16
Psychology of Marketing & Advertising (Subject) / Chapter 2: 1 Preattentive Processing (Lesson)
Advertisement
- How do consumers make sense of advertising information Preattentive processing Focal attention Comprehension Elaborative reasoning
- Preattentive Processing = Incidental exposure to advertising while watching TV, reading a newspaper, browsing the internet with very little higher-order brain activity But: it doesn't mean ad messages fail to have an impact Can also be automatic, non-conscious, fast and effortless and without conscious intention ⇒ Storage of information in implicit memory implicit memory: Exposure to stimulus affects behavious without awareness or recollection explicit memory: Conscious recollection of facts or events
- Preattentive Processing: How is it working? Feature and semantic analysis Matching activation Hedonic fluency
- Feature analysis a quick analysis of the environment for familiarity and significance memory trace: only info about perceptual features, not meaning contour, brightness contrast, etc. product choice affected only if product matches ad Identical features - e.g. product on shelf identical to product in ad
- Semantic analysis Increasing evidence that preattentive processing can include conceptual prcessing Meaning: what the product is and does Not only basic features of a procudt, but also abstract-level attributes Product nature, usage, results, etc. Ad and product must activate the same conceputal association the same brand image even if packaging etc. differs
- Products in isolation or in context product in isolation feature analysis perceptual match between ad and product product in context semantic analysis regardless of match between ad and product influence of ads on judgements was outside awareness (preattentive)
- Matching activation Hemispheric lateralization Brain hemispheres have evolved specialized processing units for specifig types of information right: holistic, impressonistic processing e.g. picture processing left: data-driven, feature analysis: e.g. textual processing Location in visual fiels determines the hemisphere where it is processed What we see on the right is processed by the left hemisphere and vice versa
- The matching activation hypothesis When one hemisphere is mobilizes to process focal info, the other hemisphere is also mobilized to process nonfocal info Greater activation of one hemisphere will be matched by and increase of processing resource in the opposing hemisphere so brand names and ad messages can be carefully placed to take advantage of this. stimulus is more likely to be unconsciously processed by unused (but mobilized) hemisphere
- Preattentive processing and emotion Non-conscious generation of emotions Especially negative emotions (fear, anxiety) Urgency signals Of course, advertisert mus know how to deal with the evoked arousal Promt for action to remove the threat (e.g. by buying a product)
- Implications of matching activation Importance of ad and brand placement in print media or internet Profit by the activation triggered by competitors to enhance evaluations of own brand Place ad on the left page, if competitor ad is textual Place ad on the right page, if competitor ad is pictorial
- Advertisement
- Hedonic fluency Mediating role subjective ease with which a stimulus is perceived and processed Experienced as a mildly positive emotion Sometimes used as information to evaluate a stimulus
- Two types of hedonic fluency Perceptual fluency How easily physical features are processed Conceptual fluency How easily semantic meaning is processed
- Outward Hedonic Fluency Can be directed outward Towards ads and brands represented in the environment Exposure to two ads (a prime and a target) Consumer goals: compatile or conflicting If goals of prime and target ads are compatible, the target ad is evaluated more positively Why? Goal activated by the prime ad increases ease of processing of target ad
- Inward Hedonic Fluency Can be directed inward towards information already stored in memory ⇒ The question-behavior effect Asking people about behavioral intentions increases likelihood of performing behaviour (market research) especially Voting, Risky behaviours, environmentally friendly products
- Implications for market research market research could increase purchase rates unless the initial attitude is negative However, the effect should disappear if consumers realize that persuasion is the goal
- Familiarity contributes to fluency l hedonic fluency Stimuli encountered before (even incidentally) have been encoded and represented in memory, Once encountered again, processed more easily Misattribution of positive feelings to ad or brand leads to Favorable consumer responses