1. Background Information

The authors wanted to test how people react to new product advertising. They examined in a 2x2x3 randomized block design whether experience or format affected the response. They examined the resulting questions that the viewers had after watching the commercial. They believe that by more curiosity as indicated by the questions asked, there will be more product interest. They feel that this is very valid for future research.

3. Null Hypothesis - Level and Sample Size Per Group

Ho1 High knowledge subjects generate more general questions than the inexperienced subjects.

Ho2 High knowledge subjects generate less product class questions than the inexperienced subjects.

Ho3: High knowledge subjects generate different amounts of product specific questions as the inexperienced subjects.

Ho4: There is a negative relationship between the amount of product class and product specific questions and the amount of ad recall.

This study is based upon a commercial on the Kodak Disc camera. The authors started with a group of 450 undergraduate students. They were administered screening questionnaires to determine two separate levels of experience made up of a total of 130 students. These levels were based upon their responses to questions on camera ownership, film usage and total dollar investment in photographic equipment. These students were either shown commercials that lasted 30 or 90 seconds. This was further divided into whether their groups were shown the commercial once, three times or five times. After the students saw the commercial, they completed a response, recall and solicited questions tasks.

4. Independent and Dependent Variable
 

Null Hypothesis	Dependent Variable(s)	Independent Variable(s)
Ho1	Frequency of General Questions	Treatment: Expertise Block: Length of Ad and Frequency
Ho2	Frequency of Product Class Questions	Treatment: Expertise Block: Length of Ad and Frequency
Ho3	Frequency of Product Form Questions	Treatment: Expertise Block: Length of Ad and Frequency
Ho4	Ad Recall	Treatment: Frequency of Product Form and Class Questions

 

5. Instrument, (a Brief Comment on its Reliability and Validity)

The students were asked in the cognitive recall stage to list whatever thoughts, ideas or reactions they had while watching the commercial. The responses were then counted and categorized by the type of responses. This seems to be very subjective measure of the recall. It is unclear whether the same person rated all the responses or not. The subjects were tested on ad recall when they were given a list of 12 statements, and the subject had to determine which of the statements were made in the ad. Only 5 of the statements were made in the ad. The subjects were also asked to make a list of questions for a company representative. These questions were evaluated for general, product class or product form questions. Other than the recall exercise, the test seemed to be very subjective, and may have been subject to classification errors. Differences in scoring might have resulted if more than one person rated the responses. Additionally, asking open ended questions can result in some persons not responding at all, although, they might have questions. There is no incentive to write down all their questions.

6. Experimental Procedure

A group of 450 students were administered a pretest to determine their experience and knowledge of cameras. A group of 130 were selected based upon either their extreme high knowledge or low knowledge of cameras. These students were randomly assigned to either 30 second or 90 second ads, and further assigned to one, three or five viewings. Each block did not have the same amount of subjects, each block ranged from 10 to 13 subjects. After viewing the commercials, the subjects were asked questions in three categories, cognitive response, recall and solicited question task.

7. Statistical Analysis and Conclusion

The authors did not provide an Anova table, but gave some quantitative results. They found that in the category of ad-evoked curiosity cognitive responses that there was no difference in generalized questions or in product form questions. Experts asked more product class questions. This supported hypotheses 1, 2, and 3. There was a main effect between the length of the ad. The shorter ad resulted in more questions than the longer ad specifically in product class response. In solicited questions, there was only significant difference between expertise at the product class level. In the ad recall, there was significant response at the Product Class level. Multiple regression was used to evaluate the ad recall questions, and the authors concluded that the number of questions at the product class and form level were significant predictors for ad recall. The authors conclude that advertisers should be considering the curiosity evoked by their ads when determining whether the ad was effective or not. They conclude that curiosity facilitates ad recall, and as a result consumer action.

8. If you were the researcher, how would you improve the study? (Be Specific)

I believe that by further refining the instrument, the authors would be able to make better and more concrete conclusions on this subject. With their subjective measures, it is possible that not as much reliance can be placed upon the results. Errors in measurement can occur which could affect the results. Additionally, the documentation of the authors could be more extensive. It would be informative to the reader to have an Anova table presented. The results could have been presented in a matrix to further provide the reader with clearer results. The two ad lengths presented were 30 and 90 seconds. Based upon my viewing experience, ads normally run 30 or 60 seconds. I think that those levels would have been more appropriate. Also, the subjects that saw the ad more than once, saw the repeated ads over a short period of time (less than one hour). In reality, ads are repeated over a longer time period. Maybe those groups should have been tested over a period of several days to replicate realistic repeat viewing.