Do not wait to reveal the brand name: the effect of brand-name placement on television...

An important issue in the design and execution of advertising messages is ensuring that consumers' reactions to advertising are associated with the name of the advertised brand. Anecdotally, we all encounter situations in which we can clearly remember elements of an advertising execution, but

cannot remember the advertised brand name, we associate the wrong brand name with the advertisement, or worse, we have positive associations but cannot remember specific elements of the advertisement and have no idea what brand to associate with that vague positive reaction (Jacoby and Hoyer 1989). Academic research has consistently demonstrated the difficulty that consumers have linking advertising messages to brand names, particularly in highly competitive advertising environments (Burke and Srull 1988; Keller 1987, 1991; Kent and Allen 1994). As predicted by the network model of memory (Anderson 1983), this paper will demonstrate that advertisers' preference to withhold the brand name until the end of television advertisements is likely to inhibit consumers' ability to associate advertising content to the brand name.

There are many factors that influence consumers' ability to effectively associate the evaluative implications of advertising to a brand name. These include repetition (Belch 1982; Fazio 1986), delay (Wyer and Srull 1986), cognitive elaboration (Greenwald and Leavitt 1984; Meyers-Levy 1989), stimuli vividness (Anderson and Bower 1980), and execution variability (Unnava and Burnkrant 1991). Executional and processing factors that facilitate the ability of consumers to link the brand name to the advertising message are obviously preferred to those factors that distract or disrupt the ability of consumers to make the connection.

This research is concerned specifically with the role of one executional factor in strengthening the association between the brand name and consumers' reactions to advertising: the temporal placement of the brand name within television advertising. A field study of prime-time television advertising across the major national broadcast networks found that 24% of ads wait until the very end of an advertising message to reveal the brand name, and only 6% of advertisements actually present it at the very beginning of spots before the presentation of content (Centre for Integrated Marketing Communication Research Brief 2004). Creative directors interviewed felt that withholding presentation of the brand name in this manner is intentional and appropriate. As one director put it, "the offer needs to be mentioned first and then the brand." Most interviewees expressed that brand-name placement decisions are purely execution-driven, which suggests that little consideration is given to cognitive and social psychology principles of learning. If creative directors believe that there is an advantage to withholding the advertised brand's identity until the end of the spot, it begs the question, "Is there theoretical and empirical evidence to back up this practice?" We believe not. On the other hand, we believe there is evidence to support placing the brand name at or near the beginning of an execution.

A strategy of withholding presentation of the brand name runs counter to the implications of existing theoretical paradigms that directly relate to the issue of creating associations between brand names and consumer reactions to advertising, particularly the network model of memory. Also, the limited empirical research related to the issue does not support withholding the brand name. In a review of how executional factors affect the performance of television commercials, Stewart and Furse (2000) found that the "time until brand is identified" and the "time until product is identified" were both negatively correlated to measures of advertising effectiveness (see also Stewart and Furse 1986; Stewart and Koslow 1989). These results should be considered tentative, however, because they were based on a cross-sample of television ads, and hence, could not control for a host of executional differences other than brand-name placement. Also, as this was a large-scale correlational study, these variables were only 2 among 160 executional elements considered.

The empirical issue addressed in this research is whether it is more effective to introduce the advertised brand at the beginning of a television spot or to withhold it until the end of the spot. To date, no experimental research has directly addressed whether and how the placement of the brand name in television advertisements affects advertising effectiveness. The next section discusses the theoretical support for inserting the brand name at the beginning rather than the end of an advertisement. This discussion leads to the primary experimental hypothesis and a series of follow-up analyses that address potential process explanations for the effect.

