Persuasiveness of Communications is Affected by Exposure Frequency and Message Quality: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of Persisting Attitude Change

Abstract Repeated presentations of commercials save production costs and increase their persuasive effectiveness. This observation holds empirically up to a point; however, there is now ample proof that excessive presentations of a commercial decrease persuasive effectiveness, which may lower or reverse the benefits realized from the earlier advertising expenditures. This survey reports several social-psychological analyses of the manner and means by which message repetition might influence persuasion. Two experiments that were designed to select from among these accounts are reported. We conclude our survey by focusing on the cognitive-response formulation, because it provided the most parsimonious account of the data.