Processing Congruent Versus Incongruent Radio Commercials

While Media Multitasking.

Wendalin E. van de Giessen, Academy for Creative Industries, Fontys Applied University Tilburg

Edith G. Smith, University of Amsterdam

Lisa VandeBerg, University of Amsterdam

Hilde A.M. Voorveld, University of Amsterdam

Abstract

Media multitasking is generally believed to hinder cognitive processing due to limited

cognitive capacity. The current paper shows that this is not the case when the content of the

secondary medium (radio commercials_ is conceptually congruent with the primary medium

(Internet), probably due to processing fluency. In other words, media multitasking is not

always detrimental for persuasion, but can actually enhance memory and positive evaluation

if the messages in both media are thematically similar. Congruent radio commercials are thus

able to overcome their status of ‘’background noise’’ by serving as goal relevant cues during

Internet use.

 

 

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PROCESSING CONGRUENT VERSUS INCONGRUENT RADIO COMMERCIALS WHILE MEDIA MULTITASKING

Media multitasking is generally believed to hinder cognitive processing due to limited cognitive capacity. The current paper shows that this is not the case when the content of the secondary medium (radio commercials) is conceptually congruent with the primary medium (Internet), probably due to processing fluency. In other words: media multitasking is not always detrimental for persuasion, but can actually enhance memory and positive evaluation if the messages in both media are thematically similar. Congruent radio commercials are thus able to overcome their status of “background noise” by serving as goal relevant cues during Internet use. Keywords: experiment, congruence, radio advertising, media multitasking, processing, Internet

 

 

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INTRODUCTION Even though the offer of media alternatives rises, people still only have 24 hours a day to spend. A consequence is that people are increasingly combining their media use (e.g., listening to the radio) with other activities (e.g., working), and increasingly engage in more than one media activity simultaneously (e.g., reading the newspaper while listening to the radio). Combining media use with another activity or using two different media simultaneously is referred to as media multitasking (Foehr, 2006; Jayasinghe and Ritson, 2013; Jeong and Fishbein, 2007; Voorveld, 2011). Media multitasking suggests that one activity does not receive as much cognitive attention as the other activity due to cognitive overload. This is why people often focus their attention on one medium and not on the other medium while media multitasking (Enoch and Johnson, 2010; Jeong and Fishbein, 2007).

People seem to media multitask more than one hour a day (Foehr, 2006; SPOT, 2010). A medium that is typically used as secondary medium or “background noise” is radio. In the Netherlands, on average 114 minutes per day are spent on listening to the radio with approximately two third in combination with other media and non-media activities (SPOT, 2010). These Dutch media figures are in line with international research, which confirms that radio is consumed as a mainly secondary medium (Scarabis, 2010; Parry-Husbands and Gould, 1995). Radio is often combined with computer use; 91% of people that are using the computer listen simultaneously to music (Carrier et al., 2009) and 18.3% of people that are using the Internet listen frequently to the radio at the same time (Pilotta et al., 2004). The question central to this research is: What does this simultaneous usage of radio and the Internet imply for the way radio commercials are memorized and evaluated?

The main perspective taken in studying the effects of (media) multitasking has been on the effects of the primary task or medium, such as making homework, while using a medium in the background (i.e., the secondary medium), such as watching Voice kids on television. Overall, a negative effect of multitasking on the performance of the primary task was shown (e.g., Armstrong and Chung, 2000; Beentjes, Koolstra, and Van der Voort, 1996). Jeong and Hwang (2012) confirmed this negative effect for the form of multitasking central to this study: media multitasking. An alternative perspective in studying media multitasking is a focus on the processing effects of the secondary medium content, in other words: the medium content that is not focused on. This has hardly been done in an academic setting. Most of the studies found are only presented at conferences offering anecdotal evidence of a potential positive effect of background media use (Gould, 1996; Green, 2006, 2010; Parry-Husbands and Bowman, 2003; Peled, 2011). Voorveld (2011) is one of the first academics that also studied the effects of the messages in the secondary medium. More specifically, she investigated the effects of the simultaneous exposure to the same advertisement in two different media (i.e. radio and Internet). The combination of the two media had a positive synergy effect on affective and behavioural responses, but a negative effect on recalling the radio commercials. This negative effect on cognitive responses is in line with the findings from the previously mentioned “primary task effect” studies, but contradictory to the ironing study or the other practitioner studies. The difference to the latter could be caused by differences in attention levels devoted to the media content. This is discussed next (hypothesis 1a and 1b). It could also be caused by differences in the media content, which may have been easier or more difficult to combine while media multitasking. This will be described later (hypothesis 2a and 2b).

