Journal of Marketing Communications

ISSN: 1352-7266 (Print) 1466-4445 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjmc20

Non‐Recognition of Print Advertising: Emotion

Arousal and Gender Effects

Thomas R. Baird , Russell G. Wahlers & Crystal K. Cooper

To cite this article: Thomas R. Baird , Russell G. Wahlers & Crystal K. Cooper (2007)
Non‐Recognition of Print Advertising: Emotion Arousal and Gender Effects, Journal of Marketing
Communications, 13:1, 39-57, DOI: 10.1080/13527260600942616

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13527260600942616

Published online: 13 Feb 2007.

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Journal of Marketing Communications
Vol. 13, No. 1, 39–57, March 2007

Non-Recognition of Print Advertising:

Emotion Arousal and Gender Effects

THOMAS R. BAIRD*, RUSSELL G. WAHLERS* &

CRYSTAL K. COOPER**
*Ball State University, Miller College of Business, Indiana, USA, ** Indianapolis, USA

ABSTRACT Research in the behavioral sciences has found that memory tends to be enhanced by
exposure to emotion-arousing stimuli. While this relationship is not fully understood, the linkage
appears to be more pronounced for females than for males. While the majority of prior studies
dealing with memory have relied on the use of visual stimuli in a clinical experimental setting, this
research examined the impact on memory resulting from exposure to actual print advertisements
of varying degrees of arousal-producing content. Differences in the relationship between arousal
and memory were explored for male and female participants. In general, females were found to
exhibit higher memory levels than males. As a single combined group, subjects exposed to
emotion arousing versus emotion neutral ad. stimuli exhibited no significant difference in
memory. For the set of emotion neutral ad. stimuli, no difference in memory was found between
sexes. However, retention was significantly higher for females than males for the set of emotion-
arousing stimuli. The study identifies opportunities for further applied memory research.

KEY WORDS: Advertising, memory, recognition, emotion arousal, gender

Introduction
A girl surrounded by puppies. A mother and daughter cooking. A big, fuzzy bear. A
family sharing a hug. The use of emotional advertising is very common in advertising
(Stayman et al., 1989). Warm, emotional advertising appeals have accounted for up
to 20% of all appeals in some studies (Williams, 2003). In 2004, American businesses
spent over $260 billion on advertising (Consoli, 2004). This could mean $40–
50 billion was spent on emotional advertising themes in that year. Why do
advertisers frequently choose emotional themes as a promotional appeal? Using
an emotional appeal in an advertisement can lead to a positive attitude toward the
ad. and/or the brand and may affect the buying intentions of the consumer (Edell

Correspondence Address: Thomas R. Baird, Ball State University, Miller College of Business, Department
of Marketing & Management, Muncie, IN 47306-0355, USA; Tel.: +1 765 285 3410. Email:
tbaird@bsu.edu

1352-7266 Print/1466-4445 Online/07/010039–19 # 2007 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/13527260600942616
40 T. R. Baird et al.

and Burke, 1987). Emotional appeals may also affect memory (Canli et al., 2000;
Friestad and Thorson, 1986; Hecker and Stewart, 1988).
Memory is an important factor in the effectiveness of an advertising campaign.
Ambler and Burne (1999) wrote, ‘We know that effective advertising must change
long-term memory because of the interval between ad. exposure and its impact on
behavior.’ Thus, the promotional message must be stored in memory and later
recalled when a brand decision is being made if it is to have some affect on the brand
choice.
The degree and type of effect emotional advertising appeals have on memory has
not been well established in the marketing literature. While some researchers have
found little evidence that emotional appeals have significant effect on memory
(Zielske, 1982), others (Friestad and Thorson, 1986) claim that emotional appeals
would be shown to have considerable effect on memory if tested properly. Patti
Williams (2003) also found that memory is significantly impacted by emotional
appeals. Little is found in the advertising literature on whether emotional advertising
appeals affect the memory of females differently than males.
This research investigates the influence of emotion-arousing advertisements on
memory and of how memory varies between males and females. Specifically,
memory levels, operationalized by a measure of non-recognition, were compared
between female and male college students for emotion-arousing and emotion-neutral
visual advertising stimuli.
The project was inspired by prior research by Canli et al. (2002), who found that,
‘Emotion arousing experiences are more memorable than neutral experiences.’ Their
research design used negative photographic visual images and found that those
pictures rated as most emotionally intense were the ones most remembered by
participants. They also found that women showed significantly greater memory
retention of highly emotional picture than did men. (Canli et al., 2002)
Specifically, the current experimental exploratory study seeks to determine if the
findings in Canli’s work (Canli et al., 2002) extend to the area of commercial print
advertising. The significance of this research is to better understand the relationship
between emotional advertising appeal on the memory of males and females, and
provide insight to aid advertisers in developing promotional messages that are more
effective for male and female audiences.
Before discussing the current study, some pertinent literature is presented relating
to memory functions, the impact of emotional stimuli on memory, and the influence
of gender on the retention of emotional stimuli. Several hypotheses derived from the
literature are presented, and the research method using a rather unique experimental
design and an inverse measurement of retention to control for a number of potential
confounding variables, is discussed. Finally, the results are discussed, implications
drawn, and suggestions for further memory-related research offered.