THEORETICAL ISSUES

Executional decisions regarding brand-name placement could be driven by the nature of the ad; for example, problem-solution formats may lend themselves to revealing a brand name toward the end of the execution (Belch and Belch 2001). Such decisions indicate nothing about the actual effectiveness of such strategies. Placing the brand name at or near the end of advertising might be beneficial because withholding the brand name may stimulate curiosity-driven cognitive elaboration (Loewenstein 1994; MacLachlan and Jalan 1985; Menon and Soman 2002). As will be discussed, however, any elaboration that this practice stimulates may hinder rather than facilitate a strong association between the brand name and consumer reactions to advertising (Kardes 1986; Keller 1991). Also, given the low propensity of consumers to engage in active processing of advertising content (Baker and Lutz 2000; Krugman 1965), employing a strategy that requires cognitive elaboration to succeed seems, at the least, risky.

In contrast, applying the network model of memory (Anderson 1983) and related theories of associative learning to advertising suggest that placing the brand name at the beginning of an advertising execution should increase its effectiveness, without specific requirements of involvement or attentiveness on the part of the viewer. In terms of sequential processing, once a brand name is activated, then subsequent experiences are more likely to be organized around that brand schema, and in the case where the brand is novel, they would simply be related to that brand name (Mandler 1984). In applying such theories, the key to advertising effectiveness may be less related to memory for specific content of an advertisement and more about those evaluative associations--positive or negative--that a viewer attaches to the brand.

The ensuing discussion, as well as the experimental hypotheses, focus on the effect of brand-name placement on attitude toward the advertised brand, a proxy for the strength of association between the persuasive implications of the advertising and the brand name. Focusing on the persuasive implications of advertising rather than on the recall of advertising content is justified because message receivers rely on their own reactions to advertising rather than the content itself to form or modify brand attitudes (Alba and Hutchinson 1987; Wright 1980). Also, of all potential consumer responses to advertising, evaluative reactions are most likely to be strongly associated to the brand name because they are more efficiently stored in memory than other representations (Alba, Hutchinson, and Lynch 1991; Anderson 1983; Bower 1981).

THE NETWORK MODEL OF MEMORY

Several models of memory organization and associative learning provide support for the superiority of placing the brand name at the onset of an advertisement. Most notably in the context of this research, the network model addresses the role of the sequential activation of the brand-name node relative to the advertising content and reactions to the content.

If the brand name (e.g., Nike) is the first information node activated during advertising exposure, then reactions to subsequently presented advertising content (e.g., increased athletic prowess claims) are more likely to be linked to the brand-name node than if content other than the brand name (e.g., a celebrity endorser) is the first information to be activated during exposure (Kardes 1986; Sujan 1985). If information other than the brand-name node is activated first, then the brand name will not be the "hub" of the advertising-processing experience. This means that consumer reactions to the advertising may be efficiently linked into memory networks related to the advertising execution content (e.g., memory network for basketball, memory network for celebrity endorser), or the message content (e.g., the importance of the running and jumping benefit), but not efficiently linked into the brand-memory network, specifically the brand-name node (Anderson 1983; Bargh 1984).

Worse, when advertising content is activated prior to the brand name, then other information linked to the advertising content may become activated and interfere with the formation of a link between the advertised brand name and the advertising content (Burke and Srull 1988; Keller 1991; Kent and Allen 1994). For example, if Adidas has already made a claim that their basketball shoes improve jumping skills, then the presentation of the jumping skill benefit in the Nike advertisement may inadvertently cue activation of the Adidas brand name before the Nike brand name is activated. As a result, the advertisement could inadvertently strengthen the association between Adidas and reactions to the jumping skills benefit, or at least prevent a strong association between Nike and such reactions.

ASSOCIATIVE LEARNING THEORIES

Based on the network model of memory, it is clear that the brand node must play a central role in the organization of information about the brand, that is, the learning process around the brand. Associative learning theories view the process of learning essentially as the creation of associations between one or more pieces of information. Such theories further stress the critical role of the temporal order of information presentation: It facilitates the linkage of reactions from one piece of information to another. If the brand name is the central point around which the advertisement is processed, the processing and learning that occurs during an advertisement will be associated with the brand name (Mandler 1967). If the brand name is activated first, any subsequent learning is more likely to be organized around the brand schema (Mandler 1984).

