Processing Pull-Through Advertisements Screened During Sporting Telecasts: Effects Of Advertisement Message Speed, Programme Context and Repetition Priming

Abstract

Exposing consumers to advertisements and communicating clear messages within advertisements is important for marketers in achieving desired outcomes such as generating brand awareness, creating favourable attitude toward a brand, or seeking product sales. Recent technological advancement in televised broadcasting has seen marketers introduce another advertising tool to gain exposure and communicate messages to potential consumers. Typically termed pull-through advertisements, these are executed at the same time viewers are watching a television programme. They must compete for processing attention among stimuli emanating from within the television programme. Four studies examined pull-through advertisements as a stimulus that competed for processing attention within sport television broadcasts. These studies explored the effects of processing pull-through advertisements under conditions of different message speed, varied television programme context, and repeated brand exposure. Conclusions derived from results of these studies focused on explaining the manner in which advertisements compete for processing attention. These explanations were guided by two theories of information processing: feature integration theory--a cognitive information processing theory; and excitation transfer theory--an affective information processing theory. Study One looked at establishing ecological validity for pull-through advertisements employed during sport television broadcasts. The study provided a content analysis that focused on characteristics and the use of pull-through advertisements as well as the television programme stimuli surrounding the pull-through advertisement at the time of execution. Study Two examined effects of speed of pull-through advertisements on familiar and unfamiliar brand name recall, brand name recognition, and comprehension of advertisement messages. The study was conducted experimentally, with pull-through advertisements of various speeds being constructed for testing on a sample of Australians. It was also found that familiar brand names should only be used in pull-through advertisements, as all results for unfamiliar brand names were less favourable than that found for familiar brands. Study Three explored effects of three different television programme contexts (dead, action, and excitement) on cognitive and affective processing of pull-through advertisements on levels of advertisement information processing, attitude toward the advertisement (Aad), and attitude toward the brand (Ab). This study also investigated whether people recalled seeing the advertisement. The study was performed experimentally and was informed by findings from Study Two. Study Four investigated effects of repeated exposure of a brand name on attitude toward the brand (Ab) and purchase intent (PI). Pull-through advertisements were used in combination with advertisements in follow-up commercial breaks to repeatedly expose a brand name to consumers. This study was conducted experimentally and was informed by results of Studies Two and Three. Overall, results of the experimental studies suggested the manner in which pull-through advertisements competed for processing attention among stimuli from sport television broadcasts was consistent with proposals made by information processing theories of cognition and affect, i.e., feature integration theory and excitation transfer theory. Pull-through advertisements were able to compete for processing attention within sport television broadcasts. Pull-through advertisements were able to break through the clutter of stimuli of a sport television broadcast and be processed through either cognitive or affective information processing systems. Processing of pull-through advertisements demonstrated that cognitive and affective processing systems are not mutually exclusive and that both cognition and affect can work in tandem to process information. However, each system has its unique ways of allowing pull-through advertisement information to be processed. The use of both systems demonstrated that, even if deemed unwanted, words that made up a pull-through ad message were sufficiently distinguishable to allow processing to occur at a non-conscious level. It is here (at the non-conscious level) that stimuli surrounding the pull-through advertisement affect the advertisement message; particularly through the use of the affective information processing system. Whether pull-through advertisements were processed cognitively or affectively, or whether or not people recalled seeing words of the pull-through advertisement, just one exposure was sufficient to break through the clutter of sport television broadcast and achieves salient effects.