Literature Review
Memory
As a brief introduction to memory and its linkage to emotions, it is necessary to
examine several concepts of memory. Among the more accepted theories are the
 Memory and Emotion Arousal in Advertising 41

concepts of explicit and implicit memory; episodic and semantic memory; and short-
term and long-term memory. These constructs are briefly discussed below.

Explicit and implicit memories. One concept discussed in the literature suggests that
there are two types of memory, explicit and implicit. Explicit memory involves
information that is consciously known and used when intentionally recalling a
particular experience (Shapiro and Krishnan, 2001). Implicit memory is generally the
result of passive learning from prior exposure, not consciously or intentionally
meant to be remembered. Rather, it is often retrieved via an involuntary, relatively
subconscious, and automatic process (Shapiro and Krishnan, 2001; Williams, 2003).
Studies have shown that implicit memory retrieval may occur when explicit memory
retrieval fails (Shapiro and Krishnan, 2001).
In an interesting research project comparing explicit and implicit memory, Shapiro
and Krishnan (2001) found that explicit memory retrieval decreases when either the
level of attention toward the advertisement decreases or the time lapse between
exposure and memory test increases. However, with the same conditions, implicit
memory may be unaffected by time delay or decrease in attention toward the
advertisement.
Research has also found that implicit and explicit memories are both enhanced by
emotions, but in a different manner. In general, emotional advertising appeals tend
to impact implicit memory more than explicit memory. However the intensity of the
emotional appeal, while exerting little measurable impact on implicit memory, does
directly affect explicit memory. It has been suggested that intensity of emotion can
strengthen implicit memory because emotional traces may be enhanced by the
stronger emotion. Intense emotional appeals result in greater explicit and, indirectly,
greater implicit memory performance than milder appeals (Williams, 2003).

Episodic and semantic memory. Episodic and semantic memory is another concept
found in the literature. According to the research of Tulving, reported by Friestad
and Thorson (Friestad and Thorson, 1986) episodic memory involves retention
about specific events experienced by an individual whereas semantic memory relates
to general knowledge about the world that is organized in a logical and categorical
way. Although episodic and semantic memories are conceptualized separately, it is
generally suggested that they work together. For example, a subject asked to recall a
commercial that he/she saw last night, may first search through episodic memory.
However, if he/she cannot initially recall the commercial of interest, a cue may be
given (for instance, a cake mix commercial) which seeks to activate the respondent’s
semantic memory by utilizing an association between that cue and the episodic event.
(Cafferata and Tybout, 1989)
Emotion seems to be important in structuring both semantic and episodic
memories. Episodic memory is much stronger when created under emotionally
arousing circumstances than memory created without emotionally aroused
circumstances. Emotion is also relevant when mental operations will create semantic
information from episodic traces. Circumstances that arouse emotions increase the
likelihood that product-related information will be stored in semantic memory
(Friestad and Thorson, 1986). Therefore, it can be concluded that emotion aids in
the processing of information in semantic and episodic memories.
42 T. R. Baird et al.

Episodic and semantic memories are also instrumental in emotional advertisement

evaluation. When an advertisement creates an emotional response, that response is
recorded, along with the actual attributes of the commercial, in episodic memory.
This additional recorded response makes the episodic trace stronger and it will allow
this information to be more easily recalled later. This additional response will most
likely develop motivation for semantic traces to be laid down as well. This process
creates more traces within the memory relating to the particular commercial possibly
increasing recall (Hecker and Stewart, 1988).

Short-term and long-term memory. Another construct of the memory relates to the
duration of memory over time. Short-term memory is thought to last less than
20 seconds, while long-term memory is much longer and may be permanent
(Solomon, 2002). Rossiter and Silberstein (2001) (Rossiter et al., 2001) showed that
the transfer of information from short-term memory to long-term memory is done in
the left hemisphere of the brain. Therefore, they assert that advertisements that
produce fast responses in the left hemisphere of the brain have a greater chance of
being remembered long-term.
Emotions also seem to affect both short- and long-term memory. Prior research
has shown that emotional commercials are more strongly remembered in short-term
memory (Friestad and Thorson, 1986). However, neuroscience research has shown
that long-term memory is enhanced by affective advertisements as well (Ambler and
Burne, 1999).

Emotions
Each of the memory constructs briefly discussed above seem to play a role in how
emotions affect memory. A review of additional research that examines more closely
the influence of emotion on memory will help in the understanding of this
relationship.

Emotion and memory. Emotions are thought to be intrinsic and may be

unconscious reactions to stimuli and a powerful influence on memory and
judgment (Friestad and Thorson, 1986). Research by Canli et al., (2002) suggests
that emotional experiences are often more readily recalled than non-emotional ones.
Their work indicated that visual stimuli rated high in emotional intensity resulted in
significantly better memory performance than images rated as less emotionally
intense. Subjects exposed to emotion-arousing visual stimuli exhibited higher rates of
recall and thus lower levels of forgetting. Since only those scenes that were
substantially high in emotional arousal resulted in significantly greater memory,
Canli et al. (2002) assert there may be a threshold that emotional intensity must
approach before memory will be enhanced.

