Thursday, January 2, 2014

How Social Factors Affect the Absorption of Information Presented by Advertising Campaigns

The research topic I have selected is how social factors affect the absorption of information presented by advertising campaigns.  This topic is of interest to advertisers looking to effectively reach a desired audience.  According to a study done by Puntoni and Tavassoli, “top-of-mind recall is one of the most commonly used measures of advertising effectiveness” (  294).   Social context is thought to affect the recall memory of participants viewing advertisements, thus making the ad itself more or less effective to its target audience.  Understanding how social factors influence ad recall can help advertisers create a more effective campaign to reach their desired audience more effectively.
            The first article I reviewed on the subject is Social Context and Advertising Memory by Stefano Puntoni and Nader T. Tavassoli.  This article examines the influence of the presence of others on advertising memory.  Three separate experiments were conducted to conclude their findings.
            Experiment 1 results were observed from a sample audience consisting of 67 female students who participated in the study in return for monetary reward.  Participants were met in a waiting room by a male experimenter who led them to the room in which the study took place.  Participants in the “alone” condition were left in the room alone for the duration of the study.  Participants in the “social condition” completed the lexical decision task in the presence of a male confederate in his mid-20s.  He was introduced to participants a research assistant who was to observe them performing the task.  In the participatory study the confederate was introduced as a fellow participant, was seated next to the other participants and used an inactive keyboard.  Direct social interaction in this scenario was discouraged.  Participants were presented with instructions on a computer screen, and told the focal goal of the study was to judge as quickly and as accurately as possible whether a series of target words were real or invented and to indicate their decision using two keys, marked in green and red.  Each word (32 words, 32 non words) was displayed for 2 seconds in random order.  All participants in all conditions completed the remainder of the study alone.  They were presented with a filler task lasting seven minutes, followed by a memory test where they were asked to recall the real words from the lexical decision test.  The original 32 words and 32 matched distracters were displayed one at a time in random order.  Participants were asked to indicate whether they had seen the word during the previous task.  At the end the participants were asked about the purpose of the study and the role of the confederate.
            Experiment 2 was designed to assess the influence of social context in a marketing setting and to reexamine the effect of social context on recognition memory.  Fifty-five male undergraduate students were chosen to participate for monetary reward.  After the elimination of subjects for various reasons, 53 participants were left: 27 in the alone condition and 26 in the social condition.  This study used 20 print advertisements that contained multiple sources of information applicable to social desirability.  Brand names used were nonsensical.  Ten ads were selected to have low applicability to social desirability.  Out of the ten with high applicability, 5 indicated how the product could help the consumer avoid making a bad impression on others.  Five indicated how the product could help the consumer make a good impression on others.  The assignment of male participants to conditions followed the procedure of Experiment 1 with a female observational confederate.  Participants were told to rate each ad on a 5-point scale, from “I disliked it very much” to “I liked it very much”.  A cardboard screen was placed around the keyboard to prevent the confederate from observing the responses in order to reduce evaluation apprehension.  Participants were exposed to ads for 15 seconds each in random order.
            Experiment 3 was designed to replicate the two-way interaction between viewing context and stimulus type for free recall and semantic recognition measure.  The study involved 86 undergrad students from an introductory marketing class who took part in the study in return for course credit.  A sample size of 78 (33 females and 45 males) was derived from the group, 39 in each scenario condition.  They were randomly assigned to conditions and provided with an envelope containing written instructions and other materials.  Participants first read the cover story.  As part of the “visualization technique” they were asked to imagine a doctor’s waiting room scenario then to browse four test pages of the magazine.  The first paragraph of the magazine provided a reassuring reason for the participant’s visit to the doctor, and a photograph of the waiting room was included to strengthen the manipulation effect.  The two scenario conditions were identical to the previous studies except the 3rd paragraph that described the social scenario.  It described the alone scenario condition by describing the absence of other patients in the waiting room, and the social scenario as the presence of four other people and descriptions of their appearances and actions.  Participants were asked to imagine how it would feel to be in that situation then to browse the four test pages in the magazine, spending approximately 30 seconds on each page, while imagining being in the waiting room.  They were then asked to replace the magazine, take the answer booklet and answer some questions about the magazine.  The computer then introduced the recall task followed by the recognition measures.
