Music‐Evoked Images: Music that Inspires Them and Their Influences on Brand and Message Recall in the Short and the Longer Term

Prior research studies of music‐background influences on brand message recall following ad exposure have produced equivocal results, possibly due to the practice of comparing presence or absence of music. This research moves beyond the presence or absence of background music to quantify the range of impacts on brand message recall created by multiple, diverse music backgrounds. Music backgrounds differ widely and prompt music‐evoked images (MEIs), both private, personal images forged during previous listening experiences, and connoted images common to multiple listeners, motivated by structural cues. Personally relevant private MEIs may have the unintended effect of interfering with brand message processing, integration, and recall, where nonbrand images are also prompted; nonetheless, prolonged processing of those MEIs may enhance chance of association between the music and brand and message elements, offering the intended effect of facilitating later music‐cued brand message recall. Impersonal, connoted MEIs may reinforce brand and message elements, improving brand message integration and recall and avoiding processing interference; however, with briefer processing, and without prior personal associations, the music may be less likely linked to brand and message elements and less effective in facilitating later music‐cued recall. Results of an experiment using multimedia ads for multiple brands with a diverse set of music backgrounds support the hypothesized influences of private and connoted MEIs.     

Does competitive clutter in television advertising “interfere” with the recall and recognition of brand names and ad claims?

This paper contrasts the effects of competitive clutter on the recall and recognition of information from ads for familiar brands. An experiment was conducted utilizing ads for the type of relatively familiar brands typically advertised on network television; the dependent variables were recall and recognition of brand names and ad claims. Results showed that brand name recall scores were substantially reduced by competitive clutter. However, exposure to competitors' ads had little effect on ad claim recall. These data are consistent with the view that information about familiar brands will tend to be compartmentalized in memory, reducing interference effects in attribute recall. Exposure to competitive clutter had relatively little effect on recognition task performance. Suggestions for future advertising research considering competitive interference and brand familiarity issues are provided.The authors thank the editor and two anonymous reviewers for their guidance. Ray Burke. Frank Kardes, James Kellaris, Karen Machleit, Joe Mandese, and Don Schumsky provided helpful comments on various aspects of this research.     

All-Out for Victory! Magazine Advertising and the World War II Home Front

Three main factors determine the effect of advertising campaigns: message content strategy, advertising expenditure and previous consumer behaviour. This study investigates the relative strength of each of these influences. Four possible campaign targets are taken into account: campaign recall, campaign likeability, brand recall and intention to purchase the advertised brand. A study of 40 advertising campaigns, evaluated on average by 1200 consumers, shows that, after controlling for the effect of previous purchase behaviour, the effect of message content strategy is generally larger than the effect of advertising expenditure. Nevertheless, more media expenditure positively influences campaign recall and influences brand recall and purchase intention of small brands. The most effective message content strategy differs per campaign target, but overall awareness and likeability strategies are most effective. For purchase intention only, the emotions strategy can be advised. The information strategy is best avoided.     

Schema strength,processing opportunity,and the rewarding nature of incongruity resolution in advertising

Extant literature calls for more research to identify the boundary conditions as well as the process underlying the effects of ad messages that violate specific brand beliefs. This paper examines different levels of ad–brand incongruity, considering brand schema strength and processing opportunity as factors that influence the perception and the resolution of incongruity. Moreover, it provides empirical evidence for the process mediating attitudinal responses to ad–brand incongruity. Experiment 1 shows superiority for moderately incongruent ads over congruent and extremely incongruent ads which is eliminated when participants have a weak, as opposed to a strong, brand schema. Experiment 2 replicates the nonmonotonic pattern for strong, real brands but further shows that low processing opportunity favors congruent ads. Mediation analysis reveals that the psychological satisfaction experienced during the ad interpretation process has an asymmetric mediating effect, such that moderate levels of ad–brand incongruity generate highest levels of satisfaction which then leads to more positive responses.     

