An Analysis of the Role of Liking on the Memorial Response to Advertising

After the publication of the results of the Advertising Research Foundation’s Copy Research Validity Project, advertisement (ad) liking has been extensively used as copy test predictor of campaign’s performance. Less favourable findings have been recently presented on the basis of its delayed effects. This study addresses the question of the presence of carryover effects of ad liking on the recall, by modelling the patterns of recall, ad pressure and liking by means of the specification of a multivariate time-series model. While until now the literature has mainly investigated only the simultaneous relationship between advertising, recall and liking, this framework may be suitably applied to the investigation of the dynamic relation between ad liking and memorial response to advertising. The analysis is carried out for the markets of small automobiles, deodorants and shampoos. Main empirical findings for the analysed categories highlight that: (1) carryover effects of ad liking on the recall measures may be detected but not systematically and (2) the role of ad likeability on memorial responses varies among product categories. (3) Moreover a further finding shows that, whereas positive influences are thoroughly retrievable (in the small car category), ad likeability influences more advertising than brand awareness and more total than unaided awareness.