Emotions and advertising. Research has shown that emotional appeals in

advertisements have a number of beneficial affects on the research subjects. Burke
and Edell (1989) found that emotional appeals created emotional feelings in research
subjects that affect their beliefs and attitudes about the advertised brand, as well as,
attitudes toward the advertisement itself. Further, Batra and Ray (1986) concluded
 Memory and Emotion Arousal in Advertising 43

that advertisements produce feelings that influence the effectiveness of an

advertisement. Research by Geuens and De Pelsmacker (1998) found that non-
emotional advertisements not only make subjects feel less cheerful and carefree but
also seem to generate less interest and more irritation than high emotion ads.
Emotional appeals, however, tend to lead to more positive reactions, no matter what
the emotion.
Earlier research by Friestad and Thorson (1986) examined the recall of emotional
versus neutral advertisements. Recognition, preference, and influence were all tested.
Emotional messages were found to be recalled more readily than emotion-neutral
ones. Free recall of executional elements, product category, and brand name mention
all exhibited the same results, with emotional messages producing more pronounced
memory-related responses than neutral messages.
Ambler and Burne (1999) more recently compared emotional, high affect
advertisements with cognitive advertisements and their respective relation to
memory. Their research found that high-emotion, affective advertisements were
better recognized than cognitive advertisements after a single viewing and were later
recalled significantly better than cognitive advertisements. In a subsequent
experiment, further evidence to support these findings was provided by introducing
a chemical B-blocker to inhibit emotional arousal in one group of subjects while
introducing a placebo to the control sub-sample. It was found that the placebo group
(without the emotion inhibiting B-blocker) recalled almost twice the number of
affective advertisements than cognitive advertisements. The group given the B-
blocker recalled approximately the same number of affective and cognitive
advertisements, suggesting that B-blockers reduce the recall of affective advertise-
ments in relation to cognitive advertisements (Ambler and Burne, 1999).

Imagery and emotions. Print advertisements, which is the medium used in this
study, in normally composed of both visual and written elements. Some argue these
two components are processed differently by the brain.
Visual information is commonly thought to be processed in the right hemisphere
of the brain, whereas more verbal information is processed in the left hemisphere.
Because verbal information, specifically reading and speaking, are thought to be left-
brain activities, print is, thus, considered a left-brain medium (Du Plessis, 1994).
Rossiter and Silberstein’s (2001) research, however, suggests that pictorial stimuli are
mostly encoded in the left hemisphere of the brain along with the verbal stimuli. If
this is true, it is suggested that concurrent labeling of pictures will occur and increase
recognition of these stimuli.
Edell and Staelin’s (1983) research suggests that when visual and verbal cues are
used in combination, the visuals do not appear to exert a significant influence on
recall. However, later research (Houston et al., 1987) found that recall was enhanced
when information was presented both visually and in words. The different findings
may be a result of either dual coding of the information or simple repetition (Unnava
and Burnkrant, 1991). They go on to suggest that ‘Internally generated visual
imagery can substitute for externally provided pictures … pictures increase recall of
verbal information by increasing the likelihood that the verbal information will be
represented by dual codes – a verbal code and an imaginal code’ (Unnava and
Burnkrant, 1991). In their research, pictures were found to enhance recall
44 T. R. Baird et al.

significantly when combined with low imagery copy in both immediate and delayed
post-testing. Alternatively, high imagery copy paired with pictures did not increase
recall (Unnava and Burnkrant, 1991).
Additional research on right- and left-brain attributes suggests that emotions are
processed on the right side and logical processes take place on the left (Peterson et al.,
1986). From this research, it is suggested that by using emotional print
advertisements, subjects will need to use both the right and left hemispheres of the
brain to process the message and transfer the message to long-term memory.
Research suggests that the use of pictures in advertising is effective in generating
emotional arousal (Babin and Burns, 1997). Their research found that pictures used
in advertisements are more likely to elicit a positive attitude toward the
advertisement and brand than advertisements lacking visual imagery. They suggest
that, ‘Imagery processing is likely to pertain to pleasant emotional or affective
elements of the stimulus’ (Babin and Burns, 1997, p. 33). Therefore, using visual
imagery seems to elicit a more positive emotional response from subjects.
While further work is needed to understand these relationships more fully, this
research provides evidence that the combination of copy and imagery can prove
quite effective in enhancing the recall of advertisements. The well-documented
stream of prior research in the behavioral and neuroscience fields has clearly
established the linkage between emotion-arousing stimuli and various dimensions of
memory. The current investigation explores the differences in memory between male
and female subjects because of emotion arousal created by visual advertising stimuli
from existing modified print advertisements.