The effects of advertisement picture likeability on information search and brand choice

A considerable amount of advertising research has focused on the effects of affective cues such as likeable people, pictures, or music. The conclusions have been that ads relying on affective cues can influence choice only under limited conditions, when relevant brand information is either unavailable or not useful if present. However, the effects of affective cues on choice may not be as limited as previously thought. When respondents are allowed to explore diagnostic information but must do it sequentially after initial exposure to the ads with pictures varying in likeability, we hypothesize that the positive ad will influence brand choice, and this effect will be at least partially due to the initial effects of the ads on search of this information. Our study manipulated the likeability of pictures in print ads for a ??test brand,?? along with other similarly formatted ads for three other brands. Brand attribute information was not readily available but could be searched and showed clearly that the test brand was only the second-best. Results showed that the ad pictures biased search order in favor of the advertised test brand and increased choice of the second-best test brand when it was advertised with the likeable pictures. Subsequent analysis revealed that search order significantly but not completely mediated the effects of picture on choice. The results suggest that information search can be a useful, sensitive measure of the effects of advertising.     

Seeing Without Looking: The Effects of Hemispheric Functioning on Memory for Brands in Computer Games

The authors hypothesize that the effectiveness of in-game advertising is influenced by two inborn traits, bisected hemispheric functioning and physiological arousal, that are at the core of human behavior. A 2 (preattentive processing type) × 2 (arousal level) between-subjects design was employed in both Experiment 1 (well-known brand placement) and Experiment 2 (lesser-known brand placement). The results from the two experiments reveal that people show better recognition memory for in-game ads when brand names are presented peripherally in the right visual field and brand images are embedded peripherally in the left visual field. In addition, people can remember more brand ads when they experience less arousal (Experiment 1). This effect, however, is attenuated when unfamiliar brands are placed in the game (Experiment 2). Implications are discussed for further investigation.     

Music-brand congruency in highand low-cognition radio advertising

Many radio commercials use background music to accompany a message. This research examines how brand-congruent music (i.e. music that ‘fits’ the brand) will affect ‘Attitude towards the Ad’ (AAd) and ‘Attitude towards the Brand’ (ABrand), specifically when used with different types of ad copy that are more or less demanding of cognitive resources (high-cognition vs low-cognition advertising copy). In high-cognition ads, congruent music results in a more positive AAd and ABrand compared to incongruent music or no music. However, this effect is not found with low-cognition ads, where AAd (and ABrand) are similar for all three conditions of congruent music, incongruent music and no music.     

Is a website known by the banner ads it hosts?

While marketers often rely upon banner ads to generate revenues, it is unclear as to how these ads might influence consumer perceptions of host websites. In this paper, we conduct three studies to examine the effect of animation and brand advertised in a banner ad on consumers’ attitude towards a host website, as well as word-of-mouth behaviour. Results of the first study reveal that consumers are irritated with unfavourable banner brands and that irritation, in turn, negatively affects their attitude towards the host website. We demonstrate that banner brand and banner type serve as contextual cues that influence judgements of the host website due to a forward spillover effect. Findings of the second study demonstrate that a host website, corol- larily, serves as a context to negatively influence evaluations of favourable brands mainly for animated banner ads - a reciprocal spillover effect. The third study validates and extends the findings of the first study by adopting methodological pluralism through a different approach to stimuli selection and experimental manipulation. Results indicate that, while presence of animation has a negative influence on the host site and WOM behaviour when the brand advertised is an unfavourable one, it neither benefits nor hurts a host website evaluation and WOM behaviour when a favourable brand is advertised. Managerial implications of our findings are also discussed.     

Thinking pink? Consumer reactions to pink ribbons and vague messages in advertising

Many brands partner with causes in their advertising campaigns. Consumers appreciate that the brands they purchase participate in activities that contribute to a society’s well-being. This study uses copy-testing techniques to evaluate the number and types of thoughts and brand attitudes in the presence and absence of cause-related messages. Individuals saw an ad for one of two products. None of the ads stated the brand’s financial support to the cause, which is representative of many messages today. People viewing the Dansko ads with the pink ribbon generated significantly fewer thoughts than those viewing the ad without the pink ribbon. For the Fitbit ads, more thoughts were generated for the ad with the pink ribbon than the ad without the pink ribbon. The Fitbit ad with the pink ribbon and support message generated fewer positive and negative thoughts but more neutral thoughts that questioned the brand/cause relationship. Attitudes toward the brand did not vary based on the presence or absence of the pink ribbon. People who saw ads with the pink ribbon displayed more positive attitudes toward the brands’ commitment to society and misestimated the brands’ contributions to the cause.     

