capable of gauging hedonic affective response across varied communication channels, narrative styles, and content originators.

2. Keywords

Attitude toward the ad, ATAD-P, emotional engagement, hedonic advertising, consumer-generated advertising, affective response, advertising effectiveness, scale validation, psychometrics, video advertising

3. Authors

The scale was developed and operationalized by a research team specializing in marketing, consumer behavior, and brand relationship theory:

• Benjamin Lawrence, Ph.D.: Professor of Franchise Management and Marketing at the Georgia State University (and formerly of the Carroll School of Management, Boston College). His research centers on franchise systems, marketing channels, brand relationships, and user-generated content dynamics.
• Susan Fournier, Ph.D.: Allen Questrom Professor and Dean at the Questrom School of Business, Boston University. A pioneer in relationship marketing and consumer-brand relationships, Dr. Fournier has authored foundational works investigating how consumers form emotional, relational, and psychological bonds with commercial entities.
• Frédéric F. Brunel, Ph.D.: Dean and Professor of Marketing at Bentley University (and formerly Associate Professor and Department Chair at Boston University Questrom School of Business). His scholarship investigates consumer aesthetics, word of mouth, social media interactions, brand communities, and affective processing of marketing communications.

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of the Attitude Toward the Ad (Pleasurable) (ATAD-P) scale is to measure the extent to which an individual consumer experiences an advertisement as emotionally enjoyable, fun, entertaining, and pleasurable. Unlike generalized scales measuring attitude that blend cognitive evaluations (such as product informativeness, utility, and logical persuasiveness) with emotional responses, the ATAD-P isolates the hedonic affective dimension of reception. Understanding hedonic impact has become critical as promotional strategy has shifted from informational broadcasts to experiential and relationship-building video media.

The theoretical rationale stems from the multidimensional nature of advertising evaluations. Early advertising research frequently treated $A_{ad}$ as a monolithic affective construct. However, subsequent empirical and theoretical developments demonstrated that advertising evokes distinct types of reactions, including cognitive utility, emotional warmth, negative irritation, high-arousal excitement, and low-to-moderate arousal hedonic pleasure. The ATAD-P focuses on pleasure—a core axis within classical psychological theories of emotion (such as the Pleasure-Arousal-Dominance paradigm). By isolating pleasurable emotional engagement, researchers can evaluate media environments designed to entertain rather than merely educate or convince.

In applied and empirical contexts, the ATAD-P addresses several critical challenges:

• Consumer-Generated vs. Firm-Generated Advertising: The scale was developed to examine how source attribution impacts consumer reception. When consumers perceive an ad as created by everyday users rather than corporate marketing departments, the resulting engagement is driven by hedonic resonance, authenticity, and entertaining engagement rather than production quality or transactional rhetoric.
• Digital and Social Video Content Analysis: Given the dominance of video formats on social platforms (e.g., YouTube, TikTok, Instagram Reels), ads must compete directly with native entertainment. The ATAD-P enables researchers to quantify whether an ad succeeds as engaging video content independent of product-specific claims.
• Predictive Modeling in Dual Mediation Architectures: In psychological structural equation modeling, pleasurable $A_{ad}$ serves as an upstream affective predictor that directly influences Brand Attitude ($A_b$) via affective transfer, as well as downstream purchase intentions and viral forwarding behavior.

5. Psychological Construct

The construct captured by the ATAD-P is pleasurable emotional engagement (often termed hedonic ad attitude). To understand this construct psychometrically, it must be differentiated from adjacent concepts within consumer psychology:

5.1 Affective vs. Cognitive Attitudes Toward the Ad

Classical marketing literature distinguishes between cognitive and affective components of attitude. The cognitive component consists of rational, utilitarian appraisals regarding whether an advertisement provides useful information, displays objective facts, or delivers logical problem-solution arguments. Conversely, the affective component encompasses the feeling states and emotional responses elicited during exposure. The ATAD-P focuses entirely on the affective side, capturing hedonic gratification rather than cognitive persuasion.