Research on message presentation order has long acknowledged the importance of framing and timing on persuasion (Haugtvedt and Wegener 1994). For instance, Hogarth and Einhorn's (1992) belief adjustment model, developed to explain the occurrence of information-order effects, assumes that people update their beliefs sequentially. As new information is received, it is processed around the original anchor, in line with the notion of organizational memory structure (Garner 1974; Leigh 1992). It therefore follows that in the context of advertising messages, providing the brand name first and allowing it to serve as the main anchor for processing information will lead to greater associational learning around the brand.

EXPERIMENTAL HYPOTHESIS

This stronger association between the brand name and consumer reactions to advertising content should lead to a greater transfer of reactions from the ad to the brand. Specifically, attitudinal responses to advertising should better "stick" to the brand name when presentation of the brand name precedes presentation of content. The experimental design forwarded below cannot definitively prove this process-oriented assertion. It can, however, establish whether brand attitude changes as a function of brand-name placement (an indication that the persuasive impact of the ad is facilitated by brand placement) and attempt to control for other potential causes for the effect. Thus, if consumer responses to advertising are positive, putting the brand name at the beginning of the advertisement should strengthen the association between the brand name and those responses, thus producing a more positive brand attitude than withholding presentation of the brand name until the end of the execution.

Brand-name placement at the beginning of the advertisement is not expected to influence brand attitude simply because it (1) increases the salience of advertising content, (2) increases the salience of the brand name in memory, or (3) increases attitude toward the ad. These effects may occur, but they are expected to be independent of the proposed primary cause of the effect, the automatic strengthening of the brand name-advertising content association in the brand memory network. A series of experimental and statistical controls are integrated into the experimental design to address these alternative explanations of a brand-name placement effect.

Per our discussion above, the attitudinal effect is caused by the strength of association between the brand name and reactions to the advertising content, not the absolute memory for advertising content (or reactions to content), and not by the absolute memory for the brand name. Given this, manipulating the accessibility of advertising content should not mitigate the effect of brand-name placement. One factor known to impact the accessibility of advertising content is repetition (Alba, Hutchinson, and Lynch 1991). Although repetition is known to increase memory for advertising content, it is not expected to directly influence the strength of the association between the brand name and reactions to advertising. Likewise, brand-name recognition may improve without a commensurate increase in the strength of association between the brand name and advertising content or reactions to that content. For these reasons, the effect of brand-name placement on brand attitude is expected to occur independently of any effect of brand-name placement on brand recognition.

Attitude toward the ad captures consumers' evaluations of advertisements, whereas brand attitude captures evaluation of the brand (Lutz 1985). Attitude toward the ad is a product of ad-focused processing, whereas brand attitude is a product of brand-focused processing (Gardner, Mitchell, and Russo 1985). Attitude toward the ad formation does not require any brand-related processing activity, nor does it require the formation of any associations to the brand name (Greenwald and Leavitt 1984). Although attitude toward the ad and brand attitude are correlated (MacKenzie, Lutz, and Belch 1986), the placement of the brand name is not expected to influence attitude toward the ad, nor is attitude toward the ad expected to mediate the relation between brand-name placement and brand attitude.

In summary, according to the network model of memory and related models of associative learning, inserting the brand name at the beginning of an advertisement should facilitate linking any consumer reactions to the advertising to the brand name. More specifically, assuming that advertising content is held constant, consumer reactions to that content will be better associated to the brand name if that brand name precedes content. Given this, we offer the following primary experimental hypothesis:

H1: The strength of the brand name-advertisement content association, as measured by brand attitude, will be stronger when the brand name is introduced at the beginning of an advertisement than when it is introduced at the end of an advertisement.

METHOD

Overview

A 3 (brand-name placement: first, last, first and last) X 2 (television advertisement repetition: low versus high) between-subjects design was employed to examine the impact of brand-name placement on advertising effectiveness. Brand-name placement and repetition were between-subjects factors. As explained below, an additional within-subjects manipulation was used to enhance external validity and replicate the effect with different advertisements and product categories. Two-hundred forty-four undergraduate business majors at a West Coast university participated in the study in partial fulfillment of a course requirement. The average age of participants was 23.2; 49.4% were female.