Effects beyond click-through: Incidental exposure to web advertising

While Web advertising tends to be based on a direct response model, there is a growing debate about the brand building potentials of Web ads. Click-through rates (CTR) are disappointingly low, but Web ads can be effective at brand building in an environment where Web ads are outside of consumers' attentional focus. With this in mind we conducted two experiments. The first experiment examined the effects of incidental exposure to banner ads. Subjects who were incidentally exposed to banner ads reported greater priming effects induced by implicit memory, more favorable A_ad, and greater likelihood for the advertised brand to be included in a consideration set over no exposure to the ad. These effects were found without significant improvement on explicit memories (i.e. recall and recognition) and click-through intention. The second experiment to assess the conditions conducive to incidental exposure examined two advertising strategies: format (animated vs. static) and placement (congruency vs. incongruency). Findings suggest that the level of congruency between an advertised product and Webpage content play significant roles in affecting consumers' responses to incidentally exposed banner ads. This paper examines the results of these two experiments before discussing the implications for the role of Web ads on brand building and directions for future research.     

Gucci versus Old Navy: Interplay of Brand Personality and Regulatory Focus in Advertising Persuasion

The present research examines how brand personality and regulatory focus (promotion vs. prevention) interplay in affecting advertising message persuasiveness. In Experiment 1, the moderating role of brand personality with respect to regulatory focus is tested. The results show that a promotion‐framed advertising message is more persuasive for a fictitious exciting brand than is a prevention‐framed message, whereas a prevention‐framed (vs. promotion‐framed) message is more effective for a fictitious competent brand. To replicate Experiment 1 and further test the hypothesis, in Experiment 2, two real brands representing two additional brand personality dimensions (sophistication vs. sincerity) are tested and the influence of individuals’ self‐construal level is controlled. The findings reveal that individuals exposed to the sophisticated brand show a more positive attitude when the brand message is promotion framed. By contrast, individuals exposed to the sincere brand react more favorably when the brand is presented with a prevention‐framed advertising message.     

When retailers and manufacturers advertise together; examining the effect of co-operative advertising on ad reach and memorability

Retailers often feature manufacturer brands in their advertising with the aim to drive sales for those brands and, at the same time, increase in-store traffic. The adoption of such co-operative advertising strategies should reach an expanded audience base comprising of store and brand buyers. Based on empirical evidence in non-retail settings, these buyers are more likely to remember the advertising than non-buyers. This usage-bias effect implies that co-operative advertisements achieve greater cut through than would be the case if either brand advertised alone. Our paper tests this hypothesis in the context of retailer advertisements that feature manufacturer brands in the US, UK and Australia. Our results confirm that a retail brand's shoppers are more likely to recall its advertisements than non-shoppers, extending the usage-bias generalisation to a retailing context. However, while co-operative advertising does expand the buyer-base reach, any uplift in ad-memorability is negated by a reduced ability for buyers of only one of the two brands to recall the advertisement. Information overload on cognitive processing is a possible explanation for this finding, and has implications for extracting value from any investment in co-operative advertising.     

Joint Advertising and Brand Congruity: Effects on Memory and Attitudes

This research examined how brand congruity in joint advertising affects individuals’ processing of advertising messages. An experiment was conducted whereby ads promoting two congruent or incongruent brands were presented to subjects under low versus high processing load. Results showed that advertising messages for congruent brands were better remembered under both high and low processing loads. However, ads with congruent brands led to positive attitudes only when subjects’ processing resources were constrained. These findings suggest congruent brands that appear in joint ads have a clear advantage over incongruent brands. The results have both practical and theoretical implications.     

Contextual advertising in games: Impacts of game context on a player’s memory and evaluation of brands in video games

Contextual advertising is growing in digital marketing communication. Previous research on traditional media has shown that the surrounding context affects advertising effectiveness. Similarly, the context in a game may influence a player’s processing of brands advertised in that game. To examine the effects of contextual advertising in games, the present article affords two independent experiments investigating how positive and negative game contexts influence players’ memories and attitudes with respect to brands advertised via billboards in games. Drawing from literature on the limited capacity model, the authors demonstrate that positive and negative game contexts decrease brand memory since they require a high level of cognitive effort. The authors also find that varying a game context influence the perception of brands advertised in the game via the contextual priming mechanism and that positive contexts generate more positive brand attitudes than negative or neutral contexts. The findings have important implications for consumer researchers and marketers, as they indicate how contexts in games can be utilized to establish brand awareness and increase positive brand perceptions in contextual advertising using games.     

