Memory Factors in Advertising: The Effect of Advertising Retrieval Cues on Brand Evaluations

Because consumers may not make brand decisions during ad exposure, consumer memory for advertising is important. Yet, the cues typically available for brand decisions, such as the brand name, may not effectively retrieve the information, thoughts, or feelings stored in memory from prior ad exposure. A laboratory experiment showed that advertising retrieval cues (i.e., other verbal or visual information from the ad) facilitated access of elements from the ad memory trace and affected brand evaluations. Two other factors, competitive ad interference (i.e., the number of competing brands advertising within a product category) and consumers' processing goals during ad exposure, also affected consumer ad memory and brand evaluations.