Gender and Memory of Emotional Stimuli

Memory of stimuli in males and females. Males and females often react to stimuli in
different ways. In their study comparing the processing and memory storage of
stimuli by males and females, Cafferata and Tybout (1989) found that females tend
to be more easily persuaded and influenced and have less self-confidence than males.
Females’ interpretations of stimuli are more creative, associative and imagery-laced
and are associated with feelings and motivations to a greater level than males.
Whereas males are more objective and focus on individual parts, females interpret
stimuli broadly but pay more attention to detail (Cafferata and Tybout, 1989). This
attention to detail promotes narrower, more differentiated memory organization and
creation of categories used in message retrieval. Since females make more
distinctions, they produce more subdivided categories with fewer items in each
category.
Males, however, are less attentive to details and create larger subcategories with
more information in each. This results in more information that is comprehensive
and dissimilar in each category. In his book on memory Anderson (Anderson, 1976)
suggested that it is easier to retrieve information when it is divided into more narrow
categories. Thus, the categorization schema used by females (Cafferata and Tybout,
1989) seemed to be more easily maintained in memory than that used by males. This
may explain why females are thought to enjoy an advantage over males, insofar as
memory-related information processing activities involving storage and retrieval.
 Memory and Emotion Arousal in Advertising 45

Males and females and the amygdala. A physical dimension of the interface of
memory and emotion involves the amygdala. This part of the brain is found to be
active when memory is being used. Not only does there seems to be a strong
connection between the amygdala and encoding information into memory, but the
amygdala also appears to respond strongly to emotionally intense scenes (Canli et al.,
2000). Canli found that amygdala activation varies between sexes (Canli et al., 2000).
In previous PET (positron emission tomography) studies (Cahill et al., 1996),
negative emotional stimuli resulted in activation in the right side of the brain.
Another fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) study (Canli et al., 2000)
identified amygdala activation in both sides of the brain with greater activity on the
left side. A suggested explanation for this is gender. In the first PET study, male
subjects were used, while female subjects were used in the fMRI research (Canli et al.,
2000). This stream of research suggests that amygdala activation is greatest on the
right side for males and greatest on the left side for females.
The intensity of emotional scenes also created varied amygdala activation. Canli
et al., (2000) showed that both sexes exhibited significantly more activity in the
amygdala when remembering highly emotional pictures. However, when dealing
with the most emotionally intense pictures, women exhibited higher levels of brain
activity than did men.
In their study, subjects were shown a series of neutral and highly negative pictures
and subsequently asked to rate each picture on a scale representing emotional
intensity. Three weeks later, the study’s participants were asked to complete an
unannounced recall questionnaire requiring them to classify each picture as
forgotten, familiar, or remembered. Those pictures that were earlier rated as most
emotionally intense were the ones most highly recalled by subjects. Women further
classified those pictures that were most emotionally intense as familiar or
remembered more often than men. Women also initially rated more pictures as
highly negative and remembered them with greater frequency than men.

Research Study
Hypotheses
Based on the previous research, a central research question concerns whether or not
subjects who are exposed to emotion-arousing ad. stimuli will exhibit significantly
greater memory retention than those exposed to emotionally neutral ad. stimuli. An
additional question concerns whether this memory retention response will vary
between males and females. Using non-recognition as a dependent variable
representing an inverse measure of memory retention, this study addressed the
following hypotheses:

H1: Respondents will exhibit significantly lower non-recognition in response

to emotion-arousing print advertisement stimuli than for emotion-neutral print
advertisement stimuli.
H2: Female respondents will exhibit significantly lower non-recognition in
response to emotion-arousing print advertisement stimuli than male respon-
dents will.
46 T. R. Baird et al.

H3: Female and male respondents will exhibit no significant difference in

non-recognition in response to emotion-neutral print advertising stimuli.

Since non-recognition, the dependent variable of interest is an inverse measure of

trace memory, H1 posits via inference that respondents will exhibit enhanced
memory in response to emotion-arousing stimuli. Likewise, H2 asserts that memory
in response to emotion-arousing stimuli will be greater for female than for male
respondents. Finally, H3 proposes that for the low, emotion-neutral ad stimuli, there
will be no difference in memory retention between female and males respondents.

Method
Sample. Students enrolled in business classes at a large Midwestern university
volunteered to participate in this experiment. These students were primarily juniors
and seniors who collectively represented a variety of university programs including
marketing, journalism/advertising, consumer sciences, and telecommunications. At
any time in the study the students had the option to terminate their participation. A
sample of 51 students completed all tasks in the study. While the use of student
samples has been debated extensively in the literature (Malaviya et al., 2001), student
participants were considered appropriate for use in this study since, as young adult
consumers, they are actively targeted by many of the print advertisements used as
stimuli in this research (Peterson, 2003). Even while appropriate for this reason,
however, the authors caution about generalizing the study’s findings to substantially
dissimilar demographic populations without further study.

