98 CHAPTER 3 HOW MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS WORKMere exposure
Hundreds of studies have demonstrated that prior exposure to stimuli (nonsense syllables, words,
slogans, pictures, faces, sounds, smells, etc.) increases positive affect towards these stimuli.^91
In the same vein, ad and brand exposures can increase liking of the ad and the brand, and can
make it more likely that the advertised brand enters consumers’ consideration set.^92 In other words,
the mere exposure of consumers to a particular ad, without the consumer actively elaborating on
the ad, can influence consumer preferences and behaviour. Indeed, studies show that respondents
who were exposed to an ad more than once, as compared with respondents who saw the ad
for the first time, appeared to evaluate the ad as more favourable and less dull.^93 For a while,
it has been assumed that prior exposure to stimuli acquaints consumers with the stimuli and
that this familiarity causes the more positive attitude towards the stimuli. However, several
studies indicate that the mere exposure effect on brand attitude does not occur through a
subjective feeling of familiarity. When a respondent has been exposed to a particular stimulus
before, this exposure can result in a more positive stimulus evaluation even if the respondent
cannot remember having seen the stimulus before.^94 A more recent explanation of the mere
exposure effect is that prior exposure increases processing fluency at the time consumers have
to make a judgement.^95 The fact that consumers have been frequently exposed to a certain ad
or brand results in a representation of this stimulus in consumers’ memory. When consumers
later on want to evaluate the stimulus, e.g. during a shopping trip, the representation of the
stimulus in their memory will facilitate the encoding and processing of the stimulus. As a
consequence, processing of the stimulus will be easier and more fluent. Since consumers often
do not realise that prior exposure increases processing fluency, they misattribute the source
of the processing fluency (i.e. the previous exposure) to liking, truth or acceptability of the ad
or brand, especially when they have been incidentally exposed to the ad or brand and are not
aware of this exposure.^96 Of course, the mere exposure effect is limited and should be seen as
a function of learning and satiation.^97 The more novel a stimulus, the more consumers can
learn and the more positive the affective response will be.^98 When consumers are confronted
too often with a particular message or ad, there is no longer any learning opportunity and
they get bored. This can have a boomerang effect on ad and brand attitude. The latter effect is
called wear-out and indicates that there is a certain threshold of exposure after which additional
exposure results in negative instead of positive communications effects (see Chapter 8).Häagen-Dazs has used erotic advertising for several years. One of its campaigns features a couple indulging in
sexual foreplay. The ice cream is their main attribute, which is put on each other’s body and licked off by the other.
By frequently combining the ice cream with foreplay, the ice cream itself has sexual connotations for some people.
This is illustrated by the statements of some university students who completely identify Häagen-Dazs with sex. In
an interview one of those students said:^89
It was very nice ice cream, we really enjoyed the ice cream and the advertising had a lot of sexual connotations in it and
I think we basically liked the connotations of the ads and we liked the idea of that and we believed the idea that Häagen-Dazs
was sexy because the ads told us it was sexy, so when we had the ice cream in front of us we felt that the pot was very
sexy, a sexy pot.
Furthermore, when the students had a date, they always made sure to buy Häagen-Dazs in advance. Successful
strategies are quickly copied. Besides Häagen-Dazs, Magnum also opted for eroticising its ice cream.^90business insight
Emotional conditioning worked out well for Häagen-DazsM03_PELS3221_05_SE_C03.indd 98 6/5/13 3:03 PM