The consequences of dividing attention among media messages are described in the limited-capacity model of information processing (Kahneman, 2011; Lang, 2000) as well as in the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion (ELM; Petty and Cacioppo, 1986). The limited-capacity model states that people have finite amount of processing resources and

 

 

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therefore have to divide their attention among different tasks. When someone is engaged in one activity (i.e., searching on the Internet), which takes a great amount of cognitive capacity, it is likely that the other activity (i.e., listening to radio commercials) will not be processed well due to limited cognitive capacity. The other model, ELM, also assumes such a trade-off, but more specifically describes the manner in which processing occurs using the two different ‘routes’ of message processing: a central route and a peripheral route of processing. The ELM further assumes that only one message at a time can be processed using the central route. This implicates that radio commercials (usually a background medium) are likely to be processed peripherally when the attention is directed to another medium activity at the same time. Based on these processing models we predict that people, who are exposed to radio commercials while engaging in another medium activity, will have a lower memory of those commercials than people who are not engaged in another activity while listening to the radio. Hypothesis 1a: Media multitasking will decrease the memory of the messages in the background medium.

The question is whether media multitasking would also affect the evaluation of the messages in terms of liking or disliking. The previous described ELM already suggests that peripheral processing will mainly affect evaluative processing of the message, given that there is insufficient capacity to deeply process the message content. Heath (2012) more explicitly states that all advertising is processed at a very low attention level. When no attention is paid to the advertisement or “when the mind is elsewhere” (i.e., constrained cognitive resources), reactions will primarily concern the emotional content of the message (Heath 2012, p.145; based on Shiv and Fedorikhin, 1999). The expectation is that the message will be evaluated more favourably, because it is linked to already existing associations without counter arguing (Jeong and Hwang, 2012) or judgment. So, low attention processing stimulates affective reactions. With respect to our study of processing radio commercials while performing an Internet task, we assume the following: As the radio commercials will be processed without paying attention to them, they will probably be linked to existing associations without being able to form an opinion or think of counterarguments, which will result a more positive evaluation of the commercial. We hypothesize: Media multitasking will have a positive effect on the evaluation of the commercials in the background medium (H1a).

The previously discussed processing theories describe consequences of low attention processing compared to other levels of processing. Other theories relate these different processing levels to different types of influencing factors, such as position of the ad in a newspaper, involvement of the reader with the advertised product, or age of the reader (e.g., Finn, 1988; Greenwald and Leavitt, 1984; Holbrook and Lehmann, 1980; Pieters and Wedel, 2004; Rossiter, 1981; Smit, Neijens, and Heath, 2013). Generally, these factors can be categorized into a) stimulus characteristics that affect lower levels of processing, and b) task or goal characteristics that affect higher levels of processing. For example, Smit et al. (2013) showed that stimulus-specific ad characteristics, such as colour and ad size, are more important for attracting attention (lower processing level; bottom-up stimuli-based processing) and less important for elaborating the content of the message (higher processing level; top-down goal-based processing). As our current study proposes that the radio commercials will be processed at a relatively low attention level due to the primary nature of the Internet task, it is expected that the nature of the stimuli possibly facilitate processing. An interesting characteristic in relation to media multitasking is whether the content of the one medium corresponds with the content of the other medium. The different messages that are processed while media multitasking can have different degrees of overlapping content. This means that two messages can have a higher or lower degree of thematic or conceptual congruency. Conceptual congruency refers to the similarity between the stimuli based on the

 

 

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ease with which a concept comes to mind. It is proposed that congruent stimuli are processed more fluently than incongruent stimuli (Jacoby et al., 1989), meaning that congruent information is perceived easily which should result in a better memory performance and more positive feelings about the stimulus (e.g., De Droog, Buijzen and Valkenburg, 2011, 2012). We therefore expect: Congruent radio commercials will increase memory performance compared to commercials, which are not congruent with the task performed (H2a); Congruent radio commercials will be evaluated more positively than commercials, which are not congruent with the task performed (H2b).

METHOD The sample consisted of 118 bachelor students of which 72% were female. Age ranged from 18 years to 29 years (M = 20.89, SD = 2.60). The design consists of a 4 x 2 mixed design with media multitasking as between-subjects factor (media multitasking; Internet only; radio only; no media) and message congruence as within-subjects factor (congruent vs. incongruent ads; only possible within the media multitasking condition). The four different groups did not differ significantly in terms of sex, age, radio and Internet use.

The experiment took place at the university in the so-called “Living room” with a one-way mirror to be able to check what is happening in the room. The true goal of the experiment was not made clear to the students. Students entered the living room in groups of two to six. The respondents were randomly assigned to one of the four conditions. Those assigned to the media multitasking condition were asked to perform the Internet search task. When they were performing the Internet search task, radio was being broadcasted. The respondents of the Internet only condition performed the Internet search tasks without being exposed to the radio broadcasting. The respondents of the radio only condition were asked to wait in the living room. During their waiting, they were exposed to the radio broadcasting of music and radio commercials (random order). They were not made aware of the radio. Those of the no media control condition were also asked to wait in the living room, but were not exposed to the broadcasting. Time spent on Internet, radio or waiting was the same in all conditions. All respondents were asked to put on the headphones and to fill in the questionnaire.

