Document Type
Dissertation
First Faculty Advisor
Yoon, Sukki
Keywords
Product Placement; Marketing; Cognitive Business; Persuasion Knowledge
Publisher
Bryant University
Abstract
This study examines the effect of persuasion knowledge and cognitive busyness on attitude toward a brand embedded in a popular movie. Product placement is filling an increasingly important role in marketing strategy as conventional techniques have been rendered ineffective by their own ubiquity. Cognitive busyness was hypothesized to cause a product placement message to be processed on a superficial, peripheral level. If joined with persuasion knowledge, the subject’s lack of ability to devote resources to critically evaluate the message would activate compartmentalized knowledge of products and brands increasing the ease of this information’s mental accessibility and thus aid the formation of favorable brand attitudes. A controlled laboratory experiment reveals that when viewers watch the movie in a natural setting, viewers with persuasion knowledge exhibit lower attitude toward the placed brand than viewers without persuasion knowledge. However, such backlash brand-damaging effects are absent, if not reversed, when viewers watch the movie in a cognitively busy setting.
