Is it Always as Simple as “Keep it Simple!”?

Macklin, M. Carole; Bruvold, Norman T.; Shea, Carol Lynn

doi:10.1080/00913367.1985.10672968

Cited by 25 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…In fact, despite the recommendations of advertising educators and creative directors, simplicity may be too strongly valued. In a study that held constant levels of informativeness and concreteness while manipulating the readability level as measured by common indices (e.g., Dale-Chall Formula, Fry readability graph), Macklin, Bruvold, and Shea (1985) found that readability made no difference on attitudes toward the ad, brand, or purchase intent. "In short, 'Keep it simple!'…”

Section: Complexity In Advertisingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Surface‐structure transformations and advertising slogans: The case for moderate syntactic complexity

Bradley

Meeds

2002

Psychology and Marketing

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Since its introduction in 1957, Noam Chomsky's theory of transformational grammar has been the subject of much psycholinguistic research. Through several metamorphoses, the theory has remained controversial as to whether it represents how the mind actually processes language. Psycholinguists have studied this area over several decades. Syntactic structure has been studied in terms of recall and effects on reaction time to secondary tasks, but little is known about syntactic structure and attitude formation. Advertising researchers have looked at the effects of many types of complexity (e.g., semantic and visual), but few have investigated the effects of syntactic complexity on attitude formation. This study used a within-subjects experiment to examine how surface-structure transformations affected readers' comprehension, recognition, recall, and attitudes toward slogans. As expected, syntactic complexity did not affect the comprehension of advertising slogans, but simple-syntax versions -especially the active voice -showed an advantage in recognition. Slogans with moderate syntactic complexity showed a significant positive effect on free morphemic

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Section: Complexity In Advertisingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Surface‐structure transformations and advertising slogans: The case for moderate syntactic complexity

Bradley

Meeds

2002

Psychology and Marketing

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“…The very little advertising research that has utilized a psycholinguistic framework has focused on semantic issues such as abstract versus concrete words (Rossiter & Percy, 1978) and the misleading nature of copy that invites readers to make inferences (Harris, 1977;Harris, Dubitsky, &Bruno, 1983). One study investigated the effects of increasing the average reading level of advertising (Macklin, Bruvold, & Shea, 1985), but reading level was increased primarily through vocabulary, not sentence structure. At least one study has specifically addressed syntactic issues.…”

Section: Psycholinguistics and Advertising Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effects of Syntactic Complexity on Advertising Persuasiveness

Lowrey

1998

J Consum Psychol

100

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Three experiments investigated the effects of syntactic complexity on the persuasiveness of advertising. Experiment 1 showed that, in a broadcast advertising context, syntactic complexity affects recall and recognition but not the persuasiveness of the advertising. However, Experiment 2 indicated that, in a print context, persuasiveness of an advertisement is affected by syntactic complexity. Finally, Experiment 3 demonstrated that motivation to process information interacts with syntactic complexity to determine the persuasiveness of print advertising. These results imply that the impact of syntactic complexity on advertising effectiveness is more complicated than previously thought.

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“…Likert items have also been employed by Duncan and Nelson (1985), Macklin, Bruvold, and Shea (1985), Messmer (1979), Sullivan (1990), Zinkhan, Locander, and Leigh (1986), and Zinkhan and Martin (1983). Typical response items include enjoyable, likable, persuasive, interesting, amusing, attractive, convincing, helpful, informative, and not clear.…”

Section: Measures/operationalizations Of Aadmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…College-aged students tended to evaluate ads more positively than did older, more mature adults. Macklin, Bruvold, and Shea (1985) observed an inverse relationship between individuals' education level and Aad; individuals with more education uniformly evaluated ads less positively. Kardes (1988) found some evidence that involvement may have a direct effect on Aad, though other studies have documented that involvement (or processing goals) interact with such things as source identification (Homer and Kahle 1990), source expertise (Higie, Feick, and Price 1991) and retrieval cues (Keller 1991) in influencing Aad.…”

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confidence: 91%

Attitude toward the Ad: A Review

Muehling

McCann

1993

Journal of Current Issues & Research in Advertising

146

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During the past decade, one topic, perhaps more than any other, has been the focus of considerable research attention in the marketing/advertising literature. That topic is attitude toward the ad (Aad). In recent years, it seems as though nearly every issue of the major marketing and advertising journals contains at least one article that has Aad as its prima y focus, or at a minimum, has incorporated a measure of the construct for purposes of investigating Aad's role in ad processing. A current count of published Aad-related articles puts the number well over 100. Clearly, attitude toward the ad has captured the attention of marketindadvertising researchers. W i t h such an emphasis on Aad, it seems appropriate at this point in time to assess our current understanding of the topic, and, as a natural extension, to propose an agenda for future research efforts.In examining the literature, the first issue we were faced with was that of determining what constitutes "attitude toward the ad." For example, should studies that focus on "feelings" and/or "emotions" toward an advertising stimulus (or a particular portion of the stimulus, e.g., its visual elements) be included in our review? And, what about studies of viewer "perceptions" of advertising (reaction profiles, commercial ratings, etc.) -should they be included? Our approach to this problem was relatively simple: if a study made reference to attitude toward the ad, either conceptually (by the definitions offered, or the way the study was positioned in light of past Aad work) or operationally (by including a relevant measure of the construct), it was considered; otherwise, it was excluded.While this decision rule might appear to have eliminated a number of studies whose findings may be relevant to our understanding of Aad (e.g., Aaker, Stayman, and Hagerty's (1986) study of "warmth" in advertising; Batra and Ray's (1986) examination of "affective responses" mediating acceptance of advertising; or Burke and Edell's (1989) investigation of adinduced feelings), a closer look reveals that these and many other studies investigated theoretical issues/ relationships within the context of Aad research. For example, Aaker, Stayman, and Hagerty (1986) explored the relationship between warmth in advertising and Aad; Batra and Ray (1986) investigated both affective responses to advertising and Aad; and Burke and Edell(1989), while focusing on feelings, nonetheless, included measures of Aad as well. As a result, most studies considered relevant to the discussion of Aad are likely included in this review.This paper examines the current state of Aad research by first detailing the various means by which Aad has been defined and conceptualized. Then, operationalizations/measures of the construct are reviewed. These sections are followed by a discussion of the antecedents, consequences/effects, and moderators of Aad that have received some empirical support in the literature. The paper concludes with a synthesis of these findings and a discussion of directions for future researc...

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Is it Always as Simple as “Keep it Simple!”?

Cited by 25 publications

References 15 publications

Surface‐structure transformations and advertising slogans: The case for moderate syntactic complexity

Surface‐structure transformations and advertising slogans: The case for moderate syntactic complexity

The Effects of Syntactic Complexity on Advertising Persuasiveness

Attitude toward the Ad: A Review

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