Crafting Extraordinary Stories: Decoding Luxury Brand Communications

Advertising is central to creating brand meaning by endowing brands with symbolic values and embedding them within their broader sociocultural context. This study analyzes how the symbolic meaning of luxury brands is constructed in print advertisements. In particular, the study shows how brand communications of luxury brands systematically differ from those of premium and mass-market brands. Through a comparative analysis of thematic and formal characteristics of 208 print advertising campaigns consisting of about 1,700 individual ads from the primary advertising campaigns of four luxury brands, four premium brands, and four mass-market brands, this study identifies three distinguishing factors of luxury brand communication: enrichment, distancing, and abstraction. First, luxury brand advertising enriches the communication content by using more complex campaign templates that make more frequent use of symbolism, rhetorical structures, and storytelling. Second, luxury brand advertising systematically uses distancing techniques, such as temporal, spatial, social, and hypothetical distancing. Third, luxury brand ads use higher-level discourses that allow for different interpretations of brand advertisements. Therefore, this study provides insights into the construction of brand identity in the luxury field, as well as the broader sociocultural construction of luxury and the evolution of its core symbolic constituencies.     

SMS advertising: How message relevance is linked to the attitude toward the brand?

Due to recent technological developments and widespread adoption of mobile handsets, the mobile medium has been transformed into an effective channel for brand communication. Short message service (SMS) advertising is the most primitive and widely used version of mobile marketing, yet the relevant literature still lacks consensus on how SMS ads influence consumer attitudes, and how this influence is generated. The present research aims to investigate how message relevance, the most important success factor of SMS advertising, is transformed into attitudinal reactions toward the advertised brand by introducing perceived intrusiveness and attitude toward the message as mediating variables into the relationship. Implications and future research avenues are discussed.     

Metaphor as Visual Thinking in Advertising and Its Effects: Focus on Brand Familiarity and Product Involvement

One of advertisers' favorite communication techniques is the visual metaphor. In fact, metaphor usage perennially increases in ad images. This study, which looks at consumers with varying levels of brand familiarity and product involvement, investigates how their attitudes and purchase intentions of are influenced by the persuasive effects of visual metaphors in various advertising conditions. The findings reveal that consumers' attitudes and purchase intentions are enhanced more by visual metaphor-based ads than nonmetaphor-based ads when the advertised product is in a low-involvement product category. Nonmetaphorical ads are found to have a more positive influence with high-involvement products than do metaphorical ads. The results show a significant three-way interaction effect. When the advertised product is in a low-involvement product category, visual metaphors lead to favorable brand evaluations and higher purchase intentions in the ads for a low-familiarity brand. However, nonmetaphors are more persuasive than visual metaphors only for the low familiarity brand in a high-involvement product category. Theoretical and practical implications are addressed in the discussion.     

Subliminal Embeds in Print Advertising: A Challenge to Advertisng Ethics

A sample of adult men and women was exposed to both comparison and individual brand advertisements under controlled conditions. Recall measurements were made for the brands being advertised on an immediate basis and twenty-four hours after exposure to the advertisements. Since different product classifications were promoted in the study, several implications are possible concerning the recall effectiveness of each type of advertisement and product brand.     

Decreasing advertising interference: The impact of comparable differences on consumer memory in competitive advertising environments

This study investigates the structural alignment processes in reducing memory interference in a competitive advertising context. In particular, an experimental study is carried out to understand how alignable (i.e., comparable) and nonalignable (i.e., noncomparable) attributes influence ad claim recall at differing levels of competitive ads. Findings indicate that recall of alignable attributes is higher than that of nonalignable attributes in the presence of ads for competing brands. Results from the study also suggest that nonalignable attribute recall decreases as the number of ads featuring competing brands increases from zero to two, whereas alignable attribute recall is not affected by increasing the level of competitive ads. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Audio and Visual Distractions and Implicit Brand Memory: A Study of Video Game Players

Utilizing a computerized racing game, the experiment investigates the influence of sensory distractions on implicit brand memory. The results suggest that auditory distraction inhibits retrieval of implicit brand memory, but visual distraction causes no significant effect. The effects of the character's sensory distractions appear only for familiar brands, probably because relatively less attention enhances the interference on implicit memory. Comparatively, novel unfamiliar brands attract more attention, which nulls the character's sensory distraction. Therefore, relatively higher distraction effects on implicit memory occur for familiar brands.