The Effects of Schema-typical and Atypical Contexts on Memory for Brand Names of Products

The Effects of Schema-typical and Atypical Contexts on Memory for Brand Names of Products

Thanita Soonthoonwipat

2017

The memory for an advertisement can be affected by the way it is constructed. In general, the more distinctiveness, the better memory performance. Traditionally, it has been assumed that the whole memory episode will be better remembered if it is featured by any odd element(s) because it is more attention-demanding and creates stronger memory traces. However, recent evidence suggests that the distinctiveness effect might not spread to everything; it might only affect those distinctive elements without necessarily affecting their linkages with other elements. Accordingly, regarding the advertisements, the memory for each element can be diverse. We manipulated the distinctiveness effect by composing products with schema-typical contexts (undistinctive condition) and schema-atypical contexts (distinctive condition). Participants observed 20 advertisements; 10 were schema-typical and another 10 were schema-atypical. They then completed recall and recognition tests which allowed us to explore how far the distinctiveness effect could extend. We found that only product recall and recognition in the schema-atypical condition were robustly enhanced, other variables were not significantly affected. These findings went against the traditional view and conform with the recent research. We discussed that, in the schema-atypical condition, the products and their contexts made each other distinctive, hence, they were better remembered. In contrast, the brand names and product-brand bindings were schema-neutral, thus, they did not receive more attention and not better remembered. The results were further interpreted to form some practical implications that improve advertising effectiveness.

Distinctiveness effects
Schema
Memory
Product recall
Product recognition
Brand recall
Brand recognition
Product-brand binding

The stimuli were 40 newly constructed print advertisements (in digital format). Print advertisements were employed because they allow the better experimental control (Keller, 1987). A half of these advertisements belonged to toiletries category (i.e. shampoo. sunscreen, and toothpaste), whereas another half belonged to foods category (i.e. pizza, sandwiches, and fried chicken). For each category, there were 10 types of products. For each product, there were two versions of its advertisement; schema-typical and schema-atypical (but only one of which was viewed by each participant). The schema-typical advertisements referred to the ones in which the product was bound with an expected context (i.e. a toothpaste appearing a bathroom scene), while the schema-atypical advertisements referred to the ones in which the product was bound with an unexpected context (i.e. a toothpaste appearing in a bedroom scene).
In terms of the stimuli construction, there were three key elements for all advertisements, the first of which was the product, the second was the background or the scene illustration which was considered as the context of that advertisement, and the last element was the brand name. The first two elements were to form advertising pictures, and all together with the third one were to form complete advertisements. The researchers purchased stock images from Shutterstock website (https://www.shutterstock.com). The images purchased (product shots, backgrounds, and decorative elements) were then retouched and composted into the print advertising pictures using Adobe Photoshop (Adobe Photoshop CC 2015). All the advertising pictures were controlled not to include any text so that the only copy presented in each advertisement was its brand name. In respect of brand names, we invented new brand names for all 20 products. Each brand name was controlled to be easily pronounceable. They were names of between one to three syllables i.e. Hans, Raven, and Moana. The brand names, texts in Candara 48-point type, were placed on top of every advertising picture. Figure 1 shows examples of stimuli. Table 1 shows the List of products, brand names, their schema-typical contexts, and their schema-atypical contexts. The illustrations of all 40 advertisements can be found in Appendix A.



Figure 1. Examples of stimuli




Table 1
List of products, brand names, their schema-typical contexts, and their schema-atypical contexts

Product
Brand name
Schema-typical context
Schema-atypical context
Toiletries Category



1
Soap
Flounder
Bathroom
Garden
2
Shower gel
Naveen
Bathroom
In the bus
3
Deodorant
Megara
Bathroom
Library
4
Perfume
Attina
Bedroom
Street 
5
Sunscreen
Moana
Beach
Kitchen
6
Shaving cream
Hans
Bathroom
Office
7
Toothpaste
Pongo
Bathroom
Bedroom 
8
Talcum powder
Fauna
Bathroom
Beach 
9
Shampoo
Rolfe
Salon
Forest
10
Lipstick
Armoire
Office
Cooking table
Food Category



