Jesper H. Nielsen

How Childhood Advertising Exposure Can Create Biased Product Evaluations That Persist into Adulthood

Previous research has found that children incrementally learn how to cope with advertising as they age. The current research investigates whether these developmental constraints in advertising knowledge at time of exposure have enduring consequences. Results from four experimental studies show that childhood exposure to advertisements can lead to resilient biased product evaluations that persist into adulthood. Study 1 demonstrates that positive affect toward ad-related stimuli encountered in childhood mediates the relationship between childhood advertising exposure and biased evaluations for products associated with childhood (but not adulthood) advertising. Study 2 demonstrates stronger biases when participants are exposed to childhood advertising cues relative to childhood consumption cues. Studies 3 and 4 show that even when ability and motivation to correct bias are high, lingering positive affect toward childhood ad-related stimuli is a motivational deterrent to correct biased product evaluations. Study 4 also shows that biased product evaluations can transfer to line extensions.

Coping with fear through suppression and avoidance of threatening information.

Fear appeal communications are widely used by social marketers in their efforts to persuade individuals to refrain from engaging in risky behaviors. The present research shows that exposure to a fear appeal can lead to the suppression of concepts semantically related to the threat and bias attentional resources away from threat-relevant information. Participants in the experimental condition viewed a fear appeal advertisement depicting the negative consequences of drinking and driving. The results of a reaction time task showed inhibited responses to words semantically related to drinking (e.g., beer, party) relative to a baseline group that controlled for priming effects (Experiment 1a) and level of fear (Experiment 1b). Furthermore, those in the experimental condition were shown to adopt an attention avoidance processing style, decreasing attention to alcohol-related advertisements appearing in a mock magazine (Experiments 2a and 2b). Because processing of alcohol-related advertising has been linked previously to an increase in drinking and driving, inhibited processing of such advertisements suggests a positive outcome of suppression effects. This contrasts with prior claims suggesting that suppression is counter to prevention-based efforts.

Half the Thrill Is in the Chase: Twisted Inferences from Embodied Cognitions and Brand Evaluation

Do our bodies control our minds? That people approach positive outcomes is not surprising, but do people also infer an outcome is rewarding from their bodily sensation of approaching it, and does this positivity transfer indirectly to other outcomes linked in memory to the original negative outcome? We posit that, because people usually approach reward, they mistakenly infer that approach must equal reward. Thus, a sensation of approach, even toward a negative outcome, makes them feel more positively toward the negative outcome and associated outcomes. Experiment 1 demonstrates a positive effect of embodied movement in space toward an otherwise aversive product. Experiments 2 and 3 additionally show positive effects of psychological movement in time, using evaluative conditioning procedures, to associated stimuli in memory. Implications for downward spirals in habit formation-the idea that approaching one bad habit might increase liking of other bad habits-and affect regulation are discussed. (c) 2009 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..

Emotionality and Semantic Onsets: Exploring Orienting Attention Responses in Advertising

Prior research on attention shifts to advertisements has focused primarily on demonstrating how perceptual features can shift attention to advertisements. In this article, the authors demonstrate that certain semantic characteristics of nonfocal advertising elements may similarly attract attention when consumers are focused on a primary task elsewhere in the visual field. In three experiments, the authors investigate how orienting attention responses to highly emotional advertising elements influence ad and brand awareness in cluttered environments. Specifically, they demonstrate that preattentive processing of the semantic information in nonfocal ad headlines can elicit orienting attention responses that result in predictable increases in ad and brand awareness.

What the Blind Eye Sees: Incidental Change Detection as a Source of Perceptual Fluency

As competition for consumer attention continues to increase, marketers must depend in part on effects from advertising exposure that result from less deliberate processing. One such effect is processing fluency. Building on the change detection literature, this research brings a dynamic perspective to fluency research. Three experiments demonstrate that brand logos and product depictions capture greater fluency when they change location in an advertisement from one exposure to the ad to the next. As a consequence, logo preference and brand choice are enhanced. Evidence shows that spontaneous detection of the location change instigates this process and that change detection is incidental in nature; participants in all three experiments were unable to accurately report which brand logos or product depictions changed location across ad exposures. These findings suggest that subtle changes to ad design across repeated exposures can facilitate variables of import to marketers, even when processing is minimal.

Mental simulation and category knowledge affect really new product evaluation through transportation

We propose that when consumers encounter really new products (RNPs), defined as products that allow consumers to do something they have never been able to do before and whose benefits are often ambiguous at first, they spontaneously generate mental simulations in an attempt to assess the value of these products. When these self-generated simulations are in the form of sufficiently engrossing and vivid narratives, they can evoke transportation, a phenomenological experience of being “lost” in a story. We also assert that consumers with extensive experience in a related product category are most likely to produce vivid and absorbing simulations that lead to narrative transportation. When consumers are transported within their simulations, it ultimately enhances their overall evaluations of the RNP. Thus, we find that those with more product category knowledge evaluate RNPs more favorably than those with less knowledge, due to the extent to which they are transported by their thoughts.