Stimulus Development

Three advertisements in three distinct product categories and also varying in length and executional style were selected as test ads. The purpose of this procedure was to increase the external validity of any observed results, not to attempt to make specific observations regarding the effect of brand-name placement on product type, execution style, or ad length.

Theoretical support for the brand-name last perspective hinges on employing attention-getting advertising executions. To give this condition the opportunity to succeed without artificially inflating viewer attention through additional manipulations, it was important to employ advertisements capable of generating interest. It was also important to select advertisements capable of generating positive reactions, so as to offer a strong test of the experimental hypotheses.

A set of seven award-winning English-language European advertisements was selected. Since these brands were not available in the United States, their usage controlled for brand experience and prior advertising exposure. (None of the study participants were European.)

These award-winning advertisements were also expected to generate strong interest and positive reactions. A pretest was conducted to verify their performance expectations. Twenty-six undergraduate students matching the profile of students used in the main experiment rated the advertisements on a three-item ten-point attitude scale (bad/good, negative/positive, dislike/like; a > .85). Reactions to all but one of these ads ranked above five on the attitude scale. The lower-performing advertisement was dropped from consideration as a target ad.

Additional criteria were applied to select the final test advertisements for the main study. To increase the external validity of results, test ads were chosen in three ordinary product categories--chewing gum ([A.sub.ad] = 5.4), laundry detergent ([A.sub.ad] = 5.6), and paint ([A.sub.ad] = 6.5)--and diverse executional styles (humor, emotion, slice-of-life) were sought and different commercial lengths (15, 45, and 60 seconds) were incorporated. In addition, selected advertisements had to permit the insertion of the brand name/logo at the beginning or end of the visual track of the advertisement without affecting the flow of the execution. Relatedly, it was imperative that exposition of the brand name occur only at the beginning and/or end of the original spot. The three advertisements chosen to be the test ads met these criteria. The four other advertisements from the pretest set served as fillers.

Experimental Manipulations

Brand-Name Placement

The test ads were professionally digitally remastered using Premiere video editing software to position the brand name/ logo at the beginning, at the end, or at both the beginning and end of the test advertisements. The third condition, brand-name first and last, was not directly related to the experimental hypotheses and was included for exploratory purposes. In each condition, after the brand names/logos were inserted, the original audio from each advertisement was positioned to overlay the insertions. The brand name and logo visuals used were drawn from the advertisements themselves. No new content was produced and added to the advertisements; no content was deleted. As a result, there was no discontinuity to the flow of the advertisements and no evidence of tampering. The filler advertisements were not remastered.

In the brand-name first and brand-name last conditions, the brand name appeared for five seconds at the beginning or end of the advertisement, respectively. In the exploratory condition, the brand name appeared at the beginning of the ad for 2.5 seconds and at the very end of the ad for 2.5 seconds.

Repetition

In the no-repetition condition, participants viewed each test advertisement and the four filler advertisements once prior to the application of the experimental measures. In the repetition condition, the test and filler ads were presented twice prior to the onset of the measures. In both conditions, the advertising presentation was repeated at the end of the study, immediately prior to the final brand attitude measure (see below).

Experimental Procedure

The study was run in a behavioral lab using a Visual Basic computer program. The program allowed for the presentation of the television advertisements while streaming onscreen. This more closely replicates the television-viewing environment than paper-and-pen exercises. All participants viewed the same series of seven filler and target ads on 15-inch computer monitors. They also viewed 16 Web pages containing Internet banner advertising. The latter acted as an intervening task separating the primary advertising presentation from the onset of recognition and brand attitude measures, and was unrelated to the experimental hypotheses. The entire procedure was self-paced, and all but two participants completed the task within 40 minutes.

