Reconsidering Recall and Emotion in Advertising

8/12/2019 Reconsidering Recall and Emotion in Advertising

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DOI: 10.2501/SOO21849906060065 March 2006

Reconsidering Recall and Emotion

in Advertising

ABHILASHA MEHTAGallup & Robinson, Inc.

abby.mehta@

gallup-robinson.com

SCOTT C PURVISGallup & Robinson, Inc.

[email protected]

Recall, one of the key metrics in advertising testing has been criticized over the years

as favoring rational advertising over emotional advertising. An analysis and

reconsideration of the available evidence show that emotional advertising is not

penalized by recall, and that emotional content in well-executed commercials can

actually boost recall. Strong empirical evidence shows that recall, when used in

combination with other measures, is a valid measure of advertising effectiveness and,

as the analysis here illustrates, does not miss the emotion in advertising that builds

brands.

INTRODUCTIONRecall is one of the several major measures used in

advertising effectiveness testing today, in addi-

tion to others such as persuasion and advertising

liking. However, despite a strong base of empiri-

cal validation, recall has been among the most

criticized of the measures. And while many of

these criticisms have long since been resolved,

doubts about the measure linger from the days

when recall was used by many as the solitary

indicator of advertising effectiveness.

Among the more important of the historical

criticisms of recall was that it favors more ratio-

nal commercials over more emotional ones.

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, several

researchers suggested and reported that the recall

of rational commercials was, on average, higher

than the recall of emotional ones. This viewpoint

subsided in later years as other research and thereanalysis of the early studies showed no inherent

disadvantage. Additionally, several important val-

idation studies in the past tow decades have de-

livered strong independent empirical evidence of

the role of recall in identifying commercials that

produced higher in-market business results. Re-

cently though, Unilever along with one of its

research partners, Ameritest, has resurrected the

issue and concluded recall misses the emotion in

Advertising that builds brands, using new dat

to bring into question once again the value o

recall when measuring emotion based advertisin

(Kastenholz and Young, 2003).

This article recaps the state of knowledge o

the important subject of recall and emotion i

advertising and helps show more clearly the valu

of recall in current advertising research. Althougthe days of recall as the sole measure of adve

tising effectiveness have long since passed, th

analyses here show it is an important evaluativ

tool for understanding the effectiveness of bot

types of advertising, emotional or rational.

BACKGROUNDAdvertisers have long believed that advertisin

must arouse some emotion to be effective. Th

affective response is important for two main rea

sons. First, the key to branding is the triggering oa meaningful emotional response, which is often

and perhaps always, the major benefit of usin

the particular product. Second, the process tha

consumers go through in deciding what brands t

buy has a heavy emotion-based dimension to i

In both cases, advertising can be an effective sourc

of enhancement of these emotional responses.

While there is agreement about the need for a

emotional response to advertising in order for it


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RECONSIDERING REC LL ND EMOTION IN DVERTISING

Advertisers have long believed that advertising mustarouse some emotion to be effective.

to be effective, there is little agreementamong advertising researchers about howex ctly emotion work s to influence theoverall impact of advertising, or even howemotional response in advertising can bemeasured or evaluated. As debate abouthow to measure advertising effectivenesscontinues, the issue of recall, one of theleading measures of advertising intrusive-ness, and its connection with emotion issometimes at the center of the debate. Ormore precisely, some critics of recall evenquestion whether there is an interactionbetween the two at all. What is the rela-tionship between recall and emotion inadvertising? It is clear that the answer tothis question is important in better under-standing how best to test advertising forits effectiveness.