Memory was measured by free recall and recognition of the eight broadcasted commercials. Free recall varied from 0 to .38 (i.e., a maximum of 3 out of 8 commercials correct recalled, which is 38% of the broadcasted commercials), with a mean recall of 3% (M = .03, SD = .07). Recognition is also based on the mean score of the eight commercials and varies from 0 to .75 (75% recognition), with an average score of 10% (M = .10, SD = .17). Two not-broadcasted commercials were included to check for false recognition. These two were indeed not recalled or recognized. Evaluation was measured on a 10-point grading scale commonly used within the Dutch school system. The mean over the eight commercials varied between 1.75 and 7.63 (M = 5.88, SD = .91). In addition, evaluation was measured as attitude toward the ad (Aad) consisting of four 5-point semantic differential items per commercial: pleasant-unpleasant, interesting-not interesting, good-bad, and attractive-unattractive (anchored: 1 “negative”, 5 “positive”). The scale had a good internal reliability for each commercial (α > .80). Overall, the mean score on Aad was 2.93 (SD = .52), range between 1.38 and 4.16. To rule out a possible mere exposure effect (Reber, Winkielman, and Schwartz, 1998; Zajonc, 1968), a measure of familiarity was added. The mere exposure effect refers to the positive evaluation of a neutral stimulus to which people were previously exposed to without recalling being exposed because they were focusing on another activity. Without realizing, people will evaluate a message more positively simply because they were previously exposed to the message and experience – without realizing – a feeling of familiarity. So, in addition to evaluation, we asked them at the end of the survey how familiar

 

 

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they are with the brands on a 5-point scale (1 ‘not at all familiar’, 5 ‘very familiar’). The average familiarity score over the eight brands is 3.49 (SD = .53) (α = .73).

RESULTS Manipulation checks: We checked whether the respondents felt distracted by the radio broadcasting on a 5-point scale with 5 meaning “very distracted”, how much attention they paid to the primary activity (i.e. the Internet task), and the secondary activity (i.e. the radio listening), both a 5-point scale ranging from 1 “no attention” to 5 “maximum attention”. These questions were only presented when relevant (i.e., performing the task and/or listening to the radio). Results showed that the respondents in the media multitasking condition did not feel distracted by the radio broadcasting (M = 1.95, SD = 1.18). They paid indeed significantly more attention to the primary Internet search task (M = 4.10, SD = .96) than to the secondary radio broadcasting (M = 2.34, SD = .91), t (37) = -8.05, p < .001. In addition, a check on radio exposure was included with the question: “Did you hear any radio?” (Answer categories “No, I did not hear anything”, “No, but I am not sure”, “Yes, but I am not sure”, and “Yes, I did hear radio”). This question was included in all questionnaires. The results showed that almost all respondents that were exposed to the radio broadcasting were sure about hearing radio in the background (97.4 and 95.0% respectively). The majority of the respondents of the other conditions, who were not exposed to radio broadcasting, reported that they were sure not hearing any radio (80.0 and 73.2% respectively); Chi2(9) = 113.59, p < .001. The check for congruence consisted of two questions: “Is this commercial relevant for the Internet search tasks?” (yes/no) and “Is the subject of this commercial similar to the subject of the Internet search tasks?” (yes/no). The congruent commercials were indeed perceived as being relevant for the Internet task by 86% of the respondents of the media multitasking condition, whereas only 18% perceived the not-congruent commercials as being relevant for the task. This difference proved to be significant (t (37) = 10.02, p < .001). A similar percentage of the respondents indicated that the congruent commercials shared the same subject as the search task (87%), whereas 16% indicated that the incongruent commercials did. This difference also proved to be significant (t (37) = 11.1, p < .001). In conclusion, the manipulations were successful.

Effect of media multitasking: Our first hypothesis predicted a negative effect of media multitasking on the two memory measures (H1a), and a positive effect on the two evaluation measures (H1b). To test the hypothesis, we ran separate univariate ANOVAs with condition as independent and memory and evaluation measures as four dependent variables. Familiarity was included as covariate. The mean values per condition are presented in Table 1 with different sub scripts indicating significant differences between the conditions based on post hoc tests. Results show that the recall is significantly higher in the media multitasking condition in which respondents had to perform the Internet search tasks and were exposed to the radio commercials (8% versus 3% in the condition in which they were solely exposed to the radio broadcasting), F (3, 117) = 13.71, p < .01. This is contrary to our expectations of a negative effect of media multitasking on recall. Also for recognition the score was significantly higher (19%) in the media multitasking condition, F (3, 117) = 12.77, p < .01. Post hoc tests show that this effect is only caused by an effect of the radio broadcasting and not by performing the Internet search task, because this 19% score only differs significantly from the two conditions without radio broadcasting (3% and 2%) and not from the condition with radio only (17%). Based on these results we reject H1a. As no significant differences were found between the groups with respect to the evaluation of the commercials we also reject H1b (school grade: F (3, 117) = 1.49, p > .05; Aad: F (3, 117) = 2.58, p > .05).

