The Effects of Music in Advertising On C
The Effects of Music in Advertising On C
The Effects of Music in Advertising On C
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The Effects of
Music In Do features like humor, sex, color, and music in
a commercial merely increase our attention to
Advertising
On product information in a message, or can they
directly influence our attitudes? The results of an
experiment using a classical conditioning ap-
Choice proach suggest that hearing liked or disliked mu-
sic while being exposed to a product can directly
Behavior: A affect product preferences. A second experiment
differentiated communication situations where a
classical conditioning approach or an information
Classical processing approach might be appropriate in ex-
plaining product preference.
Conditioning
Approach
OMMERCIALS typically contain both product conditioning suggests that positive attitudes towards
specific information and background features an advertised product (conditioned stimulus) might
such as pleasant music, attractive colors, and humor. develop through its association in a commercial with
This paper examines the impact of the background other stimuli that are reacted to positively (uncondi-
features on product preferences. One experiment was tioned stimuli). Attractive colors, pleasant music, and
conducted to determine whether background features humor are examples of potential unconditioned stim-
of a commercial affected product preferences when uli in a commercial. Potentially, classical condition-
only minimal product information was presented. A ing could, in fact, explain the effect of many variables
second experiment examined the relative importance in communication-attitude change situations. For ex-
of background features and product information in ample, the communicator effect may to some extent
different situations. be due to the association of the attitude object with
The impact of product information in a commer- positive affect attached to the communicator.
cial on beliefs and attitudes would typically be inter- In marketing, classical conditioning is often men-
preted within an information processing framework. tioned and generally accepted as a process relevant to
It is suggested here that a classical conditioning advertising (e.g., Engel, Blackwell, and Kollat 1978;
framework could account for the potential impact of Schiffman and Kanuk 1978). There is, however, little
background features on product attitudes. Classical empirical research on whether preferences for objects
can actually be classically conditioned. In psychol-
ogy, where classical conditioning has been investi-
GeraldJ. Gornis a professor
intheFaculty of CommerceandBusiness gated more extensively, there is little evidence that
Administration,
Universityof BritishColumbia. Theauthorwouldlike attitudes can be classically conditioned (Brewer 1974,
to thankthe Institut
D'administrationdes Entreprises, Aix-
University Fishbein and Ajzen 1975). The limited popularity of
Marseille,
France,forits helpfulassistanceinformulating
andpretest-
classical conditioning may be due to several difficul-
ingthe project.
ties associated with typical conditioning experiments.
Journal of Marketing
94 / Journalof Marketing,Winter1982 Vol. 46 (Winter 1982), 94-101.
96 / Journalof Marketing,
Winter1982
98 / Journalof Marketing,Winter1982
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of MusicinAdvertising
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mr- %k
wiFACE
with
erer
Ferber
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