Memory for print ads: Understanding relations among brand name, copy, and picture

Abstract

How should information in print ads be presented to facilitate memory for the three major components—the brand name, the copy, and the picture? Using associative network models of memory as a framework, we demonstrate that relations among the components facilitate memory. Specifically, in Experiment 1, ads containing relations among ad components were better remembered than ads presenting unrelated components. Moreover, ads with relations among all three ad components resulted in better unaided recall than ads with relations between only two ad components, and relations involving pictures were better recalled than those involving only words. Experiment 2 demonstrated that, under both high and low task involvement, ads with lexical relations between copy and brand name are remembered better than ads with only conceptual relations. Experiment 3 replicated this effect for high issue involvement, but not for low issue involvement.