The Moderating Influence of Advertising Context on Ad Repetition Effects: The Role of Amount and Type of Elaboration
Citation: Prashant Malaviya (2007) The Moderating Influence of Advertising Context on Ad Repetition Effects: The Role of Amount and Type of Elaboration. Journal of Consumer Research (RSS)
DOI (original publisher): 10.1086/513044
Semantic Scholar (metadata): 10.1086/513044
Sci-Hub (fulltext): 10.1086/513044
Internet Archive Scholar (search for fulltext): The Moderating Influence of Advertising Context on Ad Repetition Effects: The Role of Amount and Type of Elaboration
Download: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/513044
Tagged: Advertising (RSS), Product Evaluation (RSS), Consumer Research (RSS)
Summary
This paper studies the influence of the advertising context in which an ad is presented on the repetition effect. The repetition effect is the belief that message repetition in advertising leads to favorable evaluation of the advertised brand or product. The author raises the possibility that the everyday context in which advertising is presented may be responsible for an absence of the expected repetition effect.
The author lays out two types of elaboration that have been identified. “Item specific elaboration” involves representing the specific message content in memory by associating the qualities that are mentioned in the ad with the target product. On the other hand, “relational elaboration” involves associating information related to the category in which the target brand is perceived to hold membership or to the people related to the category.
The author’s hypothesis, also known as the dual elaboration hypothesis, is that the effect of ad repetition would be observed when both types of message elaboration occur, but not when one type of elaboration dominates. The author undertook three experiments to test this hypothesis.
Experiment 1 includes an ad repetition variable in addition to ad context and ad content manipulation. 100 undergrad students were given an experimental booklet and were told that it was a trial magazine. The experimental booklet included two types of ad context, two types of ad content, and two levels of ad repetition. Types of thought were analyzed as an index, which was the difference between the number of item specific and relational thoughts, divided by the total number of thoughts. Results showed that ad repetition increased the extent of whatever type of elaboration was prompted by the ad context and ad content, which supported the dual elaboration hypothesis.
Experiment 2 delved into whether a respondent’s own knowledge and expertise could facilitate elaboration without having to rely on repeated ad exposure. The experiment was set up similarly to experiment 1 – 78 respondents were handed one of four booklets which included information about a target product and were then asked to indicate their evaluation of the product. Results proved that expert respondents’ superior knowledge enabled them to generate relational elaboration, even without ad context and ad content.
Experiment 3 was conducted to test the dual elaboration theory hypothesis again. Ad repetition, ad spacing, and ad context were all manipulated and 12 versions of a booklet marketing a camera was provided to 103 students. After reading the booklet, the participants were asked to evaluate the booklet, and recall as many features of the camera as they could. A recall index was developed in order to determine the relative amount of each type of elaboration in the ad context conditions. Results showed that in the related products context, an effect of repetition frequency and spacing was observed, but this effect was not observed in the other two contexts.
Theoretical and Practical Relevance
The impact of an advertising message is maximized when 1) there is a complementary level of item specific and relational elaboration of the message and 2) an adequate level of resources is allocated to the message in order to have the target audience engage in these processes.