SALES VALIDITY OF RECALLThe issue of the validity of recall needs tobe briefly summarized before recall's re-lationship with emotion is discussed. Anytrue measure of advertising effectivenessmust show validity in predicting futurein-market performance. All major copytesters have their own empirical supportdemonstrating the validity of their mea-sures. While they often place differentemphasis on their measures (particularlyamong recall, persuasion, and advertisingliking), that recall has value in evaluatingadvertising effectiveness is nearly univer-sally accepted, with a variety of supplierand independent studies demonstratingits sales validity (e.g., see Dubow, 1994;also IRI's How Advertising Works studyby Lubetkin, 1991 and Lodish et al., 1995,although some authors have minimizedthe findings of this study fterremoving

some of the data points/s o-calle d outli-e r s , by no means does the research show ... no evidence of a relationship be-tween related recall scores and sales ef-fects .. . as Kastenholz and Young, 2003concluded). Additionally, the AdvertisingResearch Foundation Copy Validity Re-search Project (ARF CRVP; Haley andBaldinger, 1991) found recall to be a validmeasure of advertising effectiveness, sec-ond only to advertising liking.CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK: EMOTIONATTENTIONING AND MEMORYTo understand how emotion works in ad-vertising or how it interacts with the re-call measure in adve rtising testing, a basicknowledge of the memory process is use-f u l . Mem ory is a critical part of consum erbehavior and of how advertising influ-ences consumer behavior. Consumers usu-ally do not make brand purchase choicesat the time of advertising ex posure; rather,it is the memoryof the ad vertising mes-sages that influence consumers. Recall'simportance stems from the fact that recallmeasures some aspect of this memory ofthe advertising.

New advances in our understanding ofhow the brain functions have helped clar-ify how consumers respond to the deluge

of media stimuli around them, and homem ory is built. The process of Attentioing is said to govern what stimuli shoube given attention, with memory tracbeing formed or strengthened based th elengtli an d deptiiof attention givenparticular stimulus. The longer and deepthe attention, the stronger the memotraces. As a result, when conscious leaing is the goal, focused attention is givto the material at issue, and the attentiis kept on it as long and as much necessary. Clearly, recall is valid in terof measuring this learning as almost educational testing is based on it. Bulot of learning is incidental and some searchers feel that advertising that wovia incidental learning can be effective.recall also important for this type learning?

Neurologists today are suggesting tthe attentioning process is largely out the conscious control of the individuand emotion rather than cognitive/ratioresponse guides attentioning (see Plessis, 1 9 9 8 , for discussion; Zaltm an, 20Some initial emotional response, it seeis important to decide if conscious effwill be focused on the stimuli. Even whno conscious effort and deliberate atttion is focused on something becausewas dismissed by the attentioning pcess as not worthy of further attentionappears reasonable to expect some meory may be formed/strengthened by vtue of the attentioning process itselfalso seems reasonable that this should

Neurologists today are suggesting that the attentioninprocess is largely out of the conscious control of thindividual and emotion rather than cog nit ive/rat ionresponse guides attentioning.

5 J o u R n m o r H D U E R T I S I I I G R E S E R R C H M a r c h 2 6


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RECONSIDERING RECALL AND EMOTION INADVERTISI

further reinforced by repeated exposure cess, are related, as well as how emo- tally derived from the attempts to dto the stimulus even if the stimulus does tional advertising is not penalized by recall. scribe television commercials inwornot receive conscious attention^because In fact, under some situations or when (p, 51),of repeated attentioningand can be ex- influenced by moderating variables, highly This conclusion, however, does not rpected to create some measurable mem- emotional advertising actually enhances oncile with other findings. Our reseaory traces of the stimulus even without recall, has shown that there is a moderately higconscious learning. Recall should be able positive correlation between recall (simto tap into this memory as well (this is R E C A L L A N D A T T E N T I ON lar to ASI's and described by respondmemory, regardless as how it was ere- Does recall measure attention? It is gen- in words) and attention obtained froated), and the emotional response in the erally accepted that the two have a recognition of the advertising via reexinitial attentioning process should thus moderately strong, positive correlation. sure to the actual advertising, andnotinfluence recall, Kastenholz and Young (2003), however, a description of the advertising in w