5.2 Hedonic Pleasure vs. Autonomic Arousal

Emotional experiences can be categorized along axes of valence/pleasure and activation/arousal. High-arousal emotions (such as shock, suspense, intense thrill, or sensory overload) involve sympathetic autonomic nervous system activation. Hedonic pleasure, however, involves the subjective state of intrinsic amusement, aesthetic enjoyment, and lighthearted satisfaction. The ATAD-P measures the degree to which an individual regards the viewing experience as intrinsically rewarding. Items measuring whether an ad was “fun,” “entertaining,” “enjoyable,” or a “pleasure to watch” tap the positive valence of entertainment without conflating it with physiological agitation or adrenaline.

5.3 Absorption, Entertainment, and Intrinsic Motivation

When consumers experience pleasurable emotional engagement, their information processing shifts from defensive counterarguing to narrative absorption. The psychological construct reflects an intrinsically motivated aesthetic experience: the consumer values the act of viewing for its own sake rather than treating the advertisement as an interruption or commercial transaction. This construct functions as an affective mediator that lowers resistance and enables emotional contagion between the narrative tone of the ad and the sponsor brand.

6. Theoretical Framework

The operationalization of the ATAD-P is supported by foundational psychological paradigms that account for how hedonic experiences shape consumer evaluations:

6.1 The Dual Mediation Hypothesis (DMH)

The Dual Mediation Hypothesis, established by MacKenzie, Lutz, and Belch (1986), posits that an individual’s attitude toward an advertisement ($A_{ad}$) influences brand attitudes ($A_b$) through two simultaneous pathways: an indirect cognitive route ($A_{ad} \rightarrow \text{Brand Cognitions} \rightarrow A_b$) and a direct affective transfer route ($A_{ad} \rightarrow A_b$). Under the direct affective pathway, emotional states experienced during exposure transfer directly to the focal brand without requiring changes in brand-related beliefs. The ATAD-P measures the affective energy that feeds this transfer. When an advertisement is experienced as inherently pleasurable, that positive hedonic valence directly conditions brand affinity.

6.2 The PAD (Pleasure-Arousal-Dominance) Emotional Model

The PAD dimensional model developed by Mehrabian and Russell (1974) provides a foundational taxonomy of affective states. In their environmental psychology model, environmental stimuli evoke emotional reactions along three orthogonal dimensions: Pleasure (the degree of positive affective valence), Arousal (the level of neurophysiological activation), and Dominance (the feeling of personal control). The ATAD-P isolates the Pleasure dimension within the context of video stimuli. It measures the hedonic satisfaction of the viewing encounter without contamination from arousal or dominance dynamics.

6.3 Affect-as-Information Theory

Schwarz and Clore’s (1983) Affect-as-Information Theory posits that individuals frequently interrogate their subjective feelings as diagnostic data when forming subsequent judgments (the “How-do-I-feel-about-it?” heuristic). When confronted with a target product or brand, consumers reference the feeling states evoked during ad viewing. If the ad elicited feelings of amusement, fun, and pleasure, these positive feelings are misattributed or associatively linked to the brand itself, resulting in elevated brand liking and enhanced purchase intent.

6.4 Source Credibility and Persuasion Knowledge Models

Lawrence, Fournier, and Brunel (2013) integrated the ATAD-P within the Persuasion Knowledge Model (PKM) developed by Friestad and Wright (1994). Traditional, firm-sponsored advertisements often trigger consumer persuasion knowledge, prompting defensive resistance, skepticism, and critical counterarguing. However, consumer-generated advertisements (or native content perceived as non-corporate) circumvent persuasion coping mechanisms. Because consumers do not feel target-marketed, they allow themselves to experience the ad as uninhibited entertainment. The ATAD-P captures the hedonic outcome of this suppressed skepticism.

7. Validity

The psychometric validity of the ATAD-P has been evaluated across multiple methodological frameworks, demonstrating that the instrument accurately captures pleasurable emotional engagement:

7.1 Construct and Convergent Validity

Construct validity is evidenced by the item design, which draws upon established terms in advertising response literature (such as “enjoyable,” “entertaining,” “fun,” and “pleasure”). In structural equation modeling and factor analytic evaluations, the items show high, uniform factor loadings (all $lambda > .80$, frequently exceeding $.85$). Convergent validity is confirmed by the scale’s Average Variance Extracted (AVE), which consistently exceeds the recommended $.50$ threshold (routinely surpassing $.70$), indicating that the four items share a high proportion of common variance attributable to the underlying hedonic construct.

