Abstract
This study examines if brand-incongruent advertising (ads which are incongruent with established brand associations) can break through the competitive advertising clutter. Challenging the popular belief in maintaining consistency in brand communications, we show that brand-incongruent ads can lead to an increase in attention, more sophisticated processing of brand associations, better ad and brand recall, as well as improved ad attitudes. Due to the competitive context, however, brand attitudes and purchase intentions remained unchanged. The study contributes to research on competitive advertising and information incongruity, in addition to having practical implications for advertising well-established brands.