The Influence of Nonattended Material on the Processing of Advertising Claims

Hemispheric processing theory suggests that adding information to support verbal claims in an advertisement may influence the subconscious processing of the claims. Experiment 1 shows nonattended pictorial and verbal advertisements can compete for subconscious resources needed to process an attended verbal message and thus influence the comprehension and memory of the message. Experiment 2 shows similar patterns of interference result when brand claims are accompanied by a product illustration or verbal headline. In each experiment, interference is shown to be a function of the form of the material accompanying the verbal message and its placement in relation to the message. Implications for the design and layout of marketing communications are discussed.