Research design. The study’s design was adapted from research performed by Canli
et al. (2002). Their research used noncommercial, generic photographic stimuli of
varying (primarily negative) emotional impact to examine the differences in memory
recognition between males and females. Actual print advertisements were adapted
for use as the selected stimuli in this study to simulate the type of ads the participants
would be exposed to in the ‘real world.’
Initially, one hundred thirty-six print advertisements were selected from a group of
popular general interest consumer magazines targeted toward young adults. The
selection included advertisements determined a priori, by the researchers to elicit a
range of emotion-arousing content from highly emotional to low or neutral
emotional content. Although several of the print ad. stimuli played on a negative
guilt emotion, the vast majority of the emotion-arousing ads appealed to a variety of
potentially positive emotions (love, sensuality, humor, etc.) as would be the case with
actual advertising content targeting our sample population. In assessing the potential
emotion-arousing content of each print ad stimulus, the ad.’s visual image/graphic,
headline, logo, and product/subject matter were considered. All body copy was
eliminated from each print advertisement using digital photo editing software. The
decision to remove body copy was based on the need to keep each ad stimulus simple
enough to elicit an initial impression similar to the method of presenting
photographic stimuli in Canli et al.’s (2002) research.
Since the present study involved an experimental design in which subjects’ recall of
ad stimuli was measured over repeated exposures, it was necessary to select ad
 Memory and Emotion Arousal in Advertising 47

stimuli for which subjects possessed no pre-existing familiarity. To accomplish this, a

pilot study was conducted using a convenience sample of sixteen students enrolled in
several business school classes. Subjects were shown the entire set of one hundred
thirty-six print advertisements, and they were asked to identify any ads with which
they were already familiar. The print advertisements that were recalled by 25% or
more of the pilot test subjects were discarded (49 ads). This procedure resulted in a
set of 87 print advertisements to be used for the pretest phase of the research. A
questionnaire and data collection methodology were simultaneously developed and
refined during the pilot study.

Data collection. Data were collected during both a pretest and posttest session.
This data collection procedure was used to examine subjects’ memory of the ad
stimuli over time in response to varying levels of emotion-arousing content. For the
pretest, a sample of undergraduate student volunteer subjects was obtained from
several upper-division business classes using extra-credit as a participation
inducement. The pretest involved 148 subjects, and it was conducted during one
week at several convenient times during the early evening hours.
The pretest was administered in a university computer laboratory consisting of 40
computer workstations. Each subject was randomly seated at a workstation and was told
that s/he would be viewing some print ad. stimuli for evaluation. A response sheet was
provided to each respondent with spaces to evaluate each of the 87 print advertisements.
Subjects answered two questions for each ad stimulus. To insure that prior
exposure and memory did not influence results in this experiment, the first question
required the subject to indicate if s/he was familiar with that particular
advertisement. The second question asked respondents to evaluate each ad stimulus
in terms of its perceived emotion-arousing content. This emotion construct’s
dimensionality was not defined, and subjects were expected to assign meaning
themselves. A sample response format consisting of these two questions used by
respondents to evaluate each ad stimuli is provided in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Sample pretest questions for evaluating each ad. stimulus

48 T. R. Baird et al.

For this pretest, each subject viewed the ad stimuli on a 17-inch PC workstation
monitor which displayed each ad as close to its original size as possible. The vast
majority of stimuli were full-page four-color ads, and no single ad. stimulus was less
than half page in size. The advertising stimuli were assembled as a timed
PowerPointH show. Each stimulus was displayed on the screen for a seven-second
interval followed by a seven-second white neutral screen that was displayed while the
subject evaluated the preceding advertisement. The neutral screen following each ad
contained only the ad. stimulus number to assist the subject in keeping his/her place
on the response form. There were three different versions of the set of ad. stimuli
wherein the stimuli sequence was rotated to control for potential fatigue and order
bias.
Subjects were shown a set of standardized instructions before the pretest was
started, and they were required to evaluate three warm-up practice ads. Two
researchers were present in the lab to clarify instructions or otherwise assist subjects
who experienced possible technical difficulties. Each subject was instructed to start
the stimuli presentation sequence on his/her workstation when ready, and the 87
stimuli sequence ran for approximately twenty minutes based on the preprogrammed
exposure timing plan.
Subsequent to the subjects’ initial exposure to the ad stimuli in the pretest, a
posttest was run four weeks later in order to measure subjects’ retention of the
stimuli. Fifty-one subjects, 23 men and 28 women, who had earlier participated in
the pretest, also participated in this posttest phase of the experiment. The memory of
ad stimuli was of interest within this group of 51 respondents since each had been
involved in both the pre- and post-test. The set of stimuli used in this posttest
consisted of one hundred thirty-six advertisements. Eighty-seven of these stimuli
were advertisements used earlier in the pretest and forty-nine were new advertise-
ments that had not yet been viewed by the subjects. (A diagram of the pretest and
post-test advertisement stimuli is provided in Figure 2. Note that while each
respondent was permitted to individually classify each ad stimuli in terms of
emotion-arousing content based upon his/her unique perceptions, during the pretest
a simple majority of respondents judged thirty-six ads as emotion arousing and 51
ads as emotion neutral. This is provided here for information only and as a check on
the authors’ a priori assumption that the set of ad. stimuli used in the study captured
a reasonable range of emotion-arousing content.)
In the post-test, the ad stimuli were presented to the subjects in the same manner
used for the pretest. However, this time, subjects were only given four seconds to
view each advertisement and four seconds of white screen time to answer the
corresponding question. This post-test asked subjects whether they had seen the
advertisement before. This recognition question required a no, maybe, or yes
response identical to the scale used in the pretest (see Figure 1 question a).