Recall measurement requires verbal report a very low correlation between ASI (see Table 2), The results do show tproof of advertising exposure. The tradi- recall and Ameritest attention, which is Ameritest and MB attention are differtional criticism against recall vis-a-vis based on asking what commercials are from ASI and Gallup & Robinson (G&emotion that feeling advertisements, ad- found interesting,and a low negative cor- attention, but the reason offered (Avertisements with high emotional content relation between ASI recall and Millward verbal cue) does not seem to hold upthat are expected to evoke emotions, will Brown (MB) attention, which is based on light of G&R nonverbal-based results. Tbe penalized by recall compared to think- the claimed active enjoymentof commer- better question may be whether intereing" advertisements, is based on this re- cial, but a stronger positive correlation ing as in Ameritest attention and actquirement of verbal proof. It is argued between ASI recall and ASI attention, enjoyment in MB attention are reathat because the emotive content is impor- which is based on recognition of the ad- about breakthrough ? The concepts tant in feeling advertising, respondents vertising via a verbal description (see interest and active enjoyment seewould have difficulty verbalizing their Table 1), These results are then used to closer to a positive reactionafterattentmemory of these types of commercials, argue that ASI recall and MB/Ameritest or breakthrough: something could be nThis view was reinforced by the earlier attention cannot be both measuring break- ticed and remembered even if it is nbrain theories that believed that the two through power, and the strong positive necessarily found to be interesting hemispheres of the brain functioned indi- relationship between ASI recall and ASI enjoyable, Stapel (1994) reports thvidually, and that the left-brain functions attention is explained as , , , probablyincluded verbal and cognitive issues while because both ASI measures are fundamen-the right-brain functions included nonver-bal image and picture memory functionsand storage, T A B L E 2

Brain theoriststoday,though, donotagree TABLE1 Correlations betweenwith the twohem isphere/left-right brain Correlations between Breakthrough Measuredivision.Infact,there is only one mem ory B r ea k th r O U g h M e a S U r e S _ ^ o iiofthe advertising that includesall ele- ^ Q ^ff . ^ P r e t e s t i n gments:the visuals, music, words, experi-ences, etc .Further, th e memory trace is SyStemS and ReCall^ Recalldistributed throughout the brain, raisins ,_, _

^^ Recall q u e s t i o n s a b o u t the c o m m o n l y a c c e p t e d ^ ' " a t te n ti o ne m o t i o n a l / c o g n i t i v e a d v e r t i s i n g and re- ^ S l . ^ t t e n t i o n , 6 7 * * ( re co g n ize a d v e r t i s i n g /ca l l r e l a t i o n s h i p (see du Pless i s , 1998), Am eri tes t a t ten t ion ,09 r',"'':? ,,?,'?,^?,' ,', ,,';) : ? ,*

Against this conceptual backdrop, re- |^g attention - 28* ^^^ attentionsearch findings discussed below show how (recognize advertising) ,42* *

, , , , , , , Source: Kastenholzand Young (2003)r e ca l landa t t e n t i o n , w h e t h e r c o n s c i o u sor .. . .,. .,., _,'Significant at 95% CL Source:G&R(2003)n ot and based on the attentioning pro- Significant at99 CL Significant at99 C LM a r c h 2 6 J D U R R R L R F R R O E R T IS IR G R E S E B R C R


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RECONSIDERING RECALL AND EMOTION INADVERTISING

The concepts of interest and act ive enjoymentseem closer to a positive re ction fter at tent ion

TABLE3Correlations between Likingand Recall

or breaktiirough: something couid be noticed and source. - , . . . . -1 * J ,1. - ipsos-ASI,asreportedbyremembered even if it is not necessarily found to be Kaste.hoi, 3,dv ung 2003) 39

interesting or enjoyable. A S : wa'ter and pubitsky (199 4) .34*G R (2004) . 4 6 Significant at 99 /


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RECONSIDERING REC LL NDEMOTIONIN DVERTIS

ad s testrepresenting hund red s of differ- TABLEent cl ient s and agencies , , , conf i rms tha t p^^g ^gveis forDifferent TypesofCommerclalsrecall scoresarerelated toboth interestinthe message andinvolvement with the Highly Highlycreative execution, Rational motionai

