Summary of Results and Discussion
This study consisted of two experiments exploring context effects in sequential ad presentations in order to reveal the influence of the preceding ads on the succeeding ones.
Study one showed that with an unambiguous sub-brand, the parent brand in the leading ad would lead to a contrast effect on the evaluation of the sub-brand in the succeeding ad. Moreover, with a new brand which is more ambiguous in nature, the positive attribute correlation between the two succeeding ads lead to an assimilation effect, whereas the negative attribute correlation lead to a contrast effect.
Study two further tested the moderating roles of information depth and consumer product knowledge. For situations with surface information which both experts and novices can
understand, the effects of target ambiguity and attribute correlations parallel those in study one.
That is, the contrast effect occurred when respondents were given an unambiguous sub-brand;
when an ambiguous new brand was provided, the positive and negative attribute correlations induced assimilation and contrast effects, respectively. Finally, for situations in which deep information was available but was only explicable by experts, these experts tended to contrast the target toward the contextual reference when they were negatively correlated. Novices simply did not react to the deep correlation.
However, when the target and the context were positively correlated in a deep manner, experts didn’t assimilate the target toward the reference as we expected. One possible
explanation is that the deep correlated attributes manipulated in this study were not so difficult to catch their positive relation. This assumption can be supported by the fact that even novices somehow spotted the positive correlation. It’s possible that experts sensed that they were
comparing the target brand with the contextual parent brand in the preceding ad which was unfair.
Consequently, they mentally adjusted their judgment about the target brand: in other words, there was a correction contrast effect (Maringer & Stapel, 2009; Strack, 1992; Wegener & Petty, 1997;
Wilson & Brekke, 1994). The design of the current study cannot adequately distinguish if any correction effect happened. It would be interesting to design another experiment to investigate this possibility.
Academic Contributions
The present research further extended the theory of context effects into brand evaluations via the sequential presentations of advertisements. This topic has received very limited attention in the literature. From the standpoint of advertising research, this present research calls attention to the effects of a serial presentation of advertisements. There was advertising research that studied how competitive ads, when placed in adjacent positions, could influence the memory of the ad vis-à-vis each other (Burke & Srull, 1988), but the effects of ad positions on attitudes toward the ads through the mechanisms of assimilation and contrast have not been systematically explored in the past. Finally, the present study also takes into account other variables, such as information depth, that have been only marginally explored in past research on context effects. Information depth was more often noticed in research on knowledge transfer in
been mentioned previously (Broniarczyk & Alba, 1994), that different levels of information depth may interact with already obtained knowledge of a product to influence the context effect.
Previous studies of assimilation and contrast effects have employed unreal objects as their ambiguous targets to bring out the effect, such as fictitious animals (Herr et al., 1983),
hypothetical cars (Herr, 1989), and nonexistent restaurants (Stapel, Koomen, & Velthuijsen, 1998). It was assumed that when respondents carried no prior impression about these unreal objects, their judgment could be changed easily. The assimilation or contrast effect was then obvious. The researchers did not reveal any further information about these non-existing
objects in the experiments: no information about their ferocity, size (Herr at al., 1983), cost (Herr, 1989), or elegance was issued (Stapel et al., 1998). However, the current study used an
advertisement scheme which is closer to the reality of current marketing to present new and sub-brands with specific product attributes. This study demonstrates that the assimilation or contrast effect is strong enough even with descriptions about the target in an ad or prior brand image (i.e., sub-brand in this study) still in mind.
Prior research of assimilation and contrast effects usually primed the effect in the same dimension; in other words, the context and target stimuli both carried a single same attribute (Della Bitta, et al., 1981; Herr, 1989, Wänke, et al., 1998). This study makes obvious that assimilation and contrast effects can occur in correlated attributes. Another perspective to examine the influence of one attribute of a product on the unrevealed attribute of another product is the effect of inference. The high attribute correlation in this study may evoke stimulus-based inferences; whereas the control group may generate memory-based inferences. Prior
knowledge and experience can also moderate the results of inferences (cf., Kardes, Posavac, &
Cronley, 2004). Comparing these two perspectives from the theoretical angle and consequent
result should be an interesting follow-up research.
Managerial Implications
The present study suggests that the serial position where an ad appears is important to the effectiveness of the ad. Global consumer-product companies, such as P&G and Unilever, usually adopt multi-brand strategies in which multiple independent brand names are marketed.
Ideally, each brand should have its own position and brand image. Media operators often offer
“set manuals” for media buyers to purchase media space or time in a bundle at a lower unit cost.
Our conclusions suggest those companies who purchase bundled media should strategically place several ads of different brands in one magazine or one commercial break. Two brands with a negative attribute correlation should not be placed together to avoid a possible contrast effect. If a new brand shares a similar appeal with a well established brand, they may be placed adjacent to each other to induce an assimilation effect and thereby the new brand may leverage the other’s brand equity.
These managerial implications do not only apply to brands that belong to the same company but also to brands of competing companies. In order to elevate consumers’ evaluations of a company’s new brand, companies might place the brand after another ad of a strong competing brand sharing a positive attribute with the target brand; but it should avoid doing so when the focal attributes are negatively correlated or when the target brand is a sub-brand of the parent brand in the leading ad. Furthermore, if the focal attribute requires a certain level of knowledge about it, the media selection becomes the key issue. The inference about the succeeding ad made by the audience or viewer occurs only when the audience or viewer of the media has enough expertise.
that context effects are stronger on expert than novice consumers, while novice consumers showed context effects only with surface but not with deep information. Given that context effects are desirable, a company can use either surface or deep information when targeting expert consumers, but it should only employ surface information when targeting novice consumers.
