Attention, Attitude, and Affect in Response To Advertising

Eddie M. Clark, Timothy C. Brock, David W. Stewart

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781317783374
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Consumer Behaviour
• Index: Business

Linked from the days of their origins, psychology and advertising developed as independent disciplines at almost the same time in the late nineteenth century. Providing an important arena in which psychologists have tested methods and theories, advertising has been a stimulus for research and development in such diverse specialties as learning and behavioral decision theory, psychometrics, perception, and social and mathematical psychology. Psychology, in turn, has contributed a wide assortment of tools, theories, and techniques to the practice of advertising. These contributions have found their place in virtually all areas of advertising practice -- stimulating creativity, evaluating the creative product, and informing the scheduling of media. Purposely eclectic, this volume presents new issues in consumer psychology and advertising such as the relationship between gender differences, cortical organization and advertising; new approaches to old issues such as attention as an epiphenomenon, and meta-analysis of comparative advertising research; and new applications of consumer psychology to other fields such as examining health behavior as consumer behavior, affect and political advertising, and the relationship between advertising and eating disorders. This volume is the result of the Sixth Annual Advertising and Consumer Behavior Conference, which was designed to bring together researchers and practitioners from both psychology and advertising. Chapter contributions are made by professionals in advertising and marketing, professors in psychology and marketing departments, and psychologists who consult for advertising and marketing organizations. Thus, the chapters represent a microcosm of the type of interaction that has characterized the interface of psychology and advertising for more than a hundred years.

Chapter 1

Introduction

David W. Stewart

University of Southern California

Psychology and advertising developed as independent disciplines at almost the same point in time, the late 19th century. The two disciplines also have been linked from the days of their origins. Advertising has provided an important arena in which psychologists have tested their methods and theories. Advertising has been a stimulus for research and theory development in such diverse psychological specialties as learning theory, psychology, psychometrics, mathematical psychology, perception, and behavioral decision theory. Psychology, in turn, has contributed a wide assortment of tools, theories, and techniques to the practice of advertising. These contributions have found their place in virtually all areas of advertising practice. They stimulate creativity, help evaluate the creative product, and inform the scheduling of media.

Given the long and close association of the two disciplines, it was inevitable that various conferences and publications would arise to facilitate and archive their interface. The present volume is the result of one such conference, the Sixth Annual Advertising and Consumer Behavior Conference. This conference was designed to bring together researchers and practitioners from both psychology and advertising. The chapters contributed to this volume were contributed by advertising agency professionals, marketing professionals employed by major advertisers, university professors in both psychology and marketing departments, and psychologists who consult for advertising and marketing organizations. Thus, the chapters represent a microcosm of the type of interaction that has characterized the interface of psychology and advertising for more than 100 years.

The contributed chapters in this volume cover a wide array of topics. They include a historical perspective and a current status report. They examine attention and information processing, attitude formation and change, the role of affect, and several specific applications of psychology and advertising. The remainder of this chapter provides an outline of this volume’s organization and offers a brief introduction to the contributed chapters.

PART I—HISTORICAL AND CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES ON ADVERTISING RESEARCH

Most disciplines have historical foundations on which they build. Some disciplines are more conscious of this history than others, however. Advertising research has a rich and fascinating legacy that is all too often ignored by its current practitioners and teachers. The origins of particular concepts and measures are often ignored in contemporary research. Often these concepts and measures were the imperfect solutions to complex problems. The concepts and their imperfections are often well known, but the potentially enlightening rationale that gave rise to them are often lost. The inevitable result of this process is that, over time, researchers unknowingly retrace ground over which others have tread. Thus, it is fitting that this collection of papers should begin with a historical chapter. History and tradition must be balanced by an understanding of the present, however; thus, the first section offers a point-counterpoint.

In chapter 2, Maloney offers a unique and enlightening perspective on the history of advertising research. Advertising research, although still a relatively young domain of inquiry, has a rich legacy of more than 100 years. At least one formal research department existed within an advertising agency by 1900, and advertising or issues related to advertising have served as focal points for a significant amount of basic research in psychology, sociology, and communications throughout the 20th century. Some of the most prestigious social scientists in America have contributed directly to advertising research. Advertising research also has played a critical role in the development of marketing research in both academic institutions and corporations. Maloney traces this history with candor and humor. He also contributes his own perspective as a contributor to this history during the past 40 years.

