ABSTRACT
This first of two articles argues that a type of message content used frequently in advertising and other promotional communication has been ignored in research and public policy on consumer information. It is called antifactual content because, rather than being informative, i.e., a true fact claim, about the product or service, it is either noninformative, providing no fact at all about the item, or misinformative, providing a false fact about it. Consideration of such claims should be incorporated into analysis of consumer information.