Measurement. As noted, the primary goal of this research was to examine

variations in memory because of the emotion-arousing content of the ad. stimuli and
the subject’s gender classification. Thus, memory was the criterion variable of
interest. In selecting an operational measure representing the memory construct, non-
recognition was selected as the appropriate dependent variable for this study. While
Canli et al. (2002) used recognition as the dependent variable, it is important to note
 Memory and Emotion Arousal in Advertising 49

Figure 2. Pretest and post-test advertisement stimuli in the research design

that their study employed unique photographic image stimuli for which subjects
clearly had no prior familiarity. Hence, providing control for prior familiarity bias
was not an issue in these earlier studies. Since our study used actual print advertising
stimuli found in publicly accessible media, a major concern was to ensure that the
dependent variable captured subjects’ memory in response to the study’s pretest
exposure to stimuli without the confounding influence of either (a) possible
(unidentified) prior exposure to any of the ad stimuli; or (b) possible exposure to the
ads between the pretest and posttest outside the control of this study. A further
concern was the possible uncontrollable influence of existing brand familiarity or
familiarity with similar advertisements on the subjects’ recognition of the
experimentally controlled stimuli exposures. Thus, to control for these potentially
confounding effects, non-recognition was selected as a cleaner dependent variable
measure inversely related to memory level.
In order to explore the link between the emotion-arousal content of the
experimental stimuli and memory, it was necessary to categorize the arousal content
perceptually assigned by each subject to each advertising stimulus during the pretest.
For each respondent, the print ad. Stimuli evaluated as very emotional on the
emotion-arousing dimension (Figure 1 question b) were classified as emotion arousing
for that individual. Likewise, the ad. stimuli evaluated as not satisfying this emotion-
arousal classification criterion were classified as emotion-neutral, low-arousal ad
50 T. R. Baird et al.

stimuli. Thus, during the pretest, the sets of ad stimuli were defined separately for
each respondent based on each of their unique evaluations so that the resulting sets
of emotion-arousing ad. stimuli and emotion-neutral stimuli for each respondent
were unique to that individual. During the subsequent posttest, the percent of ad
stimuli not recognized in the posttest by each subject was calculated for both the sets
of emotion-arousing and emotion-neutral ad stimuli unique to that individual. These
percentage calculations were used as the study’s operational measure of non-
recognition. Thus, unique non-recognition measures were computed for each male
and female subject for both the emotion-arousing and emotion-neutral print ad.
stimuli.

Results
Regarding hypothesis H1 involving differences in the subjects’ memory between
emotion-neutral and emotion-arousing advertising stimuli, memory non-recognition
values were calculated for the entire sample and separately for the male and female
sub-samples. The pattern of non-recognition scores is illustrated in Figure 3. For the
combined sample, mean memory non-recognition associated with the emotion-
neutral ad stimuli was 27.2% compared to memory non-recognition calculated at
28.7% for the emotion-arousing stimuli. A t-test found no statistically significant
difference between these mean levels of memory non-recognition (P50.718).Thus,
with respect to H1 our data suggested that within the combined sample of male and
female subjects the emotion-neutral and emotion-arousing advertising stimuli
produced no significant difference in memory using non-recognition as the measure.

Figure 3. Non-recognition of advertising stimuli

 Memory and Emotion Arousal in Advertising 51

A different retention pattern emerged, however, when subjects’ memory of the ad

stimuli was examined separately for male and female participants. For the female
subjects, the mean memory non-recognition score associated with the emotion-
neutral ad stimuli was 24.1% and 21.1 for the emotion-arousing stimuli. This
difference in memory non-recognition for females was not statistically significant
(P50.519). Thus, the data suggested that the mean memory non-recognition for
female subjects was no lower for the advertising stimuli higher in emotional content.
Stated differently, the data provided no evidence that the retention of advertising
material by females is enhanced by incorporating higher levels of emotion-arousing
content.
The pattern of memory levels for men was found to differ from that of the female
respondents across the ad stimuli of varying emotion-arousing content. The mean
non-recognition score for males associated with the emotion-neutral stimuli was 31.2
and 38.7% respectively for the emotion-arousing ads. This difference in memory was
not statistically significant (P50.308) suggesting that the memory of males was not
influenced by the ad. stimuli’s emotion-arousing content. The mean memory non-
recognition data for male and female subjects are provided in Table 1 along with t-
test results.
The second research question H2 addresses whether or not males and females
exhibit different degrees of memory non-recognition resulting from the emotion-
arousing content of advertising stimuli. To examine this issue, mean memory non-
recognition scores for males and females were compared within the combined set of
all ads and separately for the emotion-neutral and the emotion-arousing stimuli. The
findings are illustrated in Figure 4 with related t-test results shown in Table 2. For all
ad stimuli, the mean non-recognition score of males was 35.0% compared to 22.6%
for the female sub-sample. This difference was statistically significant at P50.005
using a two-sample t-test. Thus, the findings suggest that females in general exhibited
higher retention (i.e. lower non-recognition) than the male subjects did.
When the mean difference in memory between males and females was investigated
separately for the emotion-neutral and emotion-arousing stimuli, a different pattern
emerged. For the emotion-neutral ad stimuli involved in H3, the mean memory non-
recognition score levels for males and females were respectively 31.2 and 24.1%. This
difference was not found to be significant (P50.207). However, for the emotion-
arousing ad stimuli, mean memory non-recognition score levels were 38.7 and 21.1%
respectively for the male and female sub samples, significant at P50.010. Thus, while
memory did not appear to differ between sub-samples for the emotion-neutral

