When an ad's influence is beyond our conscious control: Perceptual and conceptual fluency effects caused by incidental ad exposure

Four studies were conducted to determine the level of processing that occur s during incidental ad exposure and the extent to which effects of such pro cessing are driven by unconscious influences. Studies I and 2 indicate that the addition of semantically related product information in an ad facilita tes activation of the product concept in memory. As a result, the advertise d product is more likely to be included in a stimulus-based consideration s et even when the perceptual features of the product under consideration do not match the features of the product depiction in the ad. These results ar e consistent with conceptual fluency arising from a semantic analysis that occurs during incidental ad exposure. Studies 3 and 4 indicate that when an ad is devoid of other product-related information (i.e., when it simply de picts a product by itself), processing is limited to a simple feature analy sis. The effect of this analysis on consideration set judgment is found whe n the shape of the advertised product is unfamiliar, and the perceptual fea tures of the product under consideration match those of the product depicti on in the ad. These results are consistent with the concept of perceptual f luency. Further, all four studies provide strong evidence that the response bias caused by incidental ad exposure is clue to unconscious influences-ad vertised products were more likely to be included in a consideration set ev en when subjects were explicitly trying to avoid choosing products that wer e depicted in the ads.