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Giving the Wrong Impression? The Susceptibility of Brand Impressions to Associative Processes under Incidental Learning Instead of positioning a brand with a positive message, some companies choose to use a double negative message. Normally a negative statement or imagery is shown first and associated with the brand or its respective product category, and then the brand is implied to be the opposite of that. The prevalence of double negative advertisements with little accompanying support on its effectiveness should be investigated to determine how consumers process such information. The questions of interest in this study are whether viewers form the intended impression of brands and whether their impressions depend on how they were formed (incidentally or intentionally). This study examines brand impression formation where ads are manipulated on three factors: message type (positive and double negative), impression type (incidental and intentional), persuasive appeal (affect- and cognitive-based). It is proposed that impressions formed incidentally are more vulnerable to associative processes than those formed intentionally since they involve more superficial processing (Carlston and Mae 2002). However, since impressions formed incidentally draw on superficial processing, they are expected to be less persistent than those formed intentionally (Baddeley 1990). It is also proposed that under incidental learning cognitive-based messages will result in less accurate impressions than affect-based messages because they require more systematic processing. INTRODUCTION A popular advertising method used to convey brand personality or positioning is to explicitly describe or imply what a brand is not. For example, recent television advertisements for Avis show what it would be like if the car rental company did not try harder. The commercials feature long lines, inattentive employees, and unattractive car rental facilities. In order for this message to be interpreted correctly, consumers must engage in inferential processing to account for the context. With Avis, consumers must understand that since Avis does try harder, they can expect exactly the opposite type of service from that shown in the advertisement. Is it possible, however, that distracted or unmotivated viewers do not make this connection and simply link the imagery shown in the advertisement with the brand, thus associating Avis with incompetence? Marketing messages that utilize the double negative approach tend to follow a similar sequence. They begin by presenting negative messages and imagery, often in the form of an incompetent competitor, whether real or imagined, or a consumer having an unpleasant purchase or consumption experience. Then the brand is disassociated from the negative messages and imagery by implying or stating that the brand of interest and one’s experience with it is the opposite of that depicted in the advertisement. The key presumption is that consumers will form positive associations and impressions with the brand of interest and negative associations with competing brands. This study attempts to show differences in impressions depending on the type of marketing message (positive versus double negative) under incidental and intentional impression formation. It is proposed that incidental impressions are formed more through associative processes than intentional impressions, which would adversely affect 2 interpretation of double negative messages. In addition, the type of persuasive appeal may influence how information is processed depending on whether it is primarily affect- or cognitive-based. Research suggests affective and cognitive attitudes differ in complexity, implying different persuasive appeals may require differing amounts of processing. Therefore, the persuasive appeal will also be examined to determine if it interacts with message type and impression type. LITERATURE REVIEW The crux of this study rests on previous work in impression formation, a topic that has received considerable attention in the literatures of Social Psychology and Social Cognition (e.g. Chen, Ybarra, and Kiefer 2004; Flynn 2005; Vazire and Gosling 2004). The following section will define key concepts in impression formation, including how impressions may be formed, to lay the foundation for this study. Attitudinal research on attitude bases will also be discussed as it is proposed that different appeals may affect the extent to which consumers process information. Finally, associative and inferential processes will be reviewed as they are proposed to account for differences in brand impression evaluations for positive and double negative advertisements. Impression Formation Impression formation addresses how people make judgments about others, specifically the attribution of personality traits to other individuals. However, impression formation can also refer to how judgments are made about any object, including brands. The impression formation paradigm is likely to be robust to brands because people tend to think of and describe brands using human characteristics (Gilmore 1919). The brand personality scale developed by Aaker (1997) possesses similar traits to those of the Big 3 Five, which provides support for similarity in how people describe brands and humans. Since impression formation research involves the measurement of perceived personality traits, the process should apply equally well to brands as it does to humans. The process of becoming aware of and forming impressions of brands can be likened to one’s experience in meeting people. When meeting new others, one often tries to control his or her appearance and behavior to convey a desired impression, much like how marketers attempt to portray a brand in a certain light. However, impression formation is not always a deliberate process as people are often too distracted or busy to systematically process information about others (or brands) they encounter (e.g. Gilbert et al. 