Fifteen sessions were conducted with an average of 18 participants per session. At the beginning of each session, participants were informed that the research involved viewing and reacting to a series of television advertisements and Internet banner advertisements. After familiarizing themselves with the use of the on-screen scales described in the next section, they proceeded to the advertising presentation. During the presentation, participants rated their attitude toward each advertisement immediately after it was presented, before proceeding to the next advertisement. In the repetition condition, participants rated the advertisements following the second exposure.

Next, participants completed a filler activity, introduced as an Internet banner evaluation task. The task took several minutes to complete. Recognition tests for each of the seven advertised brand names followed this filler task. Brand attitude measures followed, using a procedure described in the next section. Finally, participants rated the three test brands and the four filler brands. After completing the session, participants were thanked and debriefed. Figure 1 presents the complete flowchart of the procedures.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

Experimental Measures

Measurement scales were presented on-screen and involved clicking and sliding an animated bar, with the cursor set at the midpoint, along a semantic differential scale. The values were computer-generated: Depending on the participants' positioning of the scale bar between anchors, their response was assigned a value between 0 and 100. Attitude toward the ad (a > .90) and brand attitude (a > .89) measures were made on three scales anchored by good/bad, positive/negative, and like/dislike. The three scales were averaged to produce the rating.

Prior to the attitude toward the ad measures, participants were instructed: "You are about to see a series of advertisements. We would simply like you to watch and react to them as you normally watch and react to advertising." Immediately after seeing each advertisement, they were instructed, "Rate this ad."

To assess brand-name recognition, participants were shown ten pairs of brand names, one pair per screen. Seven of the brand names matched the seven advertised brands. Participants were instructed: "In a moment, you will see several pairs of brand names. If one of these brands was featured in one of the advertisements you saw earlier, click on it as soon as you recognize it." Recognition was coded dichotomously.

Brand attitude was assessed three times in slightly different ways to represent a range activation of the brand-memory network at the time of attitude elicitation, hence providing a more complete evaluation of the impact of brand-name placement. The first measure cued the respondents with the brand-name only, the second cued them with the brand and category names, and the third cued them with a reexposure of the brand advertising, the brand name, and the category name. Prior to the first brand attitude measure, participants were told: "In a moment, you will see several brand names. When they appear on the screen, please rate your attitude toward the displayed brand." Each brand was presented on-screen one at a time. The attitude scales appeared on-screen under the heading, "Attitude Toward <brand name>." Prior to the second measure, participants were told: "In a moment, you will see several brand name-product category pairs. When they appear on the screen, please rate your attitude toward the brand." Again, each brand was presented one at a time. The attitude scales appeared under the heading, "Attitude Toward < brand name> <category name>." Prior to the third brand attitude measure, participants were told: "In a moment, you will see the same seven advertisements that you saw at the beginning of this study. After each advertisement is shown, rate your attitude toward the brand." The brands were presented one at a time. The attitude scales once again appeared under the heading, "Attitude Toward <brand name> <category name>." The three brand attitude measures were summed to produce a single brand attitude score (a = .89).

RESULTS

A repeated-measures GLM (general linear modelling) analysis was employed to test the experimental hypothesis and to help control for alternative explanations to the proposed cause of the effect asserted in H1. Brand attitude was the dependent measure, treated as a repeated measure since there were three test brands in each condition. Brand-name placement and advertising repetition were the two between-subjects manipulated independent variables. Other covariates employed in the model were attitude toward the ad and brand recognition.

The results of the analysis are reported in Table 1. Hypothesis 1 was supported. There was a significant effect of brand-name placement on brand attitude, F(2, 232) = 4.49, p < .01. As predicted, brand attitude in the brand-name first condition ([M.sub.brand-name first] = 60.6) was significantly higher than in either the brand-name last condition ([M.sub.brand-name last] = 56.1) or the brand-name first and last condition ([M.sub.brand-name first and last] = 55.1) (p < .01) for both pairwise comparisons. There was no significant difference between brand attitudes in the brand-name last and the brand-name first/last (p > .972) conditions.

