Automatic processes in consumer response to advertisements.

Abstract

Typical recall-based measures of advertising effectiveness assume conscious access to a brand name is an all or nothing response. Either a brand name is activated in memory or it is not. The present research, however, explores the notion that partial activation of a brand name can occur in consumer memory processes. The purpose of this study was to induce both partial and full activation of a brand name in memory, and then compare the effects of these different activation conditions on brand name identification and brand evaluations. The experiment employed a subjective "feeling-of-knowing" measure as well as an indirect measure of memory to assess partial activation of brand knowledge not attainable through a direct memory measure (i.e., recall). The indirect measure was reaction time for a target brand in a brand/nonbrand judgment task. Measures of brand favorability were solicited from subjects across both activation conditions. Sixty-eight student subjects were presented with a list of 50 actual advertising slogans, and had to recall their associated brand names. Correct recall of a brand name created a full-activation condition. The results confirmed that priming by the brand's slogan makes reaction times (RTs) faster for target brands than for control brands. In addition, correctly recalled brands were evaluated more favorably than unrecalled brands. Failure to recall the target brand name created a partial-activation condition. Although high subjective feelings-of-knowing were associated with faster RTs than low feelings-of-knowing, target RTs were slower overall than control RTs. Interference and inhibition were two mechanisms suggested to explain these unexpected slower RTs for targets. Moreover, when a brand was only partially activated, other cues such as subjective feelings-of-knowing formed the basis for evaluation. This study demonstrates that unless an attitude object is consciously processed, its evaluation will not be automatically activated and accessed.