Consumer Response to Television Commercials: The Impact of Involvement and Background Music on Brand Attitude Formation

Abstract

Past research has examined the effect of level of involvement (high vs. low) on subjects’ reactions to persuasive communications. The authors suggest that high involvement can be differentiated into two types (cognitive vs. affective). By manipulating involvement level and type (low involvement, cognitive involvement, affective involvement), they show that the three different forms of involvement have different effects on how brand attitudes are formed. They also examine how music, as a peripheral persuasion cue, affects the process of brand attitude formation. The results indicate that the effect of music on brand attitude depends on the type and level of involvement. Music had a facilitative effect on brand attitude for subjects in the low involvement condition and a distracting effect for those in the cognitive involvement condition; its effect for those in the affective involvement condition was not clear. Alternative explanations of these results are offered and implications for advertising research are discussed.

Customization in location-based advertising: Effects of tailoring source, locational congruity, and product involvement on ad attitudes

“…However, the effect of customization dwindled with the low-involvement ad, suggesting that individuals pay more attention to personally relevant information (Park & Young, 1986;Zaichkowsky, 1985) regardless of their sense of control. The high-involving product ad apparently stimulated greater central processing and induced a higher level of motivation to process the ad message, leading to more positive attitudes toward the ads (Celsi & Olson, 1988;Greenwald & Leavitt, 1984).…”

The impact of background musical tempo and timbre congruity upon ad content recall and affective response

“…Featured product benefit recall was measured using a multiple-choice question containing only one correct alternative ('Refund if dissatisfied'). Previous research (e.g., Park & Young, 1986;MacInnis & Whan Park, 1991) has stressed the importance of measuring cognitive involvement in advertising research. Since perceived risk and personal relevance have been identified as key components of involvement (Rossiter, Percy, & Donovan, 1991), the potentially moderating effect of involvement upon ad content recall was monitored in this study by including multiple-choice questions to identify perceived risk and personal relevance (likelihood of using the advertised service).…”

“…Additional empirical research has suggested that music does actually inhibit recall of product information. For example, Park and Young (1986), Gorn, Goldberg, Chattopadhyay, & Litvack (1991), and reported how the presence of background music impeded verbal recall of ad content. Consequently, although background music may initially attract attention to an ad, the present research proposes that it inevitably distracts the listener, thus impeding cognitive processing and recall of branded product name and featured offer.…”

From digital media influencers to celebrity endorsers: attributions drive endorser effectiveness

“…Lack of informational content, low involvement with or interest in the product category, and low need for cognition (see Fig. 1), for instance, can all trigger superficial examination of messages (Petty et al 1983;Khale and Homer 1985;Park and Young 1986;Lee and Thorson 2008). Constraining focus factors such as high-stress situations or cognitive overload can also inhibit cognitive processing: Under high arousal or in high-stress situations, a celebrity endorser positively influences brand attitudes regardless of argument strength (Sanbonmatsu and Kardes 1988).…”