Mental Imagery and Sound Effects in Radio Commercials

Abstract

Advertising researchers have not investigated the impact of the imagery-evoking sound effects included in radio commercials on learning, feelings, and attitude formation. Results of the current study indicate that the inclusion of sound effects can increase imagery activity and that there is a relationship between degree of imaging and feelings. Further, it is found that imagery evoking sound effects can result in more favorable attitude toward the commercial and in improved recall and recognition of ad claims. Implications for theory and advertising practice are discussed. Darryl W. Miller (M.B.A., Indiana University at South Bend) is a doctoral student,

Designing persuasive destination websites: A mental imagery processing perspective

“…With regard to the effects of sound on mental imagery, several researchers found that the inclusion of sound effects increased mental imagery processing (Ferrington, 1994;Miller & Marks, 1992, 1997. Lee et al (2010), however, did not identify any significant sound effects.…”

Non-musical sound branding – a conceptualization and research overview

“…The contributions include examinations of, for instance, domestic appliances and exterior vehicle sounds (Fiore and Kelly, 2007;Jessen and Graakjaer, 2009;Miller and Marks, 1992), chocolate-cracking and paper-rustling sounds (Esch and Roth, 2005;Esch et al, 2006), bottleopening sounds (Fiore and Kelly, 2007;Rodero et al, 2015) and frictional sounds of handling cleaning and personal-care materials (Bolshakova, 2015;Knöferle et al, 2016). The issue of mediated versus unmediated sounds is discussed further in the last section of the paper.…”

“…associational meaning caused by the phonological structure and fluency). Non-verbal sounds, sometimes termed "sound effects" (Miller and Marks, 1992;Rodero et al, 2015), "auxiliary sounds" (Yorkston, 2010) or "environmental sounds" (Özcan and van Egmond, 2009;Rehan, 2016), refers to residual kinds of sound: non-verbal and nonmusical(ised) sounds that derive, or are presented as deriving, from the motion of physical objects.…”

“…Nevertheless, even if the music is removed from the equation, the following overview demonstrates that a significant body of research does, in fact, exist on non-musical sound branding. Although approximately 30 years have passed since Atwood (1989) first suggested extending imagery research to sounds in the fields of advertising psychology and consumer behaviour (Miller and Marks, 1992), there is at present no general overview of non-musical sound in the context of branding. Thus, this paper offers the first comprehensive conceptualization and overview of this research.…”

The Sound of Music or the History of Trump and Clinton Family Singers: Music Branding as Communication Strategy in 2016 Presidential Campaign

“…But the significance power of sound goes much further. In this regard mental imaginary is a well-documented psychological construct defined as the image that comes to people's mind when processing non-visual information (Paivio, 1986;Miller & Marks, 1992;Schwartz, 1999). In other words, a mental image is the capacity "to see with the eye of mind, listen with the ear of the mind" (Kosslyn, Ganis & Thompson, 2010: 3).…”