Product Familiarity, Involvement and Advertising Effectiveness

Abstract

This exploratory study investigates the relationships of product familiarity and involvement with message recall and evaluation in an ad pretesting situation. Subjects' familiarity and involvement with the product category under study were measured, followed by forced exposure to a print ad of the product and elicitation of message recall and evaluation. The results suggest that familiarity is a better explainer of message recall, while involvement is a better explainer of message evaluation. Implications for advertising strategy and testing are discussed.