Subliminal advertising and the psychology of processing unconscious stimuli: A review of research

Theus, Kathryn T.

doi:10.1002/mar.4220110306

Cited by 46 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 109 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Participants reliably decided which design they liked and which ones they did not like within 500ms exposure [22] and these impressions were not transient [23]. Furthermore a large corpus of psychological research has provided evidence that even subliminal exposure to a brand may affect consumer mood and choice [24].…”

Section: Brand and Uxmentioning

confidence: 98%

The Effect of Brand on the Evaluation of Websites

Angeli

Hartmann

Sutcliffe

2009

Human-Computer Interaction – INTERACT 2009

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstr act. The effect of brand on consumer attitudes towards real and virtual goods is largely documented in consumer psychology and marketing. There is an obvious link between the design of a website and its brand. Yet, this effect has attracted little attention from the HCI community. This paper presents empirical evidence showing that brand attitude influences the evaluation of websites. The effect was reliable across different measures: people holding better attitudes were more positive in the evaluation of aesthetics, pleasure and usability. A sample of students (N=145) with a background in HCI was tested, suggesting that brand may influence the output of expert evaluators. The study provides support to the proposition of UX as a contextual-dependent response to the interaction with computing systems and has important implications for the design and evaluation of websites which are discussed in the conclusion. Intr oductionThere is a pervasive move in HCI research and practice to consider hedonic aspects of user experiences alongside pragmatic qualities in the evaluation and design of interactive systems [1][2][3]. Responses such as emotions, aesthetic judgments and fun are among the most prominent aspects of experience investigated [4][5][6]. The User Experience (UX) is a complex response to the interaction with computing systems [1]. This response is a consequence of individual predispositions of the user (e.g., attitudes, motivations and needs), characteristics of the interactive system (e.g., purpose, functionality and usability) and contextual dependencies (e.g., task and environment). Thus, UX is elicited by an array of variables which combine to determine overall quality judgments [7].The effect of brand on consumer attitudes towards real and virtual goods is well documented in consumer psychology and marketing. There are some evident links between a website design and its brand, yet, with the exception of studies of trust [8] and the emerging field of captology [9], brand has attracted little attention from the HCI community. In marketing research, the website is considered a powerful medium in forming and sustaining a positive attitude towards a brand and its products [10]. Empirical research has demonstrated that attitude toward a web site is a good predictor of consumer brand choice [11]. In this paper, we deal with the opposite research question, namely Is attitude towards brand a good predictor of the userexperience with a website? Another unique theme of UX is its emphasis on the subjective nature of experience. Traditional usability research emphasized the objectivity of evaluation methods and measures by favouring, for example, user observation over user opinion. Performance variables, such as error rate and time to complete a task, were deemed to be relatively stable among a sample of users with comparable level of computing knowledge, motor and cognitive skills. On the contrary, UX explicitly recognises variations across judgments and focuses on understanding the factors which modulate peo...

show abstract

Section: Brand and Uxmentioning

confidence: 98%

The Effect of Brand on the Evaluation of Websites

Angeli

Hartmann

Sutcliffe

2009

Human-Computer Interaction – INTERACT 2009

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The perception that occurs as a result of this processing is the conscious terminus of a sequence of nonconscious processes (Erdelyi, 1974;Theus, 1994). That is, the outcomes are constructed by cognitive processes, but consumers are usually not aware of the automatic cognitive operations that produce them (Mandler, 1984).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

A nonconscious processing explanation of consumer response to product design

Veryzer

1999

Psychol. Mark.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…Indeed, there is a long-lasting debate on the possibilities and boundaries of subliminal advertising (for reviews, see Dijksterhuis, Aarts, & Smith, 2005;Theus, 1994). The well known story of the marketing expert James Vicary represents a milestone of this debate.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The hidden persuaders break into the tired brain

Bermeitinger¹,

Goelz²,

Johr³

et al. 2009

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

There is a long-lasting debate on whether subliminal advertising actually works. In this context there are some studies suggesting that subjects’ motivation is a crucial point. Karremans et al. [Karremans, J. C., Stroebe, W., & Claus, J. (2006). Beyond Vicary’s fantasies: The impact of subliminal priming and brand choice. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 42, 792–798] showed that subjects were influenced in their intention to drink a specific brand of soft drink by a subliminally presented brand prime, but only if they were thirsty. In the present study, we adapted their paradigm to the concept of ‘concentration’ and embedded the subliminal presentation of a brand logo into a computer game. Actual subsequent consumption of dextrose pills (of the presented or a not presented brand) was measured dependent on the level of participants’ tiredness and the subliminally presented logo. We found the same pattern as Karremans et al. (2006): only tired participants consumed more of the subliminally presented than the not presented brand. Therefore, the findings confirm that subjects are influenced by subliminally presented stimuli if these stimuli are need-related and if subjects are in the matching motivational state

show abstract

Subliminal advertising and the psychology of processing unconscious stimuli: A review of research

Cited by 46 publications

References 109 publications

The Effect of Brand on the Evaluation of Websites

The Effect of Brand on the Evaluation of Websites

A nonconscious processing explanation of consumer response to product design

The hidden persuaders break into the tired brain

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About