The Advantages of Atypical Advertisements for Stereotyped Product Categories

Abstract

In an advertising environment of continuing complexity and congestion, marketing communicators are well advised to find ways to make commercials more memorable and distinctive, and, thus, more effective. Research in social cognition provides insights on how to influence consumers to more actively process information in advertisements, and these techniques are applied in an experiment with a group of adult consumers to test differential effectiveness of typical and atypical advertisements for highly stereotyped categories such as local automobile dealerships. Exposure to typical advertisements caused subjects to engage in less detailed thought about the message; atypical advertisements resulted in more detailed thinking and more positive attitudes toward the product. This effect was demonstrated in two broadcast media, and the implications of these results support continued creative efforts to achieve distinctive and unique advertising messages.