Persuasive Advertising - J. Scott Armstrong [84]
Our WAPB analysis found that, of the 480 print ads covered (almost all from well-known brands), 93 percent repeated brand names. In addition, 89 percent of them mentioned the brand name near the beginning of the ads.
Evidence on the effects of prominent mention of brand names
Our analysis of quasi-experimental data supports this principle:
Print ads that displayed brand names prominently had better recall. Our analysis of WAPB found 18 pairs of print ads in which one ad displayed the brand name in prominent manner (with at least three repetitions) while it was not prominent in the other ad. The ads with the prominent display were recalled 1.44 times better than the ads that did not display the brand name as prominently.
In a small-scale experiment, 21 TV commercials for high-involvement products, such as cars, computers, and automobile tires, were shown to 228 subjects. As part of this experiment, the researchers tested recall for four unknown products. Brand recall was better for each of the unknown brands when the brands were mentioned only at the end of the ads, thus supporting the use of mystery-ads for unknown brands (Fazio, Herr, and Powell 1992)
Our analyses suggest that mystery ads performed poorly with print ads for well-known brands, even when readers could jump to the end to see the brand:
Ads with only late brand identification had lower recall and persuasion. Our WAPB analysis found 22 pairs of ads for well-known brands in which one mentioned the brand early and the other mentioned it only at the end. Recall for the “mystery ads” was only 0.69 times that of the other ads.
Analyses of non-experimental data on TV commercials are relevant as this principle is not highly dependent on the conditions.
Recall for an analysis of 30-second TV commercials was 6 percent below average when there was no mention of the brand, 4 percent below for one oral mention, 1 percent below for two, and 4 percent above for three or more mentions. Persuasion was 7 percent below average for no oral mentions and 2 percent above for three or more. A brand audio sign-off improved both recall and persuasion by 10 percent (Walker 2008).
An analysis of TV commercials (90 percent of which were 30 seconds in length) found that the number of times the brand name was mentioned and the number of times the brand name and logo were shown on the screen were positively related to recall (Stewart and Furse 1986). Stanton and Burke (1998) added support, especially for short (15-second) commercials. In an analysis of 832 radio commercials covering 31 product categories, those with more brand name repetitions had better recall (Sewall and Sarel 1986). TV commercials with a brand auditory sign-off (mentioning the brand in the last three seconds) were rated as more persuasive than those that did not include such a sign-off (Stewart and Koslow 1989).
For the non-experimental data in WAPB, in comparison with the industry norms for each ad, the average persuasion score for the 192 ads that led with the brand was 8 percent higher than the comparable score for the 14 mystery ads.
A survey of website users added support: The most important in a list of 30 possible factors that lead to high credibility was, “The site represents an organization that you respect.” And the second most important was that the “site lists the organization’s physical address” (Fogg 2003, p. 154).
5.5.2. Include brand and company names (double-branding)
W. K. Kellogg’s invention of corn flakes in the early 1900s was so successful that by 1911 there were 108 brands of corn flakes being sold in Kellogg’s hometown, Battle Creek, Michigan. Kellogg, who wrote his own ads, had always been careful to pair his company name, Kellogg’s, with corn flakes. When the courts ruled that “corn flakes” was merely descriptive of a product and anyone could use the term, Kellogg did not suffer much because most customers did not think “corn flakes,” they thought “Kellogg’s Corn