The repeated-measures factor was significant, F(2,464) = 5.16,p < .006, indicating that there were differences in brand attitude among the three ad/products. The interaction of this factor and the brand-name placement manipulation was marginally significant, F(4, 464) = 2.33, p < .06. Pairwise comparisons showed that the advertisement for the paint (61.6) produced a significantly higher brand attitude (p < .01) than either the ad for the laundry detergent (55.3) or the gum (54.5). This interaction did not alter the predicted pattern of results. Brand attitudes in all three product categories--paint, laundry detergent, and gum, respectively--were higher in the brand-name first condition (65.6, 57.0, 59.1) than in the brand-name last condition (59.2, 54.1, 55.0) or the brand-name first and last condition (60.5, 54.9, 50.1).

As Table 1 reports, there was no main effect of advertising repetition on brand attitude and no brand-name placement x advertising repetition interaction on brand attitude. Although the recognition covariates were not significant, we deemed it important to compare levels of recognition by brand-name placement condition and by level of repetition. A repeated-measures analysis of brand-name recognition scores revealed a significant effect of repetition, F(1, 238) = 11.72, p < .001, but no effect of brand-name placement on brand recognition, F(2, 238) = 2.20, p > .11. Brand-name recognition was 73.7% in the no-repetition condition, compared with 86.4% in the repetition condition. Taken together, these results support the proposition that advertising repetition may increase measures of memory for advertising without increasing the strength of association of the brand name to the persuasive implications of advertising, as proposed.

A similar repeated-measures analysis was conducted for [A.sub.ad] scores. That analysis yielded no effect of brand-name placement on [A.sub.ad], F(2, 238) = .30, p = .742, further supporting the notion that [A.sub.ad] played no mediational role in the effect of brand-name placement on brand attitude.

DISCUSSION

The results support the proposition that inserting the brand name at the beginning of a television ad rather than waiting until its end can enhance the persuasive impact of the ad. Advertisers should seriously consider the option of revealing the brand name at the onset of the advertisement. Withholding the brand name is not supported by theory or the empirical evidence presented in this study. Certainly, more evidence of the robustness of this effect is required, as is the identification of its moderators. At the same time, advertisers that choose to withhold the brand name should recognize that this practice has limitations and should have sound strategic reasons to engage in it.

Although the design could not entirely establish that the effect of brand-name placement was caused by strengthening the association of the brand name with the persuasive implications of the advertising, the results are consistent with this assertion. Alternative explanations were not supported. The effect was not moderated by advertising repetition, nor was it mediated by salience of the brand name in memory or attitude toward the ad. Collectively, these results support the proposition that placing the brand name at the beginning of the ad strengthens the association between the brand name and the persuasive implications of the ad, thus resulting in more positive brand attitudes when reactions to advertising content are positive.

This experiment demonstrated the importance of identifying the brand name at the beginning of television advertising instead of waiting until the end. Given the value of producing persuasive ad messages, this finding is substantial and carries important practical implications. Indeed, the results suggest that advertisers that withhold the brand name until the end of an advertisement may be inhibiting advertising effectiveness. The study of prime-time commercials discussed in the introduction suggests that a significant proportion of advertisers do exactly that.

From a theoretical standpoint, this research advances our understanding of the process by which brand-name placement facilitates the linkage between the brand name and the persuasive implications of advertising. Given that neither brand-name memory nor attitude toward the ad mediated the effect, and that repetition, a factor that influences content accessibility, did not alter the effect, it appears that brand-name exposure at the onset of advertising may facilitate a more automatic process of connecting the brand name to advertising content reactions. This indicates that brand-name first strategies may be particularly important in more passive information reception environments. This does not, however, mean that a brand-name last strategy is necessarily superior in active reception environments. As discussed previously, the network model of memory would predict the superiority of a brand-name first strategy in both passive and active environments. The damage to advertising effectiveness may be less severe in an active reception environment. This is an issue for future research.