            Experiment 1’s results concluded significant interactions between viewing context and stimulus type for reaction times and recall memory.  It found participants reacted faster to and recalled more words applicable to social desirability when in the presence of another person.  Performance on the goal of providing speeded responses was impeded by the alternative goal of making a good impression on others.  They concluded that social context plays a lesser role for recognition than for recall.
            Experiment 2 found that participants recalled more product categories from advertisements applicable to social desirability than from neutral ads.  There were no significant effects involving viewing context or stimulus type for recognition.  It also mirrored the memory results of Experiment 1.  It concluded that participants on the social condition were more likely than participants in the alone condition to recall product categories presented in ads applicable to social desirability.
            Experiment 3 found that across all dependent variables, no significant gender differences were observed.  Participants in the social scenario condition were found to remember more product categories than in the alone scenario.  Also, more advertisements pertaining to social desirability were recalled compared to neutral advertisements.  This experiment successfully replicated the two-way interaction between viewing context stimulus type for free recall and a semantic recognition measure.  In contrast, as in Experiments 1 and 2, the two perceptual recognition measures in Experiment 3 were not sensitive to social context.  This experiment concludes that social context affects memory for social desirability advertisements through semantic processes but not through perceptual processes.
            The second article I chose to examine is titled “Don’t Interrupt Me Now: Media ‘Transportation’ and Advertising Effectiveness” by Echo Wen-Wan, based on the research of Jing Wang and Bobby J. Calder.  This article examines how “transportation”, which is a term that describes being absorbed into the narrative flow of a story, affects advertising effectiveness.  Previous research on transportation experience has shown that a high level of transportation into narrative flow leads to more changes in story-related beliefs and produces a pleasurable experience.  When relating to advertising effectiveness, a high level of transportation into an ad leads to a more favorable brand evaluation and greater intentions to purchase the product.  This study hypothesizes that if an ad does not interfere with the transportation process into the media content, the positive experience will lead to greater advertising effectiveness, and vise-versa if the ad intrudes.  Two experiments were conducted to test this theory.
            In the first experiment, 56 participants read a 4-page book excerpt about a college life situation, which included a full-page ad for Wendy’s.  Half of the participants read the ad after the second page of the story, interrupting their transportation experience.  The other half read the ad after the last page of the story, which did not interfere. 
            In the second experiment, 50 undergrad students viewed an ad for fictitious brand of bottled water while reading a three-page short story.  The ad was positioned between the second and third pages of the story in all circumstances.  Before reading the story, half of the participants were told they would be in charge of getting beverages for a social event.  In this condition, viewing the ad for the bottled water was particularly relevant to participants goals, hence they were more likely to process the ad more deeply while reading the story, making the ad more intrusive to their transportation experience.  The other half were told they would be getting snacks for a social event, making the ad less relevant to their goals, thus making the ad less intrusive to their transportation experience.
            Results for the first experiment supported the hypothesis.  They showed when the ad was presented at the end of the story, highly transported participants had a higher evaluation of Wendy’s than those who were less transported.  When the ad was inserted in the middle of the story, participants who were more transported had a lower evaluation of Wendy’s than those who were less transported.
            Results for the second experiment also supported the hypothesis.  These results concluded when the ad was irrelevant to the participants’ goals, they were equally favorable towards the bottled water regardless of their transportation experience.  However, when the ad was relevant to their goal, participants who were more transported showed less favorable attitudes towards the bottled water than those who were less transported.

            The research question I have formulated that pertains to both articles mentioned above states, “How could advertisers make ads in magazines more effective?”  The first article shows that the social context in which ads are viewed affects the overall absorption and effectiveness of information from the advertisement.  Advertisers should make ads applicable to social desirability, because they are proven to have a higher recall than neutral advertisements.  The second article suggests that advertisements placed in the middle of an engaging text, such as a short story, generate a less favorable impression because they interrupt the reader’s transportation experience.  To avoid this negative effect and generate a more favorable impression of their product, advertisers should place ads before or after involved text features.

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