In chapter 3, Tellis provides a review of advertising effectiveness in contemporary markets. In contrast to Maloney’s treatment of where advertising research has been, Tellis offers a view of where it is today and where it might go in the future. He offers the provocative conclusion that advertising is a far weaker influence on market behavior than it is usually thought to be. Moreover, he suggests that the effects of advertising may be far more complex and subtle than most research to date would suggest. This complexity and subtlety grows out of the myriad ways that advertising interacts with characteristics of the individual consumer, the marketplace at large, and other elements of the marketing mix.

The content of both chapters in Part I reflects the important role that psychology and psychological constructs have played and continue to play in advertising research. Tellis concludes that the single most important determinant of brand choice is an individual difference factor—brand loyalty. This factor, in turn, interacts with advertising and promotion to create a complex set of contingent outcomes. Maloney reaches a similar set of conclusions and suggests that advertising acts as “a catalyst which works among and through a nexus of mediating factors.” Maloney also points to the numerous psychologists who have directly or indirectly contributed to the contemporary understanding of how advertising works.

Chapters 2 and 3 provide a succinct overview of the current status of the psychology of advertising and how the current status came to be. The two chapters in the section address advertising in a holistic sense: advertising and advertising response are addressed as phenomena in and of themselves rather than outcomes of other processes and phenomena that contribute to them. The chapters of subsequent sections of this collection examine a number of the individual components of the response to advertising.

PART II—ATTENTION PROCESSES IN THE RESPONSE TO ADVERTISING

Part II of this collection includes four chapters that consider the important role of attention in mediating response to advertising. There is no response to advertising if there is no attention to it at some level. Thus, it is appropriate to begin consideration of the individual processes that underlie the response to advertising by focusing on attention.

Chapters 4 and 5 establish an important foundation for future research on advertising response: Attention is selective, and this selectivity is guided by personal relevance. After a number of years, in which the construct of selective attention was ignored in much of the literature on advertising and psychology, it is receiving renewed attention. It is increasingly clear that selective attention is a powerful influence on behavior in more natural contexts. Research that has failed to substantiate the construct has largely involved laboratory research designs that have forced exposure to a greater or lesser extent. More recent research in more natural exposure contexts has demonstrated consistently that individuals are highly selective in attending to the various elements of their surrounding environment (see Zillmann & Bryant, 1985, for a review of some of this recent research).

The chapters by Tolley and Pechmann and Stewart are consistent with more recent research on selective perception in other disciplines. Both examine attention in more natural exposure environments. Tolley describes a study in which relatively unobtrusive recordings of eye movements were recorded as individuals read newspapers. Analysis of these recordings demonstrated that individuals have idiosyncratic styles of readership based on individual needs and experiences. One significant finding of this research has particular relevance for the psychology of advertising. Individuals appear to read only those newspaper advertisements that have relevance to them. A quick scan of a newspaper advertisement, as measured by the length of time the eyes are fixated on it, appears to be all that is required for an individual to determine whether an advertisement is sufficiently relevant to warrant further processing. This finding is consistent with research that suggests that a preattentional process filters irrelevant information and helps the individual determine those environment elements for which information processing is worth the effort involved (Broadbent, 1977; Greenwald & Leavitt, 1984).

In chapter 5, Pechmann and Stewart report a similar finding on selective attention in the context of comparative advertising. Using a “computer magazine,” they found that advertisements for brands that people buy are more likely to be attended to than advertisements for brands that they do not buy. Thus, comparative advertisements for low-share products that most people do not buy appear to have an effect by attracting attention through comparisons to high-share brands that people buy regularly. Although such advertisements may have a positive effect on the consumer by gaining attention for low-share brands that might not otherwise receive attention, such ads also are more likely to be confused with ads for the high-share comparison brands. Nevertheless, the net aggregate effect of comparative ads for low-share brands appears to be to increase the probability that they will be considered on the next purchase occasion. On the other hand, comparative advertising for high-share brands had no differential effect on future consideration of the brand. Thus, Pechmann and Stewart not only identify conditions under which comparative advertising may be most efficacious, but they also offer evidence to support the proposition that the contingent effects of advertising may be driven by an underlying process of selective attention.