11
Sandwich
Duchess
Kitchen
On the stairs
12
Fried chicken
O’Malley
Kitchen
Yoga room
13
Yogurt
Rialey
Kitchen
In the bus
14
Energy bar
Gaston
Sport field
Bedroom
15
Pizza
Linguini
Restaurant
Bathroom
16
Pasta
Tony
Kitchen
On the bed
17
Soup
Perdita
Kitchen
Gym
18
Raw burger
Gus
Kitchen
Study room
19
Ice-cream
Bo Bo
Street
Library
20
Fresh fruit
Raven
Garden
Bathroom
In addition, there was an effort to provide the variability of context for both schema-typical and schema-atypical advertisements. To illustrate, for the schema-typical advertisements, regarding the advertisements of toiletries category, from the total of 10 products, six of them were bound with a bathroom scene as their schema-typical context, while another four products were bound with other different schema-typical contexts (i.e. a beach scene for sunscreen). Similarly, for foods category, six products were bound with a kitchen scene as their schema-typical context, while another four products were bound with other different schema-typical contexts (i.e. a restaurant scene for pizza). Furthermore, for the schema-atypical advertisements, all 20 products had their own different schema-atypical contexts. For example, a forest scene was for shampoo, while a Yoga room was for fried chicken. Consequently, despite the effort to make the context of schema-typical advertisements more varied, there was probably more variability for the schema-atypical ones.
Moreover, regarding the judgement of schema typical or atypical context, it was initially set up based on researchers’ perspective. Then, a pilot study was conducted on five participants where they were asked to judge whether the contexts were schema-typical or atypical for a particular product. All five participants judged each context to be typical and atypical as judged by the researchers, for all products listed.
Furthermore, we constructed some additional materials to be used in the recognition test which were 20 foils of similar product images and 20 foils of similar brand names. As for the foil product images, we purchased another set of stock images (product shots and decorative elements) to be retouched and composted into another 20 product images as icons in isolation. Each foil was designed after one of the target product images, for example, we constructed the foil image of a toothpaste tube to be paired with the target image of a toothpaste tube. These two images were controlled to look similar in terms of product type and size, but different regarding the product design (packaging and colour scheme). As for the foil brand names, we further invented 20 similar brand names, 10 for toiletries category and another 10 for foods category. All foil brand names were controlled to have the same characteristics as the target brand names; names of between one to three syllables which were easily pronounceable.
Design and data analysis strategy
The overall design and the variables. A repeated measures design was employed in this study. The within-subjects independent variable was the advertising context which consisted of two levels; schema-typical and schema-atypical. There were six dependent variables examined in separate analyses. The first three variables were from the recall test including the percentage of correctly recalled products (product recall), the percentage of correctly recalled brand names (brand name recall), and the percentage of correctly recalled product-brand bindings (product-brand binding recall). The first two variables were simply calculated from the number of correct answers divided by the total number of advertisements of each level. These variables were to answer whether the performance of products and brand names recall would be better if the advertising contexts were different from their typical schemas. For the third variable, the product-brand bindings recall, it was calculated based on the number of correctly recalled sets (which were counted when the products were written together with their matching brand names) divided by the number of correctly recalled products. Hence, this third variable was to explore that when people recall the products, how much would they extend their memory to the brand names.
Likewise, the other three dependent variables were from the recognition test including the percentage of correctly recognized products (product recognition), the percentage of correctly recognized brand names (brand name recognition), and the percentage of correctly recognized product-brand bindings (product-brand binding recognition). Similarly, the fourth and fifth variables were calculated by dividing the correct answers by the total number of advertisements of each level. These variables were to answer whether the performance of products and brand names recognition would be better if the advertising contexts were different from their typical schemas. Also, for the sixth variable, the product-brand bindings recognition, it was calculated based on the number of correctly recognized sets (which were counted when participants picked the right choices of product images and their matching brand names concurrently) divided by the number of correctly recognized products. Hence, this last variable was to explore that when people recognize the products, how much would they extend their memory to the brand names.
Presentation phase. In terms of experimental design, firstly, 20 advertisements were presented to participants. For counterbalancing purpose, 32 participants were equally divided into four groups (eight participants in each). Each group was bound with a different set of advertisements. Each set consisted of 20 advertisements, 10 from toiletries category and another 10 from foods category. From 10 toiletries advertisements, half of them were the schema-typical advertisements and another half were schema-atypical. From five schema-typical advertisements, three of them had a bathroom as their context, and another two had other typical contexts. The arrangement mentioned above was also applied to the foods category advertisements; three schema-typical advertisements were bound with a kitchen scene, another two schema-typical advertisements were bound with other schema-typical contexts, and five different schema-atypical advertisements. Appendix B shows four different sets of stimulus. However, the actual orders of advertisements presented to participants were not the same as shown in the Appendix B, as all 20 advertisements in each set were then randomly mixed. Hence, the positions of advertisements were different in each set to minimize the order effect. Additionally, all the advertisements were presented on a laptop screen (13-inch MacBook Air) and each of them was shown for 10 seconds, using a timed PowerPoint display.
After the presentation of stimuli, there was a distractor task for two minutes. Immediately after the two-minute interval, participants were administered a free recall test followed by a recognition test. In addition, to achieve the most appropriate study design, prior to the establishment of the final experiment procedure, we ran a small pilot study to determine a suitable memory interval (the duration of the distractor task). We had two participants (two females, mean age = 25 years) do the pilot study which 10-minute interval was employed, and we found that it led to a ceiling effect for product recognition but a floor effect for brand name recall and recognition. Therefore, we decided to cut down this interval to only two minutes.
Test phase. For the free recall test, participants were asked to write down every product and brand name which they could remember in the answer sheet. Figure 2 shows the presented slide for the recall test. For the recognition test, we separated it into two subsections; the toiletries subsection and the foods subsection. In each subsection, there were 10 questions referring to all 10 products in that category. Thus, there were the total of 20 main questions in this recognition test. The questions were also presented on the same laptop screen (13-inch MacBook Air). The toiletries-category questions were presented first, followed by the foods-category questions.

Figure 2. The PowerPoint slide used in the recall test
In respect of recognition test construction, for each question, there were two sub-questions; product question and brand name question. For each product question, there were two choices (A and B) which included the target image of product and the foil of similar product. The right answers were randomly varied between A and B throughout the test. Besides, for each brand name question, there were 20 choices (1 to 20) which include 10 target brand names and 10 foils of similar brand names. For each category, the right answers were different for every brand name question and randomly varied between odd (1, 3, 5, etc.) and even (2, 4, 6, etc.) choices throughout the test. Figure 3 shows examples of recognition-test questions. All the questions can be found in the Appendix C.


Figure 3. Examples of PowerPoint slides used in the recognition test

Lancaster University

data/SPSS.sav

Soonthoonwipat2017

John Towse

Open

English

Data

LA1 4YF

Adina Lew

MSc

Psychology of Advertising

There were 32 participants (18 females, mean age = 26.21 years, range 18-35 years). Eight of them were native speakers of English, while others had English as their second language

ANOVA