Eye-tracking evidence that happy faces impair verbal message comprehension: the case of health warnings in direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical television commercials

Abstract

Risk warning or disclosure information in advertising is only effective in correcting consumers’ judgments if enough cognitive capacity is available to process that information. Hence, comprehension of verbal warnings in TV commercials may suffer if accompanied by positive visual elements. This research addresses this concern about cross-modality interference in the context of direct-to-consumer (DTC) pharmaceutical commercials in the United States by experimentally testing whether positive facial expressions reduce consumers’ understanding of the mandated health warning. A content analysis of a sample of DTC commercials reveals that positive facial expressions are more prevalent during the verbal warning act of the commercials than during the other acts. An eye-tracking experiment conducted with specially produced DTC commercials, which vary the valence of characters’ facial expressions during the health warning, provides evidence that happy faces reduce objective comprehension of the warning.

Keywords:

• direct-to-consumer advertising
• eye-tracking
• processing
• understanding
• visual
• auditory
• congruency
• modality

Acknowledgement

This research was funded by US NIH grant T32-AA014125 to Dale Wesley Russell and by a Faculty Research Support Grant from American University.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by US NIH [grant number T32-AA014125] to Dale Wesley Russell; Faculty Research Support Grant from American University. National Institutes of Health.