Chapters 6 and 7 also deal with attention. In chapter 6, Olshavsky presents a case for regarding attention as an epiphenomenon. He questions whether the conceptualization of an “on-off” mechanism called attention is useful. Rather, he argues that attention is a necessary and inextricable component of the more fundamental process by which information is encoded. Because encoding can take many forms, all of which require attention, Olshavsky concludes that attention is not a useful objective for advertising. He suggests a number of other processing and encoding objectives that may be more appropriate for guiding the creation of advertising.

Although Olshavsky suggests that attention is inseparable from the larger process of processing and encoding of information, in chapter 7 Meyers-Levy suggests that attention, encoding, and judgmental processes are determined biologically. Her thesis is that these biologically determined processes are different for males and females. These gender differences, in turn, influence the ways in which advertising is processed and encoded. Such differences have implications for the creation and execution of advertising, which she explores in her chapter.

PART III—ADVERTISING AND THE PROCESSES OF ATTITUDE FORMATION AND CHANGE

Few constructs have been as central to any discipline as attitude has been in both psychology and advertising. Attitude has been the construct that linked advertising exposure at one point in time to judgments and decisions about products that are frequently made at a point in time long after advertising exposure. The temporal delay between exposure to advertising and decision making requires that some latent construct, which is formed as a result of advertising exposure and is relatively enduring, be a part of any theory of advertising effects. The four chapters in Part III continue the rich research tradition on attitude formation and change.

During the past decade, two attitudes with different, but related, foci have received considerable attention from researchers. Attitude toward the brand (A_brand) has a long history of research in advertising. More recently, a second attitude, attitude toward the ad (A_ad), has been identified and demonstrated to be a potentially important mediator of A_brand, at least in some circumstances (Mitchell & Olson, 1981). It also appears that there are situations in which A_brand may influence A_ad (Edell & Burke, 1986). Although researchers have sought to explain the relationship between A_brand and A_ad (see, e.g., Gresham & Shimp, 1985; MacKenzie, Lutz, & Belch, 1986), no fully satisfactory theory has emerged. The first two chapters of Part IV offer two approaches for understanding the complex relationships between A_brand and A_ad. Although a first reading may suggest that these two approaches are in conflict, they actually have a great deal in common.

In chapter 8, Heath and Gaeth offer a framework—the systemic model that attempts to integrate attitudes toward the brand with attitudes toward the advertisement. These authors suggest that much of the previous research on the effects of A_brand and A_ad has suffered from a failure to control for the bidirectional causality of these two constructs. They suggest that it is only possible to separate out the effects of A_brand and A_ad in the case of an unknown brand and a new advertising execution that carries no product information. Once attitudes toward a brand are formed, they inevitably will influence the formation of any attitudes toward specific advertising executions. When an ad presents information about a product, the ad has the potential to create an attitude toward the product, which, in turn, may influence the attitude toward the ad that provided the information. By the same token, attitudes formed toward any ad may influence the attitude toward the product. This influence is likely to be greatest when the ad offers no product information on which an attitude can be based. Thus, Heath and Gaeth raise the important question of whether A_brand and A_ad are independent constructs. Even if they are theoretically independent, it may not be possible to develop independent measures of them under most conditions. Thus, they argue that most efforts to identify the relationship between A_ad and A_brand will demonstrate large relationships and strong reciprocal causality.

Heath and Gaeth question the independence of A_ad and A_brand, whereas Middlestadt, Fishbein, and Chan offer and test the hypothesis that A_ad influences A_brand indirectly by changing beliefs about brand attitudes. In chapter 9, they demonstrate that the effect of A_ad on A_brand disappears when the effects of brand beliefs are controlled. They sugg...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• 1 Introduction
• PART I: HISTORICAL AND CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES ON ADVERTISING RESEARCH
• PART II: ATTENTION PROCESSES IN THE RESPONSE TO ADVERTISING
• PART III: ADVERTISING AND THE PROCESSES OF ATTITUDE FORMATION AND CHANGE
• PART IV: AFFECT AND ADVERTISING
• PART V: ADVERTISING PRICE
• PART VI: ADVERTISING AND HEALTH
• Author Index
• Subject Index