Table 1. Memory non-recognition: emotion-neutral versus emotion-arousing advertising

stimuli

Emotion Emotion
Memory non-recognition neutral arousing t df P(T(t)

Means for:
Combined sample 27.175 28.700 0.362 97 0.718
Male respondents 31.240 38.671 21.033 40 0.308
Female respondents 24.091 21.135 0.649 56 0.519
52 T. R. Baird et al.

Figure 4. Non-recognition of advertising stimuli

stimuli, memory was substantially higher (i.e. mean non-recognition lower) for
females than males for the emotion-arousing advertising stimuli.

Conclusions and Implications

Prior findings of Canli et al. (2002) suggest that the emotional content of stimuli to
which an individual is exposed and the memory of that information are positively
correlated. That is, one’s emotional involvement with stimuli tends to enhance
memory. Further, this linkage appears to be more highly pronounced for females
than for males. While the prior research examining the relationship between emotion
and memory from which those findings are drawn involved the experimental
manipulation of generic, negative-emotion photographic stimuli in a clinical setting,
this study investigated this link in an applied context by using actual print
advertisements of varying emotional content as the experimental stimuli.

Table 2. Memory non-recognition of advertising stimuli: male v. female subjects

Memory non-recognition Males Females t df P(T(t)

Means for:
Emotion neutral ads 31.239 24.092 1.283 40 0.207
Emotion arousing ads 38.671 21.135 2.722 34 0.010
Total 34.995 22.613 2.901 75 0.005
 Memory and Emotion Arousal in Advertising 53

In summary, using non-recognition as an inverse measure of memory retention,

this research study did not find a substantial difference in memory between the
emotion-neutral and emotion-arousing ad. stimuli treatments. This was true for both
male and female subjects. However, despite failing to demonstrate a significant
change in memory produced by different emotion-arousal levels, the study did find
that the female subjects exhibited greater memory for the emotion-arousing ad.
stimuli than the male participants did. Thus, for female subjects the level of memory
measured via non-recognition was significantly higher than for males in response to
the emotion-arousing ad stimuli.
If these findings hold true in subsequent research, a number of observations are
noteworthy. Emotional appeals are often used by the advertising industry. It appears
that this strategy may be appropriate for women and could be expanded by using
more intense emotional appeals or applied using emotional appeals to promote
products normally devoid of an emotional attribute (use of a baby in an ad for tires
to stress safety of the family). This study dealt with long-term, explicit, episodic
memory. As such, it did not correlate emotional arousal with purchase preference.
The findings do suggest that retention is higher for women, and, together with earlier
studies, provides further evidence of a potential impact on purchase intentions.
Males pose a different situation. The importance of emotion-arousing stimuli in
an advertisement does not seem to enhance the retention of the ads in college men.
This could be due to the memory encoding process being different for males and
females as proposed by other research (Anderson, 1976; Cafferata and Tybout,
1989), or something as simple as the particular types of emotion portrayed in the
advertisements used in the research projects that have focused on this issue. Males
could also need to achieve a higher stimulus threshold before an emotional appeal
has an affect.
A number of the advertisements in this study were sponsored by non-profit health
organizations such as the American Cancer Society, The Breast Cancer Research
Foundation, and MADD. These organizations often use emotional appeals to break
through the advertising clutter and communicate their message (the Legacy anti-
smoking campaign). This research indicates that this tactic could prove effective if
the target audience is predominately female (breast cancer), but not as effective for a
male audience (prostate cancer). Although further research is needed to clarify the
effect of gender and emotional appeals in advertising, this project provides evidence
of a difference between college females and college males in the level of retention of
emotional advertisement visuals/graphics.

Future Research
Like the majority of exploratory applied research work, this study has several
limitations that offer opportunities and challenges for future research. One limitation
concerns the emotion arousal construct itself. The study involved a crude generalized
measure of the emotion-arousing content of ad. stimuli as reported by subjects
without addressing the dimensionality or measured degree of emotional content.
While these findings provide evidence of a causal link between the emotion-arousing
content of stimuli and message retention, future research needs to explore this link
using specific dimensions of emotion-arousing content (i.e. fear, sensuality, humor,
54 T. R. Baird et al.

