Application: techniques used for recall

Answer 1

Research into how people recall advertisements and what influences their recall
provides extremely important information for advertising companies, many of
whom spend millions of pounds on advertising campaigns for their products.
It is therefore essential to the company that their advertising is as effective as
possible. Autobiographical advertising provides an emotional context to the
advertisement which triggers positive childhood memories when the product is
recalled. This positive association helps boost sales of the product.

Question 2

Cues

Answer 2

Advertisers use cues to create a certain context or feeling when advertising their products. This links to the cue dependent theory of memory. When the consumer is in the same situation or emotional state, then the advertisement will act as a cue to trigger their memory of the product.
For example, an advertising company might show someone feeling sad who
is comforted by drinking their soup, which is hot and tastes good. Then, if the
consumer is feeling sad themselves, they might recall the soup and purchase it,
hoping that it will offer them the same comfort.
Advertisers sometimes use non-verbal cues in their advertisements. For example,
if there is a brand logo or a key message shown, then having a model in the advert
actually looking directly at it can ‘trick’ consumers to also look at what the model is
looking at; it is human nature to want to see what someone else is seeing. This will
then increase the consumers’ awareness of the brand.

Question 3

Repetition

Answer 3

Advertisers use repetition in their advertising to help build a familiarity with

their brand. It helps the memory of the product stay in the consumers’ long-
term memory and prevents decay.

Psychologists use repetition to promote positive feelings about their product.
Research has shown that consumers can feel negatively about new products,
simply because they are unfamiliar. By repeating them frequently, they become
more familiar to the consumer and this encourages more positive feelings. In
addition, simply repeating a slogan or a message (when an advert ends) will
increase the likelihood of it entering and staying in long-term memory.

Question 4

Avoiding overload

Answer 4

Overload in advertising can occur when consumers are exposed to too much
information within an advertisement. This can result in key information being
displaced out of short-term memory. Therefore, it is important when designing
advertising campaigns that slogans are kept short and the essential product
details are kept to a minimum to avoid overload.

Question 5

The use of autobiographical advertising

Answer 5

Advertisers and companies use autobiographical advertising to increase consumer opinion of their product. Braun et al. state that this type of advertising is used mainly with ‘baby boomers’. These are people who were born after the Second World War, from around 1946 to 1964. The nostalgic advertising is thought to remind them of a time in their life when they were young and free such as the Christmas advertisement for Coca cola with the holiday truck. The idea is to link these positive memories to the advertised
product and make the consumers more likely to buy it.

Question 6

The development of neuropsychology for
measuring different memory functions,
including the Wechsler Memory Scale

Answer 6

Neuropsychologists use different tests, such as the Wechsler Memory Scale, in order to evaluate the extent of brain damage in patients who might have
had a brain injury or suffer from an illness like dementia. It is important for the neuropsychologists to be able to accurately identify what cognitive problems the patient has and how bad they are, so they can offer them the best and most appropriate treatment. The Wechsler Memory Scale was created to test whether different types of memory are functioning properly. It can be used on people aged between 16 and 90. It has seven different subtests: spatial addition, symbol span, design memory, general cognitive screener, logical memory, verbal paired associates, and visual reproduction. Results are presented in five different sets looking at different aspects of memory: auditory, visual, visual working, immediate and delayed memory.