Finally, it should be noticed that the explored context effects of this study do not happen with advertisements only. All the brands in the same product category endure the direct influence and comparison from other competing brands on the shelf. Retail stores usually display all the brands of facial cleansers from one company together and next to competing company’s brands on the shelf. When consumers make their final purchasing decision, the
“moisturizing” appeal on one brand’s package may influence the perception of consumers about, say, the “deep cleansing pores” attribute on another brand. The results of this study can be applied to the point of purchase, but it is worth further study to directly test any shelf comparison effect.
Other than the limitations that inhere in using student samples and experimental designs, this study recognizes the limitations associated with only using new ambiguous brands in the succeeding ad. Even the sub-brand condition in this study is still a new entry with half of the brand name new. This study simply assumes that consumers hardly change their attitude
toward a well established brand because of context effects. However, according to Herr (1986), an unambiguous well-known brand might be a target which tends to cause a contract effects.
To complicate the scenario, what would happen if an ad of Head & Shoulders by P&G was posted before Lux by Unilever? Research considering this question by including the competition and position of the proceeding and succeeding brands would be of interest. In addition, the product category in the present study is the same for the leading ad and the
succeeding ad. It may be worth considering whether different products varying in their degrees of similarity among the two respective ads may reveal similar context effects.
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Table 1
ANOVA Results for Study One
DF MS F
Parent Brand Ad (PB) 1 0.85 1.53
Branding Strategy (BS) 1 7.48 13.36 **
Attribute Correlation (AC) 1 18.91 33.78 **
PB × BS 1 10.78 19.25**
PB × AC 1 4.93 8.81**
BS × AC 1 5.71 10.20**
PB × BS × AC 1 3.96 7.08 **
Model 7 7.43 13.27 **
Note. ** denote significance at the α=0.01 level.
Table 2
Assimilation and Contrast Effects in Proposed Conditions for Study Two
Attribute correlation: Negative Positive
Information depth: Surface Deep Surface Deep
Attribute manipulation low price multiple automatic
New brand strategy (DigiXpert K-9) Product knowledge
Table 3
Attribute Correlations between Context and Target Attributes in Expert and Novice Consumers
Comparison Attributes Product
Knowledge
Correlation
Score (SD) T-test
Deep and positively correlated
Professional camera – High quality lens
Novice 1.15 (0.99)
13.37 **
Expert 2.29 (0.81)
Deep and negatively correlated
Professional camera – Multiple automatic modes
Novice -0.35 (1.47)
6.42 **
Expert -1.17 (1.21)
Surface and positively correlated
Professional camera – High number of pixels
Novice 2.38 (0.87)
0.71 Expert 2.32 (0.93)
Surface and negatively correlated Professional camera – Low price
Novice -2.46 (0.92)
0.94 Expert -2.54 (0.86)
Note 1. Correlation questions were scaled from -3 (extremely negatively related) to 3 (extremely positively related).
Note 2. ** denote significance at the α=0.01 level.
Table 4
ANOVA Results for Study Two
Variables DF MS F
Parent Brand Ad (PB) 1 12.27 21.04**
Branding Strategy (BS) 1 65.96 113.09**
Attribute correlation (AC) 1 70.81 121.40**
Information Depth (ID) 1 16.53 28.33**
Note. ** denote significance at the α=0.01 level; * denote significance at the α=0.05 level.
Table 5
Mean Values and Standard Deviations in the Respective Experimental Conditions Experimental Group: parent brand in the leading ad
Sub-brand strategy
Attribute correlation: Negative Positive
Information depth: Surface Deep Surface Deep Product knowledge
Expert 2.15 (0.72) 3.59 (0.73) 3.75 (0.67) 4.41 (0.56) Novice 2.38 (0.85) 3.33 (0.76) 3.76 (0.87) 3.65 (0.88) New brand strategy
Attribute correlation: Negative Positive
Information depth: Surface Deep Surface Deep Product knowledge
Expert 1.69 (0.47) 2.26 (0.66) 3.72 (0.58) 3.70 (0.68) Novice 1.68 (0.48) 3.00 (1.51) 3.55 (0.62) 3.00 (0.83) Control Group: irrelevant brand in the leading ad
Sub-brand strategy
Attribute correlation: Negative Positive
Information depth: Surface Deep Surface Deep Product knowledge
Expert 3.36 (0.67) 3.85 (0.55) 3.90 (0.74) 4.00 (1.25) Novice 3.65 (0.81) 4.00 (0.38) 4.06 (0.44) 3.67 (0.59) New brand strategy
Attribute correlation: Negative Positive
Information depth: Surface Deep Surface Deep Product knowledge
Expert 2.70 (0.95) 2.92 (1.00) 3.08 (1.16) 3.30 (1.06) Novice 2.79 (0.80) 2.92 (1.04) 3.00 (0.74) 3.17 (0.62)
Note. Standard deviations are in parentheses.
Presence of Context:
parent brand vs. irrelevant brand
Attribute Correlation:
positive vs. negative
Branding Strategy:
new brand vs. sub-brand
Information Depth:
deep vs. surface
Product Knowledge:
expert vs. novice
Evaluation of Target:
assimilation or contrast
Figure 1
Conceptual Framework of Study One and Study Two
Note: Double lines represent the framework of study one. The whole framework is investigated in study two.
Figure 2
Mean Evaluations for the Interaction Effect of Leading Ads and Brand Strategies of Study One
Figure 3
Mean Evaluations for the Three-way Interaction Effect of Study One
Figure 4
Mean Evaluation by Knowledge Group of Study Two