“Advertisers… should rely not only on information such as ratings, reach, or readership but also on specific media-context factors that exert positive, negative, or neutral influence on memory for… advertisements.”
— Authors* of “Impact of Media Context on Advertising Memory Study”
The media environment – the context in which advertisements are placed – is important to a message’s impact. Marketers should consider the media context in which their ads appear to get their messages remembered, drive brand recognition/recall, and launch new products/services. Following are key findings from various studies:
1) Media context positively affects advertising memory among consumers:
- Media context factors that improve advertising memory include: increased consumer media involvement, media-advertising-context congruency, and higher program-liking.
- Programs with negative content will more likely inhibit advertising memory.
2) Advertising placement affects recall and recognition:
- Media context factors elicit higher recall/recognition for the advertisement than for the brand.
- This finding further demonstrates that varying media context conditions affect an ad’s communication to consumers.
3) Consumers’ evaluation of new brands is affected by media context:
- Consumers use media context to evaluate unfamiliar brands in a manner that is not required for well-known products/services.
- Marketers should consider media context especially when they are trying to reach new target audiences who may lack brand awareness.
Since advertising effectiveness is enhanced if media context factors positively influence a consumer’s memory, these factors should be given serious consideration in media decision making.
Source: Impact of Media Context on Advertising Memory: A Meta-Analysis of Advertising Effectiveness Study, reported in Journal of Advertising Research; *Authors: Eun Sook Kwon (Rochester Institute of Technology), Karen Whitehill King (University of Georgia), Greg Nyilasy (University of Melbourne) and Leonard N. Reid (University of Georgia/Virginia Commonwealth University); reported by WARC