C o r r e l a t i o n a n a l y s i s f r o m our ownf i n d - AV o m m e r c i a l s o m m e r c i a lsi n g s s h o w r e c a l l to be s i g n i f i c a n t l y and Synchronization ( ) ( )positively correlated toanumberofpos- ^ bove average 12 16itive diagnostics and negatively/not re- ^^^^^ ê) (319) (117)lated tounfavorable ones (seeTable4).

verage 10 10RECALL AND EiVIOTiONAL AD VERT ISiNG ( .?^ .^^ r,,^?,?? ,* . ?,?? :^331Researchers have directly studied the re- Rpinw avpra^p 8 Rlationship between recall anddifferent (Base=527) f99) (428)typesofadvertising. Asmentioned ear-Her, researchers (Krugman, 1977) hypoth- Total 11 10esized that because recall wasaverbal/left-brain activity and television advertisingwas largelyaright-brained function, re-callfortelevision advertising wouldbepenalizedby the recall measure. Zielske(1982) studied this relationship empiri- adequatefor theresultsto beconclusive, age.There were, however, significacally for television commercials andcon- Inalater reexamination ofZielske's find- larger proportions of rational commcluded that,infact, there should be concern ings,duPlessis (1994) argues that the cials with above average audio/visual about recall penalizing feeling adver- results aremixed rather than supporting chronization (44 percent) than were simtisements, although theauthor acknowl- thenotion that thereis apenalizationof emotional commercials (14percent):edged thatthescopeofhis study wasnot feeling advertisements with recall, pay off isbetter,but itoccurs less often

Historical dataandresultsonrecalland seems thatit iseasiertoachieve audemotions from G&R's television commer- visual synch in rational rather then e

.,, cial database have never supported Krue- tional commercials,andresults inTabTABLE rf o

man's and Zielske's findings.Inoneof show that there islittle overall recallUOrreidliOnS D6IW66in d-ig ^ôstextensive studiesofitskind,a vantage forrational commercialsexAdvertising Diagnostics G & Ranalysisof3,202 commercials tested totheextent thatit iseasiertoachand Recall in the1960sand1970s shows recall levels audio/visual synch,

for television commercials with highly Ina similar, more recent G&R analDiagnostic emotional executions were,infact, not of80automobile commercials, emotioWorth remembering 46* penalized compared tohighly rational automotive commercials show sig

commercials when theemotional execu- cantly/ne'ê''levelsofproved recall oveImaginative ,25* , , , , , ,tions have adequate audio/video synchro- than do rational or mixed emotio^.'^^^' ^.^y^'^^.^y. .^^}^}}^3. -,24* nization (see Table 5), Talking about what rational commercials,p


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RECONSIDERING RECALLANDEMOTION INADVER TISING

6 tiy G R using thesameEMGmetric,Recall LevelsforDifferent TypesofC omm ercials ^^^^ ^ '^ c o r r e l t io n s b e t w

positive emotional activationandrecalRational Mixed Emotionai r = .57 andbetween posit ive emotio

AV Comm erciais Rationai-Emotionai Comm erciais activation and advertising liking ofSynciironization ( ) ( ) ( ) .32.Above average 22 20 45(Base=15 ) (8) (4) (3) SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

The complex subject of emotions in Average 23 25 29 vertising is one that we are just on (Base= 43) (8) (14) (21) cuspof understanding. Evenso, and , - . spite some early criticisms, most pastBelow average 20 16 23 f y ' i(Base= 22) (5) (6) (11) current research dem onstrates that reand emotionareinterconnected. Add itiTotal 23 22 28 ally, thereis clear evidence gathered o(Base= 80) (21) (24) (35) the years that shows that emotionalvertising is notpenalized by recall,aSource:G&Rresults unpublislted)for atdo c tegoryfrom 1990s