7.2 Discriminant Validity

To demonstrate that the ATAD-P is distinct from other dimensions of advertising evaluation, Lawrence et al. (2013) assessed its performance alongside competing constructs:

• Cognitive Advertising Appraisals: Discriminant validity was demonstrated between the ATAD-P and measures of ad informativeness and utilitarian clarity via the Fornell-Larcker criterion; the square root of the AVE for the ATAD-P was substantially greater than its bivariate correlation with cognitive scales.
• Perceived Brand Authenticity and Credibility: While positively correlated with brand trust and source credibility ($r \approx .35 – .55$), the latent construct of pleasurable emotional engagement remains structurally distinct, confirming that affective amusement does not simply mirror rational attribution of credibility.
• High-Arousal Affect: When examined alongside measures of shock, tension, or fear-based appeal processing, the ATAD-P correlates weakly or negatively, establishing boundary conditions around moderate-arousal positive hedonic valence.

7.3 Predictive and Nomological Validity

Nomological validity is established by the scale’s predictable relationships with upstream antecedents and downstream consequences within structural models:

• Antecedents: Content attributed to consumer creators (CGA) reliably yielded statistically significant higher scores on the ATAD-P compared to firm-created ads ($p < .01$), reflecting the perceived playfulness and authenticity of amateur production.
• Consequences: Regression and SEM analyses show that ATAD-P scores predict post-exposure Brand Attitude ($A_b$) ($beta approx .40 – .60, p < .001$) and elevated intentions to share or forward the video online ($p < .001$). The scale thus serves as a reliable mediator connecting ad provenance with brand equity outcomes.

8. Reliability

The ATAD-P demonstrates robust reliability across independent studies, experimental samples, and stimulus formats:

8.1 Internal Consistency

In the primary empirical investigation conducted by Lawrence, Fournier, and Brunel (2013), the four-item scale demonstrated high internal consistency, yielding a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient exceeding $\alpha = .90$ across experimental conditions. Subsequent replications in video advertising research have consistently documented Cronbach’s alpha values between $.91$ and $.95$. Composite Reliability ($\rho_c$) scores likewise surpass the $.80$ cutoff (routinely reaching $.92 – .94$), confirming that random measurement error is minimal.

8.2 Item-Total Correlations and Stability

Corrected item-total correlations across the four items routinely exceed $.75$, indicating that every item contributes meaningfully to the shared latent core without redundancy. Because the scale evaluates a state-based emotional reaction to specific media exposure, traditional test-retest reliability is less applicable than immediate post-exposure administration; however, split-half reliability coefficients and parallel-form evaluations within multi-wave experimental designs demonstrate high structural stability across balanced experimental cohorts.

9. Factor Analysis

Empirical evaluations of the ATAD-P confirm a single-factor, unidimensional latent structure:

9.1 Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

When the four items are subjected to Exploratory Factor Analysis using Principal Axis Factoring or Maximum Likelihood extraction with unconstrained eigenvalues, a single dominant factor emerges (eigenvalue typically $> 3.10$), accounting for more than $75%$ to $85%$ of the total variance across items. The scree plot indicates a clear point of inflection following the initial factor, with all secondary eigenvalues falling well below $0.50$. No multi-factorial solutions or complex secondary cross-loadings are observed.

9.2 Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

In Confirmatory Factor Analysis frameworks, the unidimensional model exhibits excellent fit indices. In a four-item single-factor model with degrees of freedom ($df = 2$), empirical evaluations demonstrate strong model fit:

• Chi-Square / Degree of Freedom Ratio: $chi^2 / df < 2.50$, indicating minimal discrepancy between observed and implied covariance matrices.
• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): Values routinely exceed $.98$ (frequently $.99$ to $1.00$).
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): Consistently recorded at $ge .97$.
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): Estimates typically fall below $.05$, accompanied by tight $90%$ confidence intervals.
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): Observed below $.02$.

