What Does Familiarity Breed? Complexity as a Moderator of Repetition Effects in Advertisement Evaluation

This article examines how consumers' attitudes toward advertisements are affected by their previous exposure to them. The results of our experiment suggest that the effects of exposure on ad attitudes may be moderated by the complexity of the advertisement: evaluations of complex ads become more positive with exposure, while those of simple ads do not. This finding may help explain why previous studies of ad exposure effects have yielded mixed results.

[1]  J. Edell,et al.  Ad Reactions Over Time: Capturing Changes in the Real World , 1986 .

[2]  Scott B. MacKenzie,et al.  The Role of Attitude toward the Ad as a Mediator of Advertising Effectiveness: A Test of Competing Explanations: , 1986 .

[3]  R. Batra,et al.  Situational Effects of Advertising Repetition: The Moderating Influence of Motivation, Ability, and Opportunity to Respond , 1986 .

[4]  Arno J. Rethans,et al.  Effects of Television Commercial Repetition, Receiver Knowledge, and Commercial Length: A Test of the Two-Factor Model , 1986 .

[5]  Carl Obermiller,et al.  Varieties of Mere Exposure: The Effects of Processing Style and Repetition on Affective Response , 1985 .

[6]  Richard E. Petty,et al.  Repetition, Cognitive Responses and Persuasion , 1981 .

[7]  B. Calder,et al.  Television Commercial Wearout: An Information Processing View , 1980 .

[8]  L. Delbeke Quasi-experimentation - design and analysis issues for field settings - cook,td, campbell,dt , 1980 .

[9]  T. Cook,et al.  Quasi-experimentation: Design & analysis issues for field settings , 1979 .

[10]  D. J. Messmer,et al.  Repetition and attitudinal discrepancy effects on the affective response to television advertising , 1979 .

[11]  Richard L. Miller,et al.  Mere Exposure, Psychological Reactance and Attitude Change , 1976 .

[12]  J. E. Grush Attitude formation and mere exposure phenomena: A nonartifactual explanation of empirical findings. , 1976 .

[13]  Donald D. Dorfman,et al.  The effect of stimulus uncertainty on the relationship between frequency of exposure and liking. , 1975 .

[14]  P. Wright,et al.  The Influence of Brand Ambiguity on Brand Attitude Development , 1971 .

[15]  S. Saegert,et al.  Effects of initial level of response competition and frequency of exposure on liking and exploratory behavior. , 1970, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[16]  M. W. Matlin Response competition as a mediating factor in the frequency-affect relationship. , 1970, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[17]  D. Berlyne Novelty, complexity, and hedonic value , 1970 .

[18]  Albert A. Harrison,et al.  The Effects of Frequency and Duration of Exposure on Response Competition and Affective Ratings , 1970 .

[19]  W. M. Weilbacher WHAT HAPPENS TO ADVERTISEMENTS WHEN THEY GROW UP , 1970 .

[20]  G. N. Cantor,et al.  Children's "like-dislike" ratings of familiarized and nonfamiliarized visual stimuli. , 1968 .

[21]  Larry Light An experimental study of the effects of repeated persuasive communications upon awareness and attitudes , 1968 .

[22]  R. Zajonc Attitudinal effects of mere exposure. , 1968 .

[23]  D. Berlyne,et al.  EFFECTS OF COMPLEXITY AND INCONGRUITY VARIABLES ON GSR, INVESTIGATORY BEHAVIOR, AND VERBALLY EXPRESSED PREFERENCE. , 1964, The Journal of general psychology.

[24]  H. E. Krugman AN APPLICATION OF LEARNING THEORY TO TV COPY TESTING , 1962 .