On Resonance: A Critical Pluralistic Inquiry Into Advertising Rhetoric

Print ads exhibit resonance when they combine wordplay with a relevant picture to create ambiguity and incongruity. This article uses multiple perspectives and methods within a framework of critical pluralism to investigate advertising resonance. Semiotic text analyses, a content analysis of contemporary magazine ads, two experiments, and phenomenological interviews combine to yield insights into the operation, prevalence, impact and experience of resonance. Specifically, the two experiments show that manipulation of resonance produces positive treatment effects in three domains: liking for the ad, brand attitude, and unaided recall of ad headlines. These effects appear contingent of subjects' successful decoding of resonance and their tolerance for ambiguity (an individual difference variable). Implications for future research on resonance and for the use of critical pluralism in consumer advertising research are discussed.