etc.). Additionally, future research should incorporate more precise identification

and control of the levels of emotion-arousing content as an independent variable.
The relationships in this study need to be examined over varying, multiple degrees of
the stimuli’s emotion-arousing content. For instance, the current investigation
suggests that high emotion-arousing ad. stimulus content tends to affect the
memories of females and males differently. While this was observed over the range of
arousal embedded in this study’s stimuli, findings should not be generalized to other
levels of arousal without further investigation. At higher arousal levels, for instance,
there may be a threshold beyond which the link between arousal and retention for
males becomes significant. Thus, various dimensions of emotion arousal need to be
incorporated into future studies, and the magnitude of arousal along each of these
dimensions needs to be carefully calibrated to gain a more complete understanding
of the causal relationships.
Regarding a possible stimulus intensity threshold in the relationship between
arousal and memory that may be different for males and females, our data were
insufficient to examine this issue. Further, the non-recognition patterns shown in
Fig. 3 are somewhat puzzling. The authors initially anticipated a decline in non-
recognition for all subjects with the decrease being much more pronounced for females
than for males. In other words, theory would suggest that memory should increase in
response to higher levels of emotional arousal produced by the ad. stimuli, and this
increase in memory (decrease in non-recognition) should be greater for females than
for males. The data, however, were not consistent with this expectation. While the
non-recognition of female respondents appears lower for emotion-arousing stimuli
than for the emotion-neutral ads (implying greater memory), the apparent link
between arousal and memory for males appears to be just the reverse. The authors are
quick to point out that the magnitude of this change in non-recognition across the two
emotion-arousal treatment levels was not statistically meaningful for either males or
females, and there is a possibility that the emotion-arousal level produced by the ad
stimuli used in this study failed to exceed the minimum response threshold level for
both sexes. The authors consider future research addressing this issue important from
both a theoretical and an applied perspective.
Another limitation of this study concerns the nature of the sample and the use of
only one advertising medium, print. While the use of a student sample in this
research was not without justification given the significant economic potential of the
young adults demographic market segment, future research needs to examine the
link between emotion and memory within additional sample frames to enhance
generalizability for the advertising manager. Further, the influence of emotion-
arousing content upon retention needs to be investigated in other media contexts,
particularly non-print.
This study used print advertisements with the body copy removed as a vehicle for
presenting the stimulus to subjects. While this may have facilitated information
processing by the participants, the lack of copy may have also induced a more visual,
right-brain hemisphere response (Du Plessis, 2005, pp. 165–169) than would
realistically have been the case with an actual field exposure by the consumer. Thus,
devising better methods for presenting stimuli to subjects is needed in future studies.
While not addressed as a central issue in this paper, the choice of a dependent
variable in the study merits further investigation. This research was concerned
 Memory and Emotion Arousal in Advertising 55

primarily with the extent to which memory is affected by the emotion-arousing

content of advertising stimuli. In collecting data, the subjects confronted with a
second exposure to the ad stimuli were asked whether they had seen each stimulus
before. The possible responses to this question included yes (indicating recognition)
and no (indicating non-recognition). In initially examining the subjects’ response
patterns, it was observed that some subjects indicated recognizing stimuli that were
not even presented to them in the first-round pretest phase. The assumption is that
stated recognition by these subjects may have resulted from prior exposure to the
stimuli in question outside the control of the experimental investigation or simply
recall of the brand name in other ads with which subjects were familiar. That is, the
subjects in fact recalled or recognized these stimuli from prior passive learning and
not because of an exposure in this study’s pretest. Since prior exposure was viewed as
difficult if not impossible to isolate and control, it was decided to use non-
recognition as a criterion variable since it reflects a much cleaner measure of the
retention construct (actually the inverse of retention) without the confounding
influence of prior exposure. The researchers are confident that this was a prudent
decision. However, the variation between recognition versus non-recognition
measures was not empirically explored. Given the decision within the context of
this study and recognizing the widespread use of recognition scales in advertising
research and in studies of brand awareness, for example, future research
investigating the differences between recognition and non-recognition measures is
clearly needed.
Another possible area of future inquiry concerns the method used in this study
for presenting stimuli to subjects. As previously discussed, the subjects were
exposed to the ad stimuli via a computer display using Microsoft PowerPointH as
the exposure mechanism. Using uniform computer display screens for all subjects
and the use of PowerPointH to control the appearance and exposure time for each
stimulus presented to each subject afforded a high level of stimulus presentation
and data collection control and consistency. Using PowerPointH as a stimulus
presentation tool in this way appears not to have been examined and warrants
further study.
To the extent that this study has extended and refined prior research and yielded
compatible findings regarding the link between emotional involvement with stimuli
and retention in a more applied context, this study has provided a contribution
relevant to practitioners while at the same time raising some new questions. Clearly,
opportunities for future studies abound with the most promising applications
existing in the fields of advertising and promotion.

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Notes on Contributors
Thomas R. Baird is Associate Professor of Marketing at Ball State University in the
Miller College of Business, having received his Ph.D. from the University of
Arkansas. His research and teaching interests are in the areas of advertising,
promotion management, and business ethics in the field of advertising.
 Memory and Emotion Arousal in Advertising 57

Russell G. Wahlers is Assistant Professor of Marketing at Ball State University in

the Miller College of Business with research and teaching interests in the areas of
consumer behavior and customer relationship management. He formerly worked in
industry in marketing research and corporate planning prior to completing his DBA
at Kent State University’s Graduate School of Management.

Crystal Cooper is a recent marketing graduate of Ball State University’s Honors

College.