Effects of message congruence: H2a suggests that congruence between the messages in the two media would facilitate memorizing the radio commercials. The results of the

 

 

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paired samples t-tests indeed showed that the congruent commercials had a significant higher recall than the radio commercials that were not congruent with the Internet search task, t (37) = 4.79, p < .001. The congruent commercials were also better recognized than the incongruent commercials, but this difference was not significant, t (37)= 1.49, p = .15, see Table 2. We can accept H2a for free recall; the congruence between the subject of the message in the secondary medium and the other primary medium activity has a positive effect on recalling the commercials. Although we cannot accept H2a for recognition, the difference was in the expected direction: congruent commercials were better recognized than incongruent commercials. Regarding H2b, the congruent commercials were evaluated more positively than the radio commercials, which were not congruent with the Internet search tasks (see Table 2). The two evaluation scores were significantly higher for the congruent commercials (t (37)= 7.58, p < .001 for school grade and t (37)= 6.42, p < .001 for Aad). This means we can accept H2b, which states that congruence between radio commercials and Internet search tasks has a positive effect on the evaluation of the commercials.

DISCUSSION This study examined the effect of media multitasking on memory and evaluation of several radio commercials that were either congruent or incongruent with an Internet search task. We expected that radio-Internet multitasking would hinder processing due to limited capacity resulting in lower memory scores (H1a), but that evaluation would benefit from the multitasking due to shallow processing without forming a negative judgment (H1b). Not all commercials, however, would be processed worse because of the limited capacity caused by the Internet task. Commercials that were congruent with the search task were expected to provide relevant task information, resulting in a more fluent processing and thus a better memory performance (H2a). Also evaluation would benefit from processing fluency and task fulfilment (H2b). Our expectations with respect to our first hypothesis were not confirmed. Based on the results, we should reject the idea that media multitasking itself would influence communication effects (H1). Our expectations with respect to our second hypothesis were confirmed. Congruence between the radio commercials and the Internet search tasks resulted in improved memory performance and higher evaluation of the radio commercials. Similarity of the subject increased the relevance of the commercial and made processing more fluently and effectively.

While this study makes an important contribution by showing that congruence is an important aspect in overcoming limited capacity due to multitasking, this study has its limitations. First of all, it did take cognitive and affective responses into account, but not behavioural responses. Without insights in the behavioural responses to the products advertised in the radio commercials, it is not possible to fully understand the persuasive effect of the radio commercials. Secondly, this study did not take into account the possible influence of message characteristics (i.e. product relevance, jingles, commercial typology, emotion evocation). It would be interesting to systematically vary one or two message characteristics to test the attention getting abilities of background radio commercials when radio listening is combined with other media use.

Our study contributes to the literature on media multitasking and persuasion by convincingly demonstrating the positive effects of congruence (thematic similarity) between the two media messages while media multitasking. We can conclude that congruence is an important aspect in overcoming limited capacity due to multitasking, by creating a positive evaluation of the radio commercial, and by making radio a powerful medium for creating advertising effects, regardless of its “background nature”.

 

 

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TABLE 1 EFFECT OF MEDIA MULTITASKING (MMT) ON MEMORY AND EVALUATION

MMT

(n = 38) Internet only (n = 20)

Radio only (n = 19)

No media (n = 41)

Recall * .08 a (.10) 0 b (0) .03 b (.07) 0 b (0) Recognition * .19 a (.22) .03 b (.07) .17 a (.18) .02 b (.05) School grade 5.65 a (1.08) 6.12 a (.97) 5.86 a (.75) 5.98 a (.84) Attitude ad 2.88 a (.49) 3.06 a (.42) 2.75 a (.65) 3.01 a (.52) Note. * Significant effect of condition on dependent variable with familiarity included as covariate; M with SD between brackets; different sub script indicates a significant difference, based on post hoc tests (p < .05).

TABLE 2 EFFECT OF MESSAGE CONGRUENCE ON MEMORY AND EVALUATION

Congruent ads Incongruent ads M SD M SD Recall * .22 a .25 .04 b .08 Recognition * .24 a .28 .18 b .23 School grade * 6.33 a 1.22 5.43 b 1.11 Attitude ad * 3.34 a .67 2.72 b .49 Note. * Different sub script indicates a significant difference (p < .05), based on paired samples t-test (n = 38, only within media multitasking condition).