The Effects of Incidental Ad Exposure on the Formation of Consideration Sets

Abstract

This study extends research on incidental ad exposure by examining whether incidental exposure to an ad increases the likelihood that a product depicted in the ad will be included in a consideration set. Incidental ad exposure implies that an ad receives minimal attentional resources while other more relevant information is being processed. Results suggest that the incidental exposure effect is fairly robust, occurring across a variety of factors (when the consideration set formation context was memory or stimulus based, when the buying situation was familiar or unfamiliar, and across two different product classes). Further, these effects were found despite subjects' lack of explicit memory for the ads. Copyright 1997 by the University of Chicago.