Characteristics of Aliterate Consumers and Their Responses to Advertising and Non-Advertising Communications

Abstract

Recent research identifies consumer aliteracy, the habit of not reading marketing-related information when engaging in consumer-related activities despite the ability to do so, as likely affecting a large population of shoppers. To date, there is scant knowledge on who aliterate consumers are and how they process written information. To aid marketers hoping to reach aliterate consumers and public policymakers looking to aid them, this work identifies key demographic, psychographic, and behavioral characteristics of the highly aliterate consumer segment. Next, this work details how consumer aliteracy affects responses to written ads. Finally, this research confirms that consumer aliteracy is a domain-specific trait in that it does not affect the processing of non-marketing text.

Keywords:

• aliterate consumers and advertising
• characteristics of aliterate consumers
• consumer aliteracy and advertising communications

Disclosure Statement

The authors report there are no competing interests to declare.