1988; MacInnis, Moorman, and Jaworski 1991). Consequently, marketers may find themselves surprised that particular marketing messages result in unexpected impressions by consumers who incorporate peripheral cues and engage in associative processing. Consumers’ impressions of brands and their meaning may depend on how they originally process information. Sometimes consumers are purposeful evaluators, attempting to understand brands and learn what they stand for. At other times, their learning of brands tends to be an accidental by-product of other goals where they lack sufficient motivation and engagement to deliberately and purposefully process marketing communications (Carlston and Mae 2003). Gilbert et al. (1988) suggest that the demands of everyday life leave people “cognitively busy,” with their limited mental resources focused on the most immediate demands of conversation and interaction with other people. As a result, cognitive processes associated with superficial processing are often incorporated into the impression formation process, resulting in rash and possibly inaccurate impressions of brands. 4 Intentional and Incidental Impression Formation A formal distinction is made between intentional and incidental impression formation. Intentional impression formation is the process of consciously and willfully making inferences, attributions, or appraisals of a target object either during the processing of stimulus information or later, during its recall. In contrast, incidental impression formation is knowledge about an individual that is acquired inadvertently, during the course of activities that are not directed at forming an impression (Carlston and Mae 2003). It is proposed that most brand impressions are likely formed incidentally as consumers are too busy to carefully process marketing messages or simply because they are overwhelmed with seemingly endless advertising barrages (MacInnis, Moorman, and Jaworski 1991). Consequently, since many impressions are not goal-oriented or purposeful, consumers probably process information less intensively and more superficially. The effects of incidental exposure to marketing communications have been thoroughly researched. Due to the sheer volume of advertising clutter and constraints on our mind, researchers have found that our attention to and processing of ads is limited (MacInnis, Moorman, and Jaworski 1991). Nonetheless, even incidental exposures to an advertisement can increase the likelihood of the depicted brand being considered for purchase even if consumers have no explicit memory of the ad (Shapiro, MacInnis, and Heckler 1997). Research has also found that incidental exposure to advertisements positively influences liking for brand names and product packages included in the advertisement (Janiszewski 1990, 1993). The present study attempts to go beyond showing effects of incidental learning and to show the differences in brand personality attributions depending on whether impressions were formed incidentally or intentionally. 5 There are obvious parallels between incidental and intentional impression formation and incidental and intentional learning, dual process models (i.e. superficial vs. systematic processing), implicit and explicit memory, and episodic and semantic memory. A key assumption in this paper is that intentional impression formation is most often systematic (i.e. involving attributional analyses of central, diagnostic cues, etc.), but that it may sometimes be heuristic, relying on stereotypes or other peripheral cues. In contrast, incidental impression processes are assumed to always be processed superficially (Carlston and Mae 2003). Persuasive Appeal and Attitude Base Attitudinal research often breaks attitudes down into affective and cognitive components. Affective attitudes are evaluative responses about an attitude object resulting from feelings and emotions, whereas cognitive attitudes are evaluative responses involving thoughts and beliefs. Consumers’ attitudes toward most brands likely possess both affective- and cognitive-based attitudes, although the relative strength of these attitude bases may differ greatly. Research has demonstrated that consumers sometimes hold predominantly affective attitudes for some brands and predominantly cognitive attitudes for other brands (e.g. Millar and Millar 1990, Drolet and Aaker 2002). A significant amount of research has examined how the persuasive appeal (affect- or cognitive-based) of a marketing message affects persuasion depending on initial attitudes toward brands (e.g. Edwards 1990). Studies have found support for the notion that affective and cognitive attitudes differ in complexity or dimensionality (Edwards 1990, Zajonc 1980). Attitudes based on affect tend to have a more unidimensional structure organized along a global evaluative dimension where specific attributes are either assimilated or 6 discounted (Edwards 1990). In contrast, cognitive attitudes have a multidimensional structure based on a multitude of quality attributes. Support for this conclusion is found in other studies that show affective attitudes are retrieved faster than cognitive attitudes (Pham et al. 2001) and are better predictors of consumer choice than cognitive attitudes under time constraints (Shiv and Fedorikhin 1999). Since cognitive attitudes have more evaluative attributes than affective attitudes, it becomes more difficult to develop an appeal targeted toward any specific cognitive dimension. Therefore, the increased complexity of cognitive attitudes likely increases the amount of cognitive capacity needed to process cognitive-based appeals. As a result, cognitive-based appeals likely require more systematic processing than affective-based appeals. Associative and Inferential Processes Marketers seek to create strong associations in consumers’ minds by linking various cues and messages with their brands. As consumers pair these cues and messages with brands, they may utilize different cognitive processes. Associative processes in a marketing context involve consumers linking any cues shown in a marketing communication with a brand while not taking into account the context or relation of the cue to the brand. In contrast, inferential processes incorporate context and setting into understanding the relationship between cues and brands. This distinction is important because of the popularity of double negative advertisements which create negative cues and then disassociate them with the brand. They require that consumers use inferential processing in order to correctly interpret the message and form the desired impression. The Avis advertisement discussed earlier will now be used to illustrate impression formation under associative and inferential processes. 