Facebook friends? Group identity helps consumers remember ads

"A key determinant of how much consumers remember from an ad is the connection between the ad content and the consumer's own self-concept," write authors Kathryn R. Mercurio (UCLA) and Mark Forehand (University of Washington, Seattle).

Consumers identify with many different demographic groups, such as race, gender, or age. They also identify with family role groups (mother, father, sister), or occupational groups such as lawyer, teacher, or politician. And they sometimes identify with brand consumption groups (Mac, Harley Davidson, Facebook). Although consumers identify with a large set of groups, at any given time they only think about a small set of them, called the active self-concept.

Advertising often includes information or images that encourage consumers to think about groups they belong to, and research has demonstrated that consumers temporarily prefer brands that target those specific groups. For example, a tampax commercial helps female consumers think about their gender self-concept and makes them more responsive to other ads that are aimed toward their gender.

The authors also found that thinking about one's group membership influences memory for advertising. "Specifically, when a consumer views advertising while they are also thinking about one of their group memberships they unconsciously connect the new information to the group membership in memory," the authors write. Later, when those consumers think about that group membership, they are more likely to remember the information they learned earlier.

"Pragmatically, this suggests that advertisers should consider how consumers are likely to think about themselves when they are choosing products," the authors conclude.

More information: Kathryn R. Mercurio and Mark Forehand. "An Interpretive Frame Model of Identity Dependent Learning: The Moderating Role of Content-State Association." Published online June 2, 2011. Journal of Consumer Research: October 2011. http://ejcr.org

Provided by University of Chicago