that emotional content in well-execucommercials can actually boost rec

advertising. Based on a larger sample of sion and report that commercials that Along these lines, recall has significtelevision conxmercials than Zielske's sam- arouse greater emotional response tendto positive correlations with adve rtisingple, they concluded that the greater the show higher recall for thebrands in the ing,aswellaswithanumberoffavoraemotional intensity in a television com- commercials a few days after exposure. advertising diagnostics. Add ingto themercial, the more likely recallwas to be Thephysiological measuresof facial elec- are the newer theories of memory ahigher. Thorson (1991) noted also thatthe tromyography (EMG)measure both pos- brain functions with recent researchintensity of consumers ' emotional re- itiveandnegative emotions aroused during new emotion-based physiological msponses influenced attention, advertising exposure to test commercials and have sures, both of which show that command brand liking,and learning. been used by other consum er behavior cials that evoke highly emotional respo

Ambler and Burne (1999) also found research ers as well (e.g., see Cacioppo show better recallaswell,that affect (emotions) enhances long-term et al., 1988). Hazlett and Ha zlett (1999) The assertionsbyK astenholzandYomemoryofthe television commercialsand tested pairs of commercials in sever al (2003) that recall misses the emotionadvertising with high affective compo - categoriesand for those that showed sig- advertising and that liking is a benents h ave better recall followingasingle nificant recall differences in the twocom- measure of emotion than recall becapresentation, as wellasafter28days. When mercials in thepair, thehighest-emotion emotion and advertising liking are pharmacological treatments were used be- commercial was better recalledin100per- doubtedly linked seemto go too far afore viewing to block the emotional re- centof thecasesin men and80 percentof miss the mark. Multiple measuressponseonrespondents,thelevelofrecall thecasesinwomen.In an internal study needed to fully understand the variof the affective and cognitive advertise-ments were at similar levels, unlike forthe placebo group whose emotional re-sponses werenot blocked, thus confirm-ing that thereis aneffect ofemotionsonrecall.

Using a physiological-based system tomeasure the behavioral markers thatac-company emotion-based response, Hazlettand Hazlett (1999) reacha similar conclu-

. . . t h e r eis clear evidence gatiiered overtheyears thshows that emotionai advertising is not penalizedrecai i nd that em otionai content in wei i -executecommerciaisc nactuaiiy boost reca ii.


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RECONSIDERING RECALL AND EMOTIONINADVERTI

Assertions that recaii missestheemotioninadver-tising andth at iiicingis a better measureof emotionthan recaii because emotionand advertising iiitingare undoub tediy iiniced see mtogo too far andmissthemarie.

G&R. Recalland AdLiking. Gallup&inson, Inc. d ata, 2004.

. Recalland EMGM easurement.lup & Robinson, Inc. working paper,2003

facetsofadvertising effectiveness,and re-call isoneofthese important measuresthat does wellfor both typesofadvertis-ing,beitemotionalorrational.

ABHILASHA M EH T Ais thedirectorofresearchatGallup Robinson, Inc. Priortojoining G allup Robinson,she wasanassistant professorofadvertisingat theS.I.Newhouse SchoolofPublic C ommunicationsatSyracuse University.Herresearch interests includeadvertising processing andtheroleofadvertisinginbuilding brands.Dr.Mehtahaspublished w idely in-cludingintheJournalofAdvertising Research Recentresearch publications include workin theareaofad-vertising effectivenessin theDTC category and non-verbal measurementofthe emotional responsetoadvertising.Sheisanactive presenteratindustryandacademic conferences and holdsaPh.D.insocialpsychology from Syracuse University.

SCOTTC .PURV I SispresidentofGallup Robinson,Inc. With20years experienceinadvertising research,he works directly with leading companiesin avarietyof sectors, including packaged goods, technology,healthcare,automotive, and financial services.Hisresearch interestsare inunderstanding how advertis-ing workstoinfiuence attitudes that people haveabout brands, and how what people say about adver-tising relatestowhat they buy and use.He is theauthorofWhich Ad Puiied Best?nowin its 9theditionand holds graduate degrees from Georgetown Univer-sity and George W ashington University.

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Reconsidering Recall and Emotion in Advertising

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