Long Live Creative Media Choice

Building on associative learning theory, we hypothesize that a creative media choice (i.e., creatively choosing a novel medium to implicitly communicate the message) produces more persisting brand associations than ad placement in a traditional medium. Furthermore, we argue that it could serve as a cue that spontaneously reminds consumers of the brand, and may transfer new associations onto the brand, even after the brand is no longer featured in it. We test the effects of a creative media choice versus ad placement in a traditional medium (previously only tested on fictitious brands with scenarios), employing real brands and incidental exposure to real media in two experiments. The results support the hypotheses.