“Stay Tuned—We Will Be Back Right after these Messages”: Need to Evaluate Moderates the Transfer of Irritation in Advertising

Abstract

Studies on irritation in advertising have primarily focused on commercial attributes that produce negative reactions to that commercial and the brand advertised. The present study extends this line of research by examining the carryover effects of irritation previously elicited by either disliked ads or a large number of ads (embedded in a documentary) to an unrelated, neutral ad (at the end of the documentary). We hypothesize that people with a high need to evaluate (NE) will show such a transfer of irritation more clearly than will low NE individuals. The results confirm this hypothesis; high NE individuals were (1) more irritated after exposure to disliked or many ads and, consequently, (2) more negatively affected in their evaluations of the neutral ad and brand. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.