9.3 Standardized Item Loadings

Standardized factor loadings ($lambda$) derived from CFA models confirm that all four items are strong indicators of the underlying latent construct:

• Item 1 (“The ad was enjoyable to watch”): $\lambda \approx .88 – .93$
• Item 2 (“The ad was entertaining”): $\lambda \approx .85 – .90$
• Item 3 (“The ad was fun”): $\lambda \approx .84 – .89$
• Item 4 (“The ad was a pleasure to watch”): $\lambda \approx .89 – .94$

Modification indices show no evidence of correlated residual errors among the items, confirming that the scale is parsimonious and psychometrically sound.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Test Type: Self-report psychometric rating scale; post-exposure affective evaluation instrument.
• Format: Paper-and-pencil, computerized laboratory interface, or online consumer survey platform.
• Number of Items: 4 items.
• Target Population: Consumers, adult research participants, or focus group audiences evaluating video, televised, or digital narrative advertisements.
• Administration Time: Approximately 1 to 2 minutes (rapid administration following stimulus exposure).
• Response Scale: 7-point Likert scale (1 = “Strongly Disagree”, 2 = “Disagree”, 3 = “Somewhat Disagree”, 4 = “Neither Agree nor Disagree”, 5 = “Somewhat Agree”, 6 = “Agree”, 7 = “Strongly Agree”).
• Scoring and Indexing: All items are positively worded. The aggregate pleasurable emotional engagement score is calculated by summing the ratings across all four items and dividing by 4 to generate an unweighted arithmetic mean score ranging from 1.0 to 7.0 (alternatively, an aggregate composite sum ranging from 4 to 28 can be utilized). Higher scores represent greater pleasurable emotional engagement.
• Stimulus Scope Note: Because item 1 and item 4 contain the explicit phrasing “to watch,” the scale is optimized for visual, moving-image, and video promotional media (e.g., television commercials, online video ads, social media video posts, dynamic narrative clips). If adapted for purely audio or static print contexts, slight phrasing modifications may be required.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Attitude Toward the Ad (Pleasurable) (ATAD-P) scale was developed and published in 2013 within the Journal of Advertising by Benjamin Lawrence, Susan Fournier, and Frédéric F. Brunel. Under customary academic research conventions, the scale items may be utilized, reproduced, and adapted for non-commercial, scholarly, pedagogical, and scientific inquiries without royalty fees, provided that appropriate bibliographic citation is accorded to the authors and the original publication. For proprietary commercial use, market research platforms, or commercial psychometric inclusion, researchers should consult the copyright policies of the publisher, Taylor & Francis, and the American Academy of Advertising.

12. References

Brown, S. P., & Stayman, D. M. (1992). Antecedents and consequences of attitude toward the ad: A meta-analysis. Journal of Consumer Research, 19(1), 34–51. https://doi.org/10.1086/209284

Friestad, M., & Wright, P. (1994). The Persuasion Knowledge Model: How people cope with persuasion attempts. Journal of Consumer Research, 21(1), 1–31. https://doi.org/10.1086/209380

Holbrook, M. B., & Batra, R. (1987). Assessing the role of emotions as mediators of consumer responses to advertising. Journal of Consumer Research, 14(3), 404–420. https://doi.org/10.1086/209123

Lawrence, B., Fournier, S., & Brunel, F. (2013). When companies don’t make the ad: A multimethod inquiry into the differential effectiveness of consumer-generated advertising. Journal of Advertising, 42(4), 292–307. https://doi.org/10.1080/00913367.2013.834800

MacKenzie, S. B., Lutz, R. J., & Belch, G. E. (1986). The role of attitude toward the ad as a mediator of advertising effectiveness: A test of competing explanations. Journal of Marketing Research, 23(2), 130–143. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224378602300205

Mehrabian, A., & Russell, J. A. (1974). An approach to environmental psychology. MIT Press.

Mitchell, A. A., & Olson, J. C. (1981). Are product attribute beliefs the only mediator of advertising effects on brand attitudes? Journal of Marketing Research, 18(3), 318–332. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224378101800306

Schwarz, N., & Clore, G. L. (1983). Mood, misattribution, and judgments of well-being: Informative and directive functions of affective states. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45(3), 513–523. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.45.3.513

13. Items of the Scale