This research seeks to determine if there is a third-person effect in the realm of controversial product advertising. A questionnaire was designed based on previous research and distributed to a convenience sample of college students at the University of Central Florida. Participants were asked to rate their perceived levels of personal offense to product categories as well as the expected levels of other groups of people. The results show that there is indeed a significant third-person effect recognized for all product categories except for racial extremist groups. A first-person effect was shown to be present for the category of racial extremist groups. This research also suggests that a concealed third-person effect may have been present in previous studies of this nature that obtained high levels of offense attributed to the self. Discussions of the findings, implications for marketers and advertisers, limitations to the study, as well as suggestions for future research are also posited.

Detta arbete inspirerades av att ha observerat reklamkampanjer som fått väldigt stor spridning till följd av att de uppmärksammats pga. att konsumenter har ogillat eller gillat budskapet i kampanjen vilket gett upphov till diskussioner muntligen eller online. Denna undersökning syftar till att undersöka hur faktorer som kön och ålder kan påverka konsumenters intryck av kontroversiell reklam och hur kontroversiell reklam kan påverka konsumenternas attityd till varumärken som använt sig av kontroversiell reklam. Studien undersöker även sannolikheten att konsumenter sprider positiv eller negativ word of mouth/elektronisk word of mouth om ett varumärke som använt sig av kontroversiell reklam.   Undersökningen genomfördes med en enkät med standardiserade svar där den insamlade datan sedan analyserades med Chi2 test, bivariat korrelationsanalys samt multipel regressionsanalys. I undersökningen kunde respondenterna ta ställning till fem positiva och fem negativa adjektiv, kopplade till en reklambild. Analysen indikerade att kvinnor var både mer negativa och mindre positiva till kontroversiell reklam, åtminstone för de utföranden som testades i studien, därtill visade studien att äldre var mindre positiva till kontroversiell reklam. Slutligen indikerade studien att konsumenters attityd till ett varumärke påverkas i enlighet med dess intryck av reklamen, dvs. att om dess intryck var negativt kommer de sprida ett negativt omdöme. Detta samband gällde även för word of mouth. / This study was inspired from observing ads that stirredup controversy and thereby got a lot of attention from consumers.The purpose of this study was to investigate how factors like gender and age may affectconsumers impression of controversial advertisements, but also to investigate how controversial advertisements may affect consumers attitudes towards brands that have used advertisements that were deemed as controversial. Lastly,the study investigates the probability that consumers will spread word of mouth/electronicword of mouth about the brands. The study was conducted through a survey with standardized answers and the data was analyzed with a Chi2 test, bivariate correlation analysis,and multiple regression analysis. The analysis indicated that women were more negative and less positive towards controversial advertisement than men were, atleastwithin the categories that were tested in the study. Furthermore, the study indicated that consumers attitudes towards a brand will be affected in the same way as the consumers impression of the controversial ad. Finally, results indicated that the probability for WOM is also affected in the same way as the consumers impression of the controversial advertisement.