The fact that the brand-name first and last condition actually faired worse than the brand-name first condition is interesting. It may suggest that while the connection between the brand name and reactions could be automatic, formation of a brand-name node may not. Perhaps with only 2.5 seconds to encode the brand name (versus five seconds in the brand-name first condition) there was not a stable node to link ensuing reactions. This supports the assertion that brand-name imprinting, the process of creating and strengthening the brand node in the memory network, may be absolutely critical to the success of connecting the persuasive implications of a marketing message to a brand (Baker 2003).

Finally, this research makes a unique contribution through its focus on persuasive implications as opposed to simply recall/memory issues (Unnava, Burnkrant, and Erevelles 1994). Our results suggest that common measures regarding advertising effectiveness may not always be the most appropriate. Positive reactions to advertising executions and high levels of recall for advertising content may indicate a high-quality ad execution. If the advertising does not facilitate linkages between advertising reactions and the brand name, however, the greatest ad executions/campaigns may do little for a brand and little for the advertiser other than entertain its audience.

A number of important questions emerge, however, regarding brand-name placement strategies. One key issue is how long the superiority of brand-name first ads would last. The study reported here investigated up to three repetitions, with limited delay between ad exposure and brand attitude measurement. Admittedly, for experimental control reasons, the study relied on novel ad stimuli for unknown brands. Although this design provided a pure test of the brand-first effect, it logically prevented the investigation of the persistence of the effect over time. One important factor in the persistence of the effect may be consumer elaboration of the content. If the content is not elaborated (i.e., passive reception environment), placing the brand name first may automatically strengthen the link, but that link may not last. Some research, for example, suggests that conditioning-based advertising effects may be retained for only three weeks (Grossman and Till 1998). If the content is elaborated, however, the beneficial effect of placing the brand name first may last much longer. This is an important issue for future research. Other moderating factors may include the vividness and distinctiveness of the advertising stimuli and the relatedness of advertising cues to the brand (Sengupta, Goodstein, and Boninger 1997).

Future research could extend the current findings through an examination of these executional cues in the context of known brands and determine whether brand placement effects remain significant when consumers have extensive experiences or associations with a brand name. For instance, there may be challenges to repositioning. In particular, there could be increased defensive responses or counterarguing, when a known brand is presented before advertising content. In addition, in the current research, the stimulus set included only high-quality award-winning ads, which excludes possible alternative responses to less appealing ads. It would be interesting to replicate the results when the associations linked to a brand are in fact negative.

As much research has demonstrated, individual differences also play an important role in the processing of ad messages, and thus could influence consumers' ability to effectively associate the evaluative implications of advertising to the brand name. Individuals who are high in need for cognition may be more frustrated with ads that do not identify the brand until the end because they are missing a crucial piece of information. Similarly, need for closure readily comes to mind as a potentially important moderator of the brand-name placement effect. Another interesting possibility would be to examine individuals who are naturally curious and may be expected to process ads with the brand name last better. Thus, the findings need to be replicated in different viewing conditions, with different quality ads, and across different levels of consumer motivation.

To conclude, this research has isolated and tested one key executional factor that affects advertising effectiveness. There are many others, and advertising researchers should look at additional execution variables that may, like brand-name placement, affect ad comprehension, advertising-based persuasion, brand choice, and may even interact with brand-name placement. This study has shown that the importance is in the details: Even with a great ad, simply making a wrong decision about when to identify the brand name could have important consequences on the subsequent effects.

TABLE 1

GLM Repeated Measures Analysis of
Results on Brand Attitude

                             df   F value  Pr > F

Brand Name Placement (BNP)    2    4.49     .012
Product Category              2    5.16     .006
Advertising Repetition (AR)   1     .02     .877
BNP x AR                      2    1.67     .184
BNP x Product Category        2    2.33     .055
BNP x Product Category x AR   2    1.42     .225

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The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the San Diego State College of Business Faculty Development Grant Program.

William E. Baker (Ph.D., University of Florida) is an associate professor of marketing, San Diego State University.

Heather Honea (Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley) is an assistant professor of marketing, San Diego State University.

Cristel Antonia Russell (Ph.D., University of Arizona) is an assistant professor of marketing, San Diego State University.