7 Viewers processing the advertisement under associative processes will relate the imagery shown (i.e. long lines and inattentive employees) and the brand in the commercial, but fail to take the relationship of the two into account. Therefore, Avis would become associated with incompetence under associative processing. Viewers processing this advertisement using inferential processes understand that the poor car rental service illustrated in the commercial is a representation of what Avis’ service would be like if it did not try harder. And assuming they are aware that Avis’ motto and tagline is “We try harder”, the viewer understands that the actual service is supposed to be the opposite of that displayed in the commercial. Consumers using inferential processes should ultimately associate Avis with competence, and they may also infer that other car rental companies are incompetent, presumably because they do not try harder like Avis. Thus, a single message may be interpreted completely differently depending on whether associative or inferential processes are employed. THEORY AND HYPOTHESES It is proposed that incidental impressions are more likely to involve associative processes because consumers do not purposefully process information as they do under intentional impressions. The lack of cognitive effort put into the impression formation will ignore situational indicators and context and simply pair cues with brands, regardless of the supposed relationship between the two. It is expected that subjects that form incidental impressions for double negative messages will ultimately come to associate the negative aspects of the advertisement with the brand. H1: Incidental impressions are more likely to involve associative processes than intentional impressions 8 Inferential processing requires more cognitive effort than associative processing. Therefore, the ability to utilize inferential processing with cognitive-based appeals should be even harder than for affect-based appeals because of the more complex, multidimensional structure of cognitive-based attitudes. Regardless of how impressions are formed, consumers are more likely to default to associative processes with cognitivebased appeals compared to affect-based appeals because of cognitive overload. H2: Cognitive-based appeals are more likely to involve associative processes than affect-based appeals for both incidental and intentional impressions Understanding cognitive-based appeals should be harder under incidental impression formation than under intentional impression formation. The lack of systematic processing associated with incidental impressions will prevent consumers from using inferential processing. In contrast, affective attitudes likely will not differ significantly depending on impression type because of their more simple, unidimensional nature that requires less systematic processing. H3: Incidental impressions for cognitive-based appeals will be more likely to involve associative processes than for affect-based appeals Persistence of impressions depends on the extent to which one engages in memoryenhancing processes such as rehearsal or organization (Baddeley 1990). Since intentional impressions are formed consciously, sometimes through extensive cognitive work, one might expect these to be more accessible, more readily and often retrieved, and ultimately more enduring (Carlston and Mae 2003). On the other hand, incidental impressions are generally formed with less conscious thought and receive less processing. Therefore, it is proposed that impressions formed incidentally are less persistent and less accessible. H4: Incidental impressions are less persistent than intentional impressions 9 STUDY DESIGN The study will be conducted as a 2 x 2 x 2 mixed design experiment with the following factors: impression type (incidental or intentional), message type (positive or double negative), and persuasive appeal (affect- or cognitive-based). The dependent variables will be personality traits relevant to each target advertisement. The experiment will be carried out with undergraduate students that will receive course credit for a marketing class. The target advertisements and the respective brands they represent will be designed to convey certain personality traits. The first step in their generation will be to identify unique personality traits for each ad concept to ensure that there is no cross contamination from one target advertisement into another. Next, relevant product categories will be chosen for each personality trait. For example, if “stable” or “strong” is chosen as a personality trait, then a relevant product category where stability or strength is an important attribute could be an insurance or financial services company. After the personality traits and relevant product categories are selected and pretested to ensure subjects perceive the traits are relevant to the product categories, basic ad concepts will be created to emphasize the personality trait that is being conveyed. The next step will be to assign brand names to the products depicted in each ad concept. Examining brand impression formation is much more difficult than impression formation as applied to humans because of participants’ familiarity with and knowledge of most brands. Namely, if participants are already familiar with brands in the study, they already have preexisting impressions. Therefore, the brand names used for the 10 products/services in the study will have to be unknown and made up, and they will be pretested to ensure they are relatively neutral. For each brand/ad concept, four different advertisements will be created, although each subject will only see one of the versions for each brand. They will differ on message type (positive and double negative) and persuasive appeal (affect- and cognitive-based), but they will all convey the same personality trait. An affect- and cognitive-based ad will be created both for a positive and nonnegative message. Using the Avis example with the trait “competence”, a positive affect-based ad could show a customer being handed the keys to a rental car with the tagline “Enjoy peace of mind with Avis” and a positive cognitive-based ad could show the same scene but with the tagline “Ranked #1 in customer satisfaction by J.D. Power & Associates”. As for double negative ads, an affect-based ad could show a customer waiting in long lines with the tagline “Stressed out with unprofessional service? Choose Avis” and a cognitive-based ad could show the same scene but with the tagline “According to J.D. Power & Associates, other rental car companies can’t compare to Avis’ customer satisfaction”. Participant’s impression type (incidental versus intentional) will be manipulated based on their instructions for the experiment. Subjects will be told that an important consideration in advertising is how people process advertisements that are buried in magazines with a significant number of other ads and material. Consequently, they will be told that the ads that they are to consider carefully are interspersed with other filler ads that are not really relevant except to help provide context. Subjects will then be told that to make things easier for them, they will be given a list of products about which they will be asked, and these ads will be highlighted in some way when they appear. Subjects will be 11 directed to half of the actual target ads, and not to the other half, so that they process some intentionally and some incidentally. Subjects will be exposed to 20 advertisements, 12 of which will be fillers and eight of which will be brands of interest. There will be four main treatment groups, with each group viewing only one version of each brand/ad concept. Each group will view four positive target ads (two affect-based and two cognitive-based) and four double negative ads (also two affect-based and two cognitive-based) for different brands. Participants will view the ads as still images on a computer monitor. Each image will be shown for ten seconds and will contain distinct imagery, persuasive appeals, and brand name. Since brands will be shown relatively briefly, the presentation will make it difficult for participants to recall the specific imagery and taglines that were present when they encountered each specific brand. To further ensure that their short-term memory is flushed, participants will be asked to engage in an unrelated filler task following exposure to the brands. Then participants will be shown the names of brands with imagery and taglines deleted, and will then be asked to report their impression of each brand by rating the brand on personality scales (Aaker 1997) theorized to be affected by the different ads presented (e.g. Avis and competence), along with their liking of the brand. A memory check will also be conducted to ensure subjects cannot make post-hoc impressions from memory. Finally, in order to test the persistence of such impressions, this last step will be repeated one week after the initial experiment. 12 PROPOSED ANALYSIS Experimental data will be analyzed with repeated measures ANOVA with personality traits and overall brand evaluations as the dependent variables. If associative processes are present, it is expected that the negative aspect of the double negative message will ultimately become associated with the brands. The effect of attitude base will also be examined to determine if brand impressions depend on the type of persuasive appeal of an ad, affect- or cognitive-based, and if this differs under message type (positive and double negative) and on how impressions were formed (incidentally and intentionally). The same analysis will be repeated with the data taken a week after the experiment to test the persistence of impressions formed incidentally and intentionally. The participants’ recall of imagery and taglines associated with specific brands will be analyzed as a manipulation check to make sure that they have minimal explicit memory of the pairings. DISCUSSION Understanding impression formation and the differences between impressions formed incidentally versus intentionally has important implications for branding. Companies carefully position brands through advertising and by orchestrating the marketing mix to achieve a desired positioning in the consumers’ mind. Nonetheless, great variability may exist among consumers’ impression of brands based on how information was originally processed. Companies must understand the context in which marketing communications will be seen and prevent against misattributions from incidental impressions. 13 The pervasive use of negative imagery illustrating what a brand is not may potentially backfire on a company. Consumers may ignore the relation between the negative cues and the brand and ultimately associate the two together. Consequently, significant effort to build a brand and create positive associations with it may potentially have the opposite effect. Therefore, if companies insist on using these appeals, they must ensure that consumers will be making impressions intentionally and not incidentally. The consumers’ interest must somehow be piqued in order for intentional impression formation to occur, possibly through striking images or incongruent